"Don't you dare eat another kernel of corn!" he thundered. "If you do, I'll have to tell Farmer Green."

"He feeds me corn every day--cracked corn!" said Henrietta.

"Well, I never!" cried Mr. Crow. "What's he thinking of, wasting good corn like that?"

"Really, I mustn't be seen talking with you," Henrietta Hen told Mr.

Crow. "If you want to know the answer to your question, come over to the barnyard and ask the Rooster. He'll give you an answer that you won't like."

And then she walked away with stately steps.

Mr. Crow watched her with a baleful gleam in his eyes. He knew well enough what Henrietta meant. The Rooster would rather fight him than not.

And though Mr. Crow loved a quarrel, he never cared to indulge in anything more dangerous than harsh words.

"I don't know what the farm's coming to," he croaked. "Here's Farmer Green wasting corn on such as her--and cracking it for her, too!"

So saying, the old gentleman turned his back on Henrietta Hen, who was already fluttering through the farmyard fence. And thereupon he scratched up enough corn for a hearty meal, grumbling meanwhile because it wasn't cracked for him.

"Somehow," he muttered, "I can't help wishing I was a speckled hen."

VI

HENRIETTA COMPLAINS

There was another member of Farmer Green's flock, besides Henrietta Hen, that was proud. n.o.body needed to look twice at the Rooster to tell that he had an excellent opinion of himself. He had a way of walking about the farmyard that said quite plainly that he believed himself to be a person of great importance. And it was true that things went according to his ideas, among the flock.

He was always spoken of as "the Rooster." For although there were other roosters in the flock, they were both younger and smaller than he, and he would never permit anybody to call them--in his hearing--anything but c.o.c.kerels.

These c.o.c.kerels usually took great pains to keep out of the Rooster's way. If they were careless, and he caught them napping, he was more than likely to make matters unpleasant for them. He knew how to make their feathers fly.

Now, Henrietta Hen thought that the Rooster behaved in a most silly fashion. She said it pained her to see him prancing about, with his two long, arched tail-feathers nodding as he walked. The truth was, Henrietta could not endure it to have any one more elegantly dressed than she. And there was no denying that the Rooster's finery outshone everybody else's.

Why, he wore a comb on his head that was even bigger than Henrietta's!

And he had spurs, too, for his legs.

But what Henrietta Hen disliked most about the Rooster was the way he crowed each morning. It wasn't so much the _kind_ of crowing that he indulged in; it was rather the early hour he chose for it that annoyed Henrietta. He always began his _c.o.c.kle-doodle-doo_ while it was yet dark.

Then everybody in the henhouse had to wake up, whether he wanted to or not. And Henrietta Hen did wish the Rooster would keep still at least till daylight came. She often remarked that it was perfectly ridiculous for any one from a fine family--as she was--to get up at such an unearthly hour. She said it was a wonder she kept her good looks, just on account of the Rooster's crowing.

"Why don't you ask him to wait until it's light, before he begins to crow?" Polly Plymouth Rock asked Henrietta one day.

"I'll do it!" cried Henrietta. Right then she called to one of the c.o.c.kerels, who was near-by. "Just skip across the yard and ask the Rooster--" she began.

The c.o.c.kerel broke right in upon her message.

"Oh! I can't do that!" he exclaimed. "I've never gone up to the Rooster and spoken to him. If I did, he'd be sure to fight me."

"Just tell him that I sent you," said Henrietta. And she made the c.o.c.kerel listen to her message. But he wouldn't be persuaded. He told Henrietta that the Rooster would be sure to jump at him the moment he opened his mouth. "Besides," he added, "it wouldn't do any good, anyhow.

The Rooster can't wait until after daylight, before he begins to crow."

"He can't, eh?" Henrietta Hen spoke up somewhat sharply. "I'd like to know the reason why!" And fixing her gaze sternly upon the Rooster, she marched straight across the farmyard towards him, to find out.

VII

WARNING THE ROOSTER

"Good Afternoon!" Henrietta Hen greeted the Rooster. He had not seen her as she walked towards him. And when she spoke he hastily arranged his two long tail-feathers in what he considered a more becoming droop.

"Good afternoon, madam!" he answered--for the Rooster prided himself that he was always polite to the ladies. "Er--there's nothing wrong, I hope,"

he added quickly as he noticed an odd gleam in Henrietta Hen's eye.

"Yes--there is," she said. The c.o.c.kerels might fear the Rooster, but Henrietta certainly didn't. She considered him a good deal of a braggart.

Indeed, she even had an idea that she could have whipped him herself, had she cared to be so unladylike as to fight. "I've been bothered for a long time because you crow so early in the morning. You make such a racket that you wake me up every day."

The Booster hemmed and hawed. Somehow he felt uncomfortable.

"That's unfortunate," he stammered. And then he had a happy thought.

"Anyhow," he continued, with a smile at Henrietta, "you don't look as if you lacked for sleep, madam. You grow more beautiful every day."

Henrietta Hen admitted that it was so. "But," she said, "I believe I'd be even handsomer if I weren't disturbed so early. I don't like to get up while it's dark. So I'm going to ask you to delay your crowing, from now on, until after sunrise."

"Impossible!" cried the Rooster. "I'm sorry to disoblige you, madam. But what you ask can't be done."

"That's just what the c.o.c.kerel said!" Henrietta Hen exclaimed.

"The c.o.c.kerel!" the Rooster echoed angrily. "Which one? Has one of those upstarts been talking about me? Point him out to me and I'll soon teach him a lesson."

Henrietta Hen said that she hadn't noticed which c.o.c.kerel it was. Somehow they all looked alike to her.

"Good!" the Rooster cried. "Then I'll have to whip them all, to make sure of punishing the guilty one." He looked very fierce.

"Don't be absurd!" Henrietta told him. "I asked one of the c.o.c.kerels to give you a message about not crowing so early. And he declined. He said it wouldn't do any good."

"It wouldn't have done _him_ any good," the Rooster declared, stamping a foot and thrusting his bill far forward, to show Henrietta Hen how brave he was.

"What's the matter?" she inquired. "Have you eaten something that disagrees with you?"

The Rooster couldn't help looking foolish. Henrietta Hen believed in letting him know that she stood in no awe of him. And while he was feeling ill at ease she hastened to tell him that hereafter he must _hold onto_ his first crow until after sunrise.

"I can't do that," he told her again, unhappily.

"Don't you dare let go of it!" she warned him. "If that first crow gets away from you while it's dark, there'll be so many others to follow it that I shan't be able to close an eye for even a cat-nap."