Tales of a Poultry Farm Part 4

Each morning for some days after that, the two Ducks were followed by two hopeful Little Girls. "I don't mind it so much now," the Pekin Duck said to her friends on the third day, "but at first I didn't know what to do. I would no sooner sit down to lay under a bush or in some cosy corner than a Little Girl would sit on the ground in front and watch me. Then I would move to another place, and she would move too.

I must say, however, that they are very good children. The Boy who lived here often threw stones at us. These children never do. I sometimes think there may be as much difference in Boys and Girls as there is in Ducklings."

When the Little Girls tired of watching for eggs to be laid, the Pekin Duck decided to do something she had never tried before. She was the youngest of the flock, and she wanted Ducklings. The older Ducks tried to discourage her. "Have a good time while you can," said the Aylesbury Duck, who was about her age, and thought Ducklings a bother.

"I don't want to be troubled with a lot of children."

The old Ducks advised her not to try it. "You think it will be very fine," said they, "but you will find that you cannot go wherever you want to, and do whatever you please with Ducklings tagging along. The sitting alone is enough to tire a Duck out."

"Oh, I think I could stand it," remarked the Pekin Duck, quietly.

"Didn't some Duck stand it long enough to hatch me?"

"Hatch you? No indeed," laughed an old Rouen Duck, who could remember quite distinctly things which had happened three years before on the farm from which they had all come to this. "Hatch you? A Shanghai Hen hatched you and half a dozen other Ducklings in a box with hay in it and slats across the front. I remember quite well how cross she became when she thought it time for her Chickens to chip the sh.e.l.l, and they did not chip. She never dreamed that she was sitting on Ducks' eggs, although every Duck on the place knew it and thought it a good joke.

She was a stupid thing, or she would have known without being told.

Any bright Hen knows that Ducks' eggs are larger, darker, and greasier looking than her own."

The Pekin Duck remembered very little of her life before coming to the farm, so she was glad to hear of it from the old Rouen Duck. "What did my mother do when her eggs didn't hatch?" said she.

"Do?" repeated the Rouen Duck. "Do? Why she did the only thing that any sitting fowl can do. She kept on sitting."

"How long?" asked the Pekin Duck.

"You don't suppose I can remember that, do you?" replied the Rouen Duck, twitching her little pointed tail from side to side. "Besides, I never count things. All I know is that she said one of the c.o.c.ks, who was a friend of hers, declared that the moon was quite new when she began sitting, and that she sat there until it was quite new again. He was roosting in a tree just then, and knew more about the moon because he always awakened to crow during the night. She thought it was dreadful to have to sit so long."

The Pekin Duck saw that the Rouen Duck was still trying to discourage her. "I suppose it was harder for her because her legs were longer,"

she said. "If they were longer they would ache more, wouldn't they?"

The Rouen Duck smiled all around her bill "Your mother had her worst time later on, though," she said. "When you and your brothers and sisters were hatched, she could not understand why you were so different from all the other children she had ever raised. She said that not one of you looked like her family, and the Shanghai c.o.c.k was very disagreeable to her about it. He said she should be more careful whose eggs she hatched. And when you children went into the water, your mother would walk up and down the bank of the pond, clucking as hard as she could, and begging you to come ash.o.r.e at once. At night, too, there was trouble, for you would never go to bed as early as she thought proper. After a while she learned to march off at a time that suited her, and let you come when you were ready."

"Thank you ever so much for telling me," said the Pekin Duck, sweetly.

"It must be horrid to have the wrong kind of children. I promise you that I will not sit on Hens' eggs." Then she waddled away.

"I want some Ducklings," said she, putting her pretty webbed feet down somewhat harder than usual. "I want Ducklings, and I am going to steal a nest at once." She was a Duck of determination, and made a start by finding a cosy spot under some burdock plants and laying an egg before she went in swimming. She was in such haste to make a beginning that she had actually to come back later to finish her nest, which she did by adding more dried leaves and gra.s.s and lining it with down which she plucked from her breast.

After that, of course, all her friends knew that it was useless to talk to her about it, for when a Duck goes around at that season of the year with her breast all ragged from her plucking it, people may be very sure that she is planning to hatch a brood. It is not at all becoming, but it is a great help, for when the sitting Duck is tired or hungry, she can pull the down over the eggs and leave her nest, knowing that the down will keep them warm for a long time.

Of course the other Ducks talked about her a good deal when she was not around, and said she would be sorry she had undertaken all that work and care, and that it was exactly as well to drop one's eggs anywhere and let the Man pick them up to put under some sitting Hen.

