Tales of a Poultry Farm

by Clara Dillingham Pierson

[THE YOUNG COCK AND THE EAGLE]

This is a sad story. It is not pleasant to tell sad stories, but if they were not told once in a while, people would never know what really happens in the world. And surely you would not wish to miss hearing of what was really the most exciting happening of all, during that first summer after the Man bought the farm.

You remember having heard something about the Young Cock. Before the coming of the White Plymouth Rocks, there had been only three Cocks on the farm. The Shanghai Cock was the oldest, and a very grumpy fowl, but quite sensible in spite of that. The White Cock was somewhat younger than the Shanghai, and was not a very strong fellow. He was always unhappy about something, and it was said that he did not eat enough gravel. If that was true, he should not have expected to be well, since his stomach would then have no way of grinding up his food and getting the strength out of it. The Young Cock was a strong and exceedingly conceited fellow. You probably know what conceited people are. They are the people who think themselves very clever, but who are not really so.

This last one was always called the Young Cock, because the other two were so much older than he, although by this time he was old enough to be over such foolishness as bragging and picking quarrels with others. He had feathers of many colors in his coat, and thought that one of his great-great-great-grandfathers had been a Game Cock. Game Cocks, you know, are often very beautiful to look at, and are great fighters. He was not really sure about any of his family except his mother, who had died the year before, and was a very common-looking Hen of no particular breed. However, he had thought and talked so much about Game Cocks that he had come really to believe in this great-great-great-grandfather. It is good to have fine grandparents, and it is good to remember them and try to be the right sort of grandchildren for their sakes, but having fine grandparents does not always make people themselves equally fine, and it is not wise to talk too much about what they have been. It is better to pay more attention to being what one should.

All summer the Young Cock had been growing more and more annoying in his ways. He made fun of everybody whom he did not like, and sometimes even of those whom he did. He crowed and strutted and strutted and crowed. He called the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen “an old fogy,” and the Brown Hen “an old fuss.” The Barred Plymouth Rock Hen was not an old fogy, but a middle-aged and very sensible fowl, and although the Brown Hen was quite fussy, she was older than the Young Cock, and he should not have spoken of her in that way.

He did not always go to roost quite as soon as the other fowls and, if he found one of them in the place which he wanted, he often pushed and shoved until he had the place and the other fowl landed on the floor. “Get off of there,” the Young Cock would say. “I want that place. Move along or get off!”

When he was really very young, the older fowls had hoped that he would outgrow his rude and quarrelsome ways, so they stood it much longer than they should. Now he was older and there was not a single excuse to be found for him. He might better have been punished for it when young, because then he would have been well-behaved when grown up.

One morning he fluttered down from his perch in a very bad temper. Some of the Pullets, or young Hens, had been making fun of him the night before and comparing him with the White Plymouth Rock Cock. They meant only to tease him, but it had made him cross, and he awakened even more cross after his night’s sleep. He decided to show those Pullets that he was not to be laughed at. He was thinking of this when he stalked out into the yard. Some of the White Plymouth Rock Chickens ran along on the other side of the wire fence, peeping prettily and wanting to talk with him.

“Go back to your mother,” he said. “What business have you to be tagging me around like this? I don’t want to talk to you. Chickens should not speak until they are spoken to. Run!”

Of course they ran. You would if you were a Chicken and a Cock should speak to you in that way. They ran to their mother, and it took her a long time to comfort them.