Tales of a Poultry Farm

by Clara Dillingham Pierson

Only a few days after the new poultry-house had been opened to the fowls on the place, the Man came home from town with a crate in his light wagon. In the crate were a Cock and ten Hens. All were very beautiful White Plymouth Rocks, and larger than any of the fowls on the place would have supposed possible. You can imagine what a scurrying to and fro there was among those who had always lived on the place, and how many questions they asked of each other, questions which nobody was able to answer.

“Are they to live on this farm?” said one.

“It must be so,” answered another. “Don’t you see that the Man is getting ready to open the crate?”

“Where do you suppose they came from?” asked a third. “Why, they are almost as big as Turkeys.”

“Altogether too large, I think,” said a Bantam. “It makes fowls look coarse to be so overgrown.”

“What is that?” asked the Shanghai Cock, sharply. He had come up from behind without the Bantam’s seeing him, and she hardly knew what to answer. She lowered her head and pecked at the ground, because she did not know what to say. She dared not tell the Shanghai Cock, who was very tall, that she thought large fowls looked coarse. So she kept still. It would have been much better if she had held up her head and told the truth, which was that she disliked to have large fowls around, since it made her seem smaller.

“I think,” said the Shanghai Cock, “that if a fowl is good, the more there is of him the better. If he is not good, the smaller he is the better.” He looked over towards the wagon as he spoke, but the Bantam knew that he meant her, and then she was even more uncomfortable. She thought people were all looking at her, and she felt smaller than ever.

The Man backed the wagon up to the outer gate of the second poultry-yard, which was just between the one where the Chickens were with their mothers and the one into which the older fowls were allowed to go. Then he loosened the side of the crate very carefully and took the new-comers out, one at a time. He had to hold the side of the crate with his hand, so the only way in which he could lift the fowls out was by taking them by the legs in his other hand and putting them, head downward, into the yard. One would think that it might be quite annoying to a fowl to have to enter his new home in that fashion, with all the others watching, but the White Plymouth Rocks did not seem to mind it in the least. Perhaps that was because they had been carried so before and were used to it. Perhaps, too, it was because they felt sure that the fowls who were standing around had also been carried by the legs. Perhaps it was just because they were exceedingly sensible fowls and knew that such things did not matter in the least. At all events, each Hen gave herself a good shake when allowed to go free, settled her feathers quickly, and began to walk around. The Cock did the same, only he crowed and crowed and crowed, as much as to say, “How fine it is to be able to stretch once more! A fellow could not get room to crow properly in that crate.”

TOOK THE NEW-COMERS OUT, ONE AT A TIME. [Page 88]