"Yes," said the Aylesbury Duck, "or else give them to the fat table for hatching." Then they all laughed. It seemed such a joke to them that a table should take to hatching eggs.

Nearly every day the Pekin Duck laid an egg, and she soon had enough to begin sitting. After that, she did not go up to the Pig-pen at night with her friends. It was quite lonely in the clump of burdocks, and if the Pekin Duck had been at all timid she might have had some bad nights, for Weasels, Rats, and Skunks were out after dark, looking for something to eat. Yet they must always have found food before they reached the burdocks, for the Duck was not disturbed. During the day her friends came along for a chat, and often the Drake waddled up for a visit. He seemed to think her a very sensible sort of Duck. He had not the Gobbler's dislike of children, although he never shared the labor of hatching them, like his friend the Gander. He thought one could be a good father without going quite as far as that.

The days were long and the nights seemed longer to the tired Pekin Duck, but her courage never failed. When her legs cramped so that she could hardly step off the nest, she smiled and said to herself, "Suppose I were a Thousand-Legged Worm!" She fancied it made her feel better to think of such things, and she never remembered that Thousand-Legged-Worms do not sit on nests and hatch out their children in that way. It is probably better that she did not. If it does one good to think of Thousand-Legged-Worms, it is wise to think about them, even if one does make a slight mistake of this sort.

When the rain came, the burdock leaves kept off most of it, and the few drops which fell between the leaves rolled off the Duck's back without wetting her at all. That was because her feathers were so oily that the rain could not stay on them. Ducks, you know, always have on their water-proofs, and can slip in and out of the water at any time without getting really wet.

The pleasure which she missed most was seeing the changes which the Man was making in the upper end of the pasture. The Drake told her how great yards had been fenced in with wire netting, and how the fronts of the scratching-shed had been covered with somewhat finer netting of the same kind. "Not even a Weasel could get through it," he said. And then the Pekin Duck wished that the Man would fix a place for her Ducklings where Weasels could not get them. She had never feared such creatures for herself, but when she thought of her children she was afraid. That is always the way, since it is much easier for a mother to be brave for herself than for her children.

On a beautiful morning in the last of May, the Pekin Duck was repaid for all her patience and courage by having seven beautiful Ducklings chip the sh.e.l.l. They were even more beautiful than she had thought they would be, and she could not understand why her friends seemed no more impressed. To be sure they said that they were fine Ducklings and that they looked like their mother, and admired their dainty little webbed feet and their bills. They spoke of the beautiful thick down which covered them, and said that they were remarkably bright and strong for their age. And yet the Pekin Duck could see that they had not properly realized what wonderful creatures the Ducklings were.

It was when all the Ducks were gathered around to look at the Ducklings that one of the Little Girls came along with her doll. When she also saw the Ducklings, she was so excited that she hugged her doll tightly to her heart and ran off to find her father.

A few minutes later the Pekin Duck saw her precious babies lifted into a well-lined basket and carried off toward the house. She followed, quacking anxiously, and keeping as close to the Man as possible. Twice he lowered the basket to let her see that her children were quite safe.

The Man carried the basket to a place beside the new poultry-house, now all done, and quickly fixed the old down-lined nest, which the Little Girl had been carrying in another basket, into a fine coop.

Next he put the nestlings into it and let the Pekin Duck cover them with her wings. He stretched fine wire netting across the front of the coop, and then the Pekin Duck was perfectly happy. Indeed it was not until the middle of the following night that she remembered she had not looked at the poultry-house at all.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE FOLLOWED QUACKING ANXIOUSLY. _Page 72_]

It was rather disappointing not to be able to take her children in swimming for two days, but when she saw how carefully the Man fed them on bread and milk and other soft food, and how particular he was about having plenty of clean water for them to drink, she quite forgave him for keeping them there. The other Ducks came to tell her how to care for the Ducklings, to shake their sleek heads, and to tell her how unfortunate it was that she could not take the Ducklings in swimming at once. "You will need to know many things," said the old Rouen Duck, "and I will tell you if you will come to me every time that you are perplexed."

"Thank you," said the Pekin Duck. But she never went. She thought it just as well that a Duck who had never hatched out children should not be giving advice to people who had.

When the Ducklings were three days old, they were let out and started at once for the river. When their mother had to stop to speak to her friends on the way, they did not wait for her, but marched on ahead.

All the fowls spoke admiringly of them, and the Pekin Duck was truly happy as she looked at her seven proper little Ducklings.

They were such bright children, too, waddling right down to the edge of the brook and slipping in without a single question as to how it should be done. Their mother followed after and showed them how she fed from the bottom, reaching her head far down until she could fill her orange-colored bill with the soft mud from the bottom. There were many tiny creatures in the mud which were good to eat, and these she kept and swallowed, letting the mud pa.s.s out between the rough edges of her bill. If the water had been deeper, she could have showed them how she dived, staying long under water and coming up in a most unexpected place.

When they came out of the water and stood on the bank, their mother stretched herself up as tall as she could and preened her feathers.

The seven little Ducklings stood as tall as they could and squeezed the water out of their down with their tiny bills, which seemed so much longer for them than their mother's did for her.

The Pekin Duck was much amused to see how the other Ducks flocked around her children. Indeed, she laughed outright once, when she heard the old Rouen Duck say to the White c.o.c.k, "Don't you think that our Ducklings are growing finely?"

Of course the Pekin Duck was ashamed of having laughed at any one so much older than she, so she stuck her head under her wing and pretended to be arranging the feathers there. When she drew it out again she was quite sober, but she was thinking "Our Ducklings! Our Ducklings! They may all call them that if it makes them happy to do so, but really they are my Ducklings, for I earned them, and they love me as they love n.o.body else."

THE NEW NESTS AND THE NEST EGGS

As might have been expected, the new poultry-house was no sooner finished than the fowls began to discuss who should live in the different parts. They could see no reason why they should not all run together, as they always had done. "Perhaps," the Black Hen had said, "the Man may put us all together and let the table's Chickens have pens to themselves."

"What?" said the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen, "put me in one pen and my Chickens in another? That would never do."

"You forget," said the Shanghai c.o.c.k very gently, "that by winter-time they will not need your care any more, and you will not wish to be with them so much." And that was true, for no matter how fond a Hen may be of her tiny Chickens, she is certain to care less for them when they are grown.

All the fowls were quite sure that they should have the best pen and yard, because they had been the longest on the place. After they had spoken of that, they had a great time in deciding which was the best pen. Part of the fowls wanted to be in the end toward the road, so that they could see all that went on there and look across to the other farm to watch their neighbors. The c.o.c.ks all preferred this.

They liked excitement.

Some of the Hens wished to live in the pen next to the barn. "We are fond of the barn," they said. "We have been there so much, and have laid so many eggs there that it seems like home. We know that it is not so comfortable, but it seems like home."

However, the c.o.c.ks had their wish, and on the day when it was granted there was such a crowing from fence-tops as greatly puzzled the Man.

He could not find anything in his books and papers to explain it, although he looked and looked and looked. At last one of the Little Girls told him what she thought, and she was exactly right. "It sounds to me as though they were just happy," she said. You see the Man had not lived long enough on a farm to understand the language of poultry very well, so he had much to learn. There are many people who think themselves quite wise and yet cannot tell what one of a tiny Chicken's five calls means, and there are some Men, even some fathers (and fathers need to know more than anybody else in the world, except mothers) who do not know that a c.o.c.k can say at least nine different things with the same cry, "c.o.c.k-a-doodle-doo!"

This Man was a father and had been a school-teacher, too, so he was not an ignorant Man, and after his Little Girl said that he decided to learn poultry-talk. It took some weeks, but you shall hear by and by how well he succeeded.

The Man wanted to teach the Hens to lay in the new nests, so that he would not have to spend much time in egg-hunting, and because he wished to be sure of finding the eggs as soon as they were laid.

People should grow good as they grow old, you know, but it is not so with the eggs. The Man did not want to shut the fowls in during the warm weather, for then he would have to feed them more, and that would cost too much money, yet he opened this front pen with its scratching-shed and yard, and fed them there every night. While they were feeding he closed the outer gate, so that they could not go back to roost on the trees or wherever they chose. The perches were comfortable, with room enough for all, and far enough apart so that those in the back rows did not have their bills brushed by the tails of those in front.

The Hens who had Chickens were now kept in the second pen from this, and so were quite safe from prowling Weasels and other hunters. In the front pen, you see, there were only full-grown fowls, and morning was a busy time for most of the laying Hens. The gate was not opened until the sun was well up, and by that time many of the Hens had laid in one of the cosy nests under the perches, nests which were so well roofed over that not even a pin-feather could have dropped into them from above. They were so very comfortable that even the Hens who did not lay before leaving the pen were soon glad to come strolling back to it, instead of fluttering and scrambling to some lonely corner of the hayloft in the barn.