"No," answered the Dorking Hen, "it is white, but it is shiny."
"Shiny!" they exclaimed. "Who ever heard of a shiny egg?"
"n.o.body," she replied, "and that is why it is so wonderful."
"Don"t believe it," said the Shanghai c.o.c.k, as he turned away and began scratching the ground.
Now the Dorking Hen did get angry. "Come to see it, if you don"t believe me," she said, as she led the others into the Hen-house.
She flew up to the row of boxes where the Hens had their nests, and picked her way along daintily until she reached the farthest one. "Now look," said she.
One by one the fowls peeped into the box, and sure enough, there it lay, a fine, shiny, white egg. The little Bantam, who was really a jolly, kind-hearted creature, said, "Well, it is a beauty. I should be proud of it myself."
"It is whiter than I fancy," said the Shanghai c.o.c.k, "but it certainly does shine."
"I shall hatch it," said the Dorking Hen, very decidedly. "I shall hatch it and have a beautiful Chicken with shining feathers. I shall not hatch all the eggs in the nest, but roll this one away and sit on it."
"Perhaps," said one of her friends, "somