CITY SCENES AND CITY LIFE.
NUMBER FOUR.
BARNUM’S POULTRY SHOW.
Defend my ears! Do you suppose Noah had to put up with such a cackling and crowing as this, in his ark? I trust ear-trumpets are cheap, for I stand a chance of becoming as deaf as a husband, when his wife asks him for money.
I have always hated a rooster; whether from his perch, before daylight, he shrilly, spitefully, and unnecessarily, recalled me from rosy dreams to stupid realities; or when strolling at the head of his hang-dog looking seraglio of hens, he stood poised on one foot, gazing back at the meek procession with an air that said, as plain as towering crests and tail feathers could say it—“Stir a foot if you dare, till I give you the signal!”—at which demonstration, I looked instinctively about, for a big stone, to take the nonsense out of him!
Save us, what a crowd! There are more onions here than patchouli, more worsted wrappers than Brummel neck-ties, and more brogans than patent leather. Most of the visitors gaze at the perches, through barn-yard spectacles. For myself, I don’t care an egg-shell, whether that old “Shanghai” knew who her grandfather was or not, or whether those “Dorkings” were ever imprudent enough to let their young affections rove from their native roost. Yankee eyes were made to be used, and the first observation mine take, is, that those gentlemen fowls seem to have reversed the order of things here in New York, being very superior in point of beauty to the feminines. Of course they know it. See them strut! There never was a masculine yet whom you could enlighten on such a point.
Now, were I a hen, (which, thank the parish register, I am not,) I would cross my claws, succumb to that tall Polander with his crested helmet of black and white feathers, and share his demonstrative perch.
Oh, you pretty little “carrier doves!” I could find a use for you. Do you ever tap-tap at the wrong window, you little snow-flakes? Have you learned the secret of soaring above the heads of your enemies? Are you impregnable to bribes, in the shape of feed?
There’s an Eagle, fierce as a Hospodar. Bird of Jove! that you should stay caged in the tantalizing vicinity of those fat little bantams! Try the strength of your pinions, grim old fellow; call no man jailer; turn your back on Barnum, and stare the sun out of countenance!
Observe with what aristocratic nonchalance those salmon-colored pigeons sit their perch! See that ruffle of feathers about their dignified Elizabethan throats. I am not at all sure that I should have intruded into their regal presence, without being heralded by a court page.