THE CHICKEN STORY
NCE upon a time there was a farm-house, and it was painted white and had green blinds; and it stood not far from the road. In the fence was a wide gate to let the wagons through to the barn. And the wagons, going through, had made a track that led up past the kitchen door and past the shed and past the barn and past the orchard to the wheat-field.
Behind the barn was the hen-house, and inside the hen-house there were long poles that went all the way across, for the hens to sit on to sleep. Those poles they call roosts. In winter the hens all sleep on the roosts in the hen-house, because it is warmer there; but in the summer they like to get up in the trees and sleep out-of-doors.
Along the side of the hen-house were some boxes with hay in them, and a board along the top. These were the nests, and in each nest was a pretend egg, made of china. The hens would see the pretend egg and think it was real, and they would lay the real eggs in the nests. For they like to lay eggs in places where eggs are already.
There was a little door, low down, for the hens to go through, and outside was a yard, with a fence around made of strips of wood. In this fence was a door that was kept shut in winter, but was open in summer so that the hens and chickens could go out and eat the bugs and worms. Bugs and worms sometimes eat the growing things that the farmers have planted, so the farmers like to have the chickens eat the bugs and worms. And in the side of the hen-house was a big door for people to go through.
When the summer was beginning, there were a good many hens and some chickens that were half grown up, and a very old rooster, and some that were not so old. Sometimes the roosters would fight, but they didn't fight very hard, for they were not the kind that fight hard.
All the roosters and the hens and the chickens that were half grown up flew up into the trees when it was beginning to be dark, and they sat on the branches in long rows, and put their heads under their wings and went to sleep. The very old rooster and most of the hens roosted in the apple-trees in the orchard, but some of the hens roosted in other trees.
