On and on ran the chicken, and on and on ran the ducklings
“All right,” cried Squdge and Queek.
The other four ducklings were afraid they oughtn’t to go, but Squdge and Queek were so eager to, and so unwilling to turn back, that after a while the others, too, agreed to go on to the farmyard. The ragged chicken led the way, and they all followed.
As they went the chicken’s talk was all about himself and the farmyard. He told them of how much the farmer’s wife thought of him, and about his friend the turkey-cock, and about old Tige.
“Why,” he cried, “I don’t know what Tige would do if anything was to happen to me. I guess he’d just break his chain and come out to look for me.”
The ducklings thought the chicken must be a very important person indeed for every one to be so fond of him.
After a while they came to a high board fence. The chicken slipped through a hole, and the ducklings followed him, and at once they were in the farmyard.
Once inside they looked about them wonderingly. Not far from them a hen was busily scratching for a brood of chickens. At first they thought it must be the hen they had met down by the river, but then they saw that this was a larger, darker hen. A cock on the dung-hill crowed loud and clear, and the ducklings started. “What’s that?” asked Squdge in a frightened voice.
“That? Oh, that’s nothing. That’s just a rooster crowing. Didn’t you ever hear one before?”
Over in a sunny corner were four great moving, breathing things, lifted far, far up in the air on great thick legs. “And what are those?” asked Squdge, pointing at them.