THE HEN AND ITS BROOD
The city, we know, is a hotbed of noises, sounds of all sorts troubling our ears by day and night. We try at times to get rid of them, but find that not easy to do. The best thing for us is to get used to them and learn to sleep in spite of them. We need to become like Jock the miller, who got so used to the roar and clang of his mill that he could not sleep when it was still.
Some city people find it so hard to get used to the noises of the night that they go to the country for a quiet sleep. Do they find it? They may in still winter nights, but in the summer season the country has noises of its own. As soon as night falls a host of wood insects begin their endless drone. Then there is the locust and the katydid, with their shrill calls, and perhaps the whip-poor-will, with its mournful cry.
Falling to sleep at last, after these sounds have lost their force, no sooner are the first faint rays of light sent from the east, at three or four o'clock in the morning, than a new sound invades the ear and wakens the sleeper with a sudden start.
This is the early waking cock, with his loud "cock-a-doodle-doo." Standing on his own fortress he sounds his shrill alarm. A dozen more, near and far, from all points of the compass, take up the tune. The air is soon full of this strident cock-crow, the signal of the coming of the sun, until all hope of sleep is at an end, and the pilgrim wishes himself well back in his city bed. He finds the country not such a sweet sleep-producer as he hoped.
Feeding the Chickens in the Farm-yard
In old times people held the cock to be a sacred animal, the herald of the dawn, the symbol of light and the sun. In later times it was held to be the wide-awake sentry of the coming day. There are places where its image is mounted on church steeples on guard over the winds. Everywhere it is the emblem of vigilance, and this is what the city sleeper in country beds finds it.
With its stately attitude, its erect head crowned with feathers like an Indian chief, its showy spread of tail, and its air of pride and dignity, our cock strides about as the lord of the farm-yard and peals out his loud "cock-a-doodle-doo" like a challenge to battle. And he is usually quite ready for battle if any rival cock takes up his challenge.
While the cock thus blows his trumpet blast, the hen finds other work to do. Her business is to lay eggs, hatch out her brood of funny little chicks, lead them about the poultry yard in search of worms and other food, and gather them fussily under her wings when a hawk is seen in the sky or any danger appears.