VIII

WHY THE ROOSTER CROWED

Henrietta Hen had commanded the Rooster to wait until daylight before he began to crow.

He saw that she had made up her mind that he must obey her. But he knew he couldn't. And he always took great pains to be polite to the ladies.

It was a wonder the Rooster didn't turn red in the face. He had never found himself in such a corner before.

"You don't understand," he blurted. "I'd be delighted to oblige you, but if I didn't crow until after the sun rose I'd never crow again."

"We could stand that," was Henrietta Hen's grim reply.

"Perhaps!" he admitted--for she made him feel strangely humble. "But could you stand it if the night lasted forever?"

"You're talking nonsense now," she declared.

"You don't understand," he told her again. "And I must say I'm surprised, madam, that you didn't know it was I that waked the sun up every morning.

_That's_ why I crow so early."

Henrietta Hen was so astonished that she didn't know what to say. She thought deeply for a time--or as deeply as she could.

"Have you not noticed," the Rooster inquired, "that the sun never rises until I've crowed loudly a good many times?"

"No! No--I haven't," Henrietta murmured. "But now that you speak of it, I see that it's so."

"Exactly!" he said. "And often, madam, I have to crow a long time before he peeps over Blue Mountain. It's lucky I have a good, strong voice," the Rooster, added with a smirk, for he was feeling more at his ease. "If I had a thin, squeaky crow such as those worthless c.o.c.kerels have, Farmer Green would have had to do many a day's work in the dark."

"Goodness!" Henrietta Hen gasped. "Do crow your loudest the moment you wake up, Mr. Rooster! Do make all the noise you can!" And he promised faithfully that he would.

Henrietta left him then. Somehow she couldn't get their talk out of her mind. And soon she had an unhappy thought. What if anything should happen to the Rooster's voice?

The moment that question popped into her head, Henrietta Hen hurried back to the Rooster.

"Do be careful!" she besought him. "Don't get your feet wet! For if you caught cold you might be so hoa.r.s.e that you couldn't speak above a whisper."

The Rooster thanked her politely for thinking of his health.

"I always take good care of myself," he a.s.sured her.

"It looks like rain this minute," she said as she cast an anxious glance at the sky. "Hadn't you better run into the barn?"

He thought otherwise--and said as much.

"You ought to wear rubbers every day," she chided him, as she went away again.

Soon Henrietta returned once more to urge the Rooster to carry an umbrella. And it wasn't long after that when she came bustling up to him and informed him that a warm m.u.f.fler about his throat wouldn't be amiss.

There seemed to be no end to her suggestions. And though at first the Rooster had liked to hear them (without having any idea of following them) after a time Henrietta's attentions began to annoy him.

"Great cracked corn!" he exclaimed. "This Henrietta Hen is getting to be a pest."

IX

HAUGHTY HENRIETTA

Feeling as important as she did, Henrietta Hen liked to have her own way.

She said that she couldn't be expected to do just as others wished.

"I'll take orders from n.o.body," she often declared. "And if I lay eggs for Farmer Green I shall lay them when and where I please."

Henrietta took special delight in laying her eggs in out-of-the-way places. She was never content to lay two in the same nest.

"If they left them for me perhaps I'd feel differently," she explained to her neighbors. "But Johnnie Green gathers every egg that he can find. And if he takes my eggs I'll make him hunt for them, anyhow."

The older, more staid hens shook their heads when Henrietta talked like that. They told her she was ungrateful.

"Farmer Green gives you a snug home and plenty of food," they reminded her. "And the least you can do is to repay him. You ought not to make trouble by hiding your eggs."

But Henrietta Hen couldn't--or wouldn't--agree with them.

"It's all very well for you to talk," she retorted. "If my eggs were undersized I shouldn't mind losing them as fast as I laid them. But I lay the biggest and finest eggs to be had. So it's only natural that I should like to have at least _one_ around to look at--and to show to callers."

Now, there were plenty of other hens in the flock that laid eggs exactly as big--or even bigger--than Henrietta Hen's. Some of them told her as much. Yet it did them no good to talk to her. She wouldn't believe that there were any eggs in the world to compare with hers. So her neighbors learned after a while that they might as well let Henrietta Hen manage her affairs as she pleased. They couldn't help hoping, however, that somehow Farmer Green would find a way to outwit her.

"What can Henrietta Hen be so boastful about now?" the hens asked one another one day. "She acts as if she thought more highly of herself than ever."

They soon discovered the reason for Henrietta's unusually pompous manner.

For she began to make calls on all her friends. And she invited everybody to come to her latest nest high up in the haymow.

"I've something there to show you," she said with an air of mystery.

"You'll be surprised to see it."

Most of Henrietta's neighbors did not show any great curiosity to see the surprise. They smiled at one another. "She's laid another egg--that's all!" they whispered.

But there are always some that can't rest until they know everybody else's business. And it was lucky that Henrietta Hen hurried home to receive her callers, because she had a good many. They came even earlier in the afternoon than was strictly fashionable. And they came in a crowd, too. That, however, didn't bother Henrietta Hen. Nor could they have arrived too soon to suit her.

"Look!" she cried, when they reached her nest high up in the haymow. "Did you ever see anything to beat that?"