Tales of a Poultry Farm

by Clara Dillingham Pierson

It was when the brown-haired Little Girl was telling her doll about the last year’s party, and the golden-haired Little Girl’s eyes were filling with tears, that their mother had a bright idea. She would not tell them what it was, but asked them to care for the Baby while she went out to talk with the Man in the barn.

When she came back she told them that they might have a party after all and invite the poultry to come. “I think it will be great fun,” said she, “and I am sure they have never been to a birthday party in their lives.”

How happy the Little Girls were then! The Man had put a very large box just in front of the poultry-yards where the White Plymouth Rocks were kept, so that, by crowding into the corners, the Chickens on one side of the separating fence and the Cock and Hens on the other could come quite near to the box. Inside the big box was another which was to be their table, and a couple of milking stools on which they were to sit. The Baby’s chair was to be brought when he came.

Of course it seemed a long time to wait until afternoon, when the party was to come off. If there had not been so much to do, the Little Girls certainly could not have been patient. It was wonderful how many things their mother could suggest. In the first place, they had to write a few invitations to pin up where the fowls could see them. Then they had to go over to the edge of the woods and hunt all along the roadside to find late flowers, bits of brake, and autumn leaves, with which to trim their box and the table. After that they took pans and got grain for their guests from the bins in the barn. These they carried to the big box and placed on the table inside. It was not long afterward that the brown-haired Little Girl found the Black Hen and the White Cock eating from these pans. “Oh, shoo!” she cried, running as fast as she could toward them and flapping her skirts. “Shoo! Shoo! It isn’t time for you to come, and you mustn’t eat up the party yet.”

The other twin feared that, after being frightened away in this fashion, these two fowls would not want to come at the proper time, but she need not have worried. Fowls are always glad to come to a good supper, and there is much more danger of their coming too early and staying too late than there is of their not coming at all. After that the pans of grain were carried into the house to wait until the right time.

In the afternoon the twins and their dolls came out to the big box which they pretended was their house. The open side of it was toward the poultry-yards, and there was plenty of room between for the fowls who were running free to come in and get their food. The Little Girls had wanted to put on their Sunday dresses, but their mother told them that she did not think it would be really polite to the poultry, who had to wear the very same feathers that they had on every day. So the Little Girls contented themselves with having their hair done up on top of their heads and bows of yellow tissue paper pinned on the knots. This made them feel very fine indeed, and as though being six years old were almost the same as being grown up. They had some beautiful red tissue paper which they wanted to use, but when they remembered how the Gobbler felt about red, they decided to use the yellow instead. And that was both wise and kind. One should always try to make guests happy.

The Baby was not to come out until supper-time, so the Little Girls and their dolls played quite alone for a while. There was much to tell and to show the dolls, for it was the first time they had ever been on a farm, and everything must have seemed strange to them.

“Do you see that tall White Plymouth Rock Cock over there?” said the brown-haired twin to hers. “My Father says he is the most vallyoobol fowl on the farm. He cost a lot of money. I asked Father if he paid as much as ten cents for him, and he said he paid a great deal more. Just think of that! More than ten cents! You must be very polite to him.”

“I will show you our kindest Hen,” said the golden-haired twin to her doll. “She is coming this way now. She is the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen, and she is a peticullar friend of my Father’s. She didn’t cost so much as some of the others, but she is very good.”

“And there comes the Speckled Hen,” said the brown-haired twin. “She doesn’t lay many eggs, but my Father says that she is the best Hen on the farm about taking care of lonely or sick Chickens. She is very small, but she spreads herself out so she can cover a lot, and then she cuddles them until they are happy again, and can run around with her and eat the Worms she scratches up for them.”