Henrietta Hen didn't understand her.
"I'm going to win the first prize—with my chicks," Neighbor Number 2 announced. "Of course that's worth waiting here a week."
"I don't see how you can win the first prize!" Henrietta exclaimed.
"Why not?" demanded the other. And she pressed against the wire netting of her pen and stuck her head through it as far as she could, as if she would have pecked Henrietta had she been able to.
"Because—" Henrietta explained—"because the lady on the other side of me is going to win it."
"Who said so?"
"She did," Henrietta answered.
"Ha! ha!" cackled Neighbor Number 2. "That's a good joke. She hasn't any more chance of winning than—than you have!"
Now, Henrietta Hen couldn't help being puzzled. But whoever might win the first prize, she was sure it couldn't be she. Hadn't her neighbors on either side of her the same as told her that she couldn't win?
Henrietta would have felt quite glum, except that she couldn't very well mope in the midst of the terrific racket all about her. Soon her neighbors—both Number 1 and Number 2—were having loud disputes with the hens in the pens on the further side of them. It seemed as if every hen at the fair had left her manners at home—if she ever had any.