THE GALLANT BANTAM.
I have observed that while the Bantam pullet is a quiet, modest, little pantaletted lady, the Bantam cockerel always makes up in big feeling for what he lacks in size. A gentleman farmer owned a Bantam of this sort, that was always full and bubbling over with fight. He would go at any gentleman-fowl in the yard, with beak and spur. He would defy the fiercest old gander, and challenge the biggest “cock of the walk” to mortal combat. At last he grew so uncomfortably quarrelsome, and presented such a disreputable appearance,—having had the best part of his tail-feathers torn out, and his spurs broken off,—that his master was obliged to put him out to board with a nice old lady who had no fighting fowls for him to contend with. It was hoped that he would be content to tarry in that Jericho until his tail-feathers should be grown; but one day, when his master paid a visit to his good neighbor, he found the little Bantam with his head badly swollen, and with a patch over one eye and across his beak, placed there by the kind old lady. He had gone outside the yard, and picked a quarrel with a strange rooster, only about six times his size, and been pretty badly punished.
A short time after, a big turkey gobbler was added to the feathered community of that farm-yard, the old lady not dreaming of the Bantam cock daring to make hostile demonstrations against such a potentate. But she had done our little hero injustice. As soon as he saw the mighty spread the arrogant old fellow was making, he just gathered himself up, and “went for him,” if I may use a slang expression, which I know boys, at least, will understand only too well.
The big gobbler looked down upon him at first in contemptuous astonishment, as much as to say, “What fooling is this?” But when he saw that the fiery little fellow was in earnest, he just struck him one blow with his terrible wing, and—well, the gallant Bantam went “on his raids no more.” He was served as another savage Turkey served poor Crete. This is a world of tragedies and downfalls.
On a late visit to the Central Park, we noticed, among the collection of fowls there, a Bantam cock, of the very smallest pattern, that yet seemed to have a big, gallant heart. We saw him in one of his soft moments, when, in fact, he was making love. He had been very ambitious in selecting the object of his adoration, for he was actually paying his addresses to a full-sized Shanghai hen, who was in a large cage, separated from him by a light lattice. He would strut up and down before her, ruffling his fine feathers, and making eyes at her. Sometimes he would dance up sideways, declaring his passion with a soft, musical murmur, that sounded like “coort, coort,” which it would seem she could hardly resist; but she did,—not so much as a feather on her breast was stirred by his appeal; she regarded him in placid disdain. Indeed, it was almost as funny to watch the tiny, strutting little creature making love to that superior fowl, as it would be to see Commodore Nutt courting Miss Swan, the giantess.
“So daring in love and so dauntless in war,
Have ye e’er heard of knight like the young Lochinvar?”