Then the hens would answer him. “Ka, ka, the Leghorn is pushing me. I can't get at the little girl's hand. It is a small hand anyway. That Plymouth Rock just pecked me—I've got a horse mane oat in my throat—it's stuck fast, let me to the water dish. I don't like these strangers much. I wish the children would come home. Some one pulled my tail—I say, it's mean to push.”
Then the rooster would settle their differences, stepping very high and going gravely from one to another. I don't know much about hens. I never had any chance to study them in Boston, but I easily saw that this rooster was a good fowl. He was vain, that was his one fault. Mrs. Denville told Mary that he was a white Wyandotte, and a very handsome creature.
He understood her, and after that he was so proud that he could not eat. He just strutted. “Do they see my legs, girls?” he chuckled in his throat to the hens, “do they see my nice fine legs, and the big spurs just like a gamecock's? Oh, I hope they will notice my legs. It is all very well to praise my body, but I am very proud of these nice clean feet. Not a scale on them. Listen, girls, they're giving me more praise. Oh! isn't it lovely. I am so happy I can't eat. I wish my comb hadn't got frost-bitten last winter. It has marred its beauty just a little bit. Oh, girls, this is a proud day for your lord and master, when ladies from Boston give him such delicious taffy.”
I had to laugh myself to hear him. Mary was perfectly convulsed, though she did not understand him as I did, and had to guess at his meaning.
He had a good business head too, for the instant that the grain was gone, he made his hens follow him to the orchard.
“Not the meadow, girls,” he said sharply, as some of them seemed inclined to rebel and go down by the river. “Didn't I tell you you must give the grubs a rest there for a while? Follow me to the orchard,” and he strutted along, and pecked, and clucked, and looked after them till they all went meekly after him. Then we saw him in the distance, scratching for worms, calling his girls and giving them everything he found. I did not see him eat once while we were watching.
Oh! what a good walk we had, after the hens left us. Mrs. Denville with Mary hanging on her arm, sauntered down the gentle hillside to the meadow. There we came to the river, and Mary took time to strip off her shoes and stockings, and paddle in it.
There were willows and alders growing all along the edge of it. Mrs. Denville said the farmer had planted them there to keep the watercourse from changing, then there were small things, peppermint, spearmint, and goldenrod, which Mrs. Denville said would blossom toward autumn, and wild hop vines, and little Mary brushing in among them, bruised the leaves which filled the air with perfume.
After she had got tired of paddling in the water, she put on her shoes and stockings, and we went over a foot-bridge, and across another meadow, then up through an orchard of pear trees and across a field of winter rye, and then—then into the most beautiful wood I have ever seen.
It was not like the parks about Boston, lovely as they are. They have a calm, cultivated air. This wood in Farmer Gleason's land is wild. Things grow any way they like. First are the tall pine trees. I felt myself such a very little cat as I stared up at their long, straight trunks, and their green heads away up, up against the blue sky. What happy trees to be so very far up in the air! It must be the next best thing to flying.