Such a noise you never heard in all your life as the one that greeted their ears the moment they stepped inside the door. If you want to hear some queer music, just listen to a poultry band at a county fair,—roosters crowing, hens cackling, ducks quacking, pigeons cooing, and turkeys gobbling.
Harry liked the poultry-show best of all. He had some hens at home which he had raised himself, and he stood for a long time watching a mother hen and her tiny bantam chickens.
"I wish I hadn't spent all my money," he said to himself. "I'd like to buy two or three of those chickens."
"Cock-a-doodle-doo!" said a loud voice in a cage behind him.
Harry turned quickly, and there stood a handsome white rooster, flapping his wings and crowing lustily.
"Cock-a-doodle-doo!" he said again, and he walked back and forth in the narrow cage, strutting proudly, and spreading his wings as if to say, "What do you think of me?"
"Cock-a-doodle-doo! I'd like to buy you, too," said Harry.
"He is a beauty, isn't he, Roy?" he added, turning to speak to his friend. But the boys were gone. He walked the whole length of the building, and they were nowhere to be seen.
"Perhaps they have gone back to the sheep-pens," he said to himself, and he ran across the grounds to look for them.
The judges were awarding prizes for the finest sheep, and the long low building was crowded with people, but there was no sign of Harry's friends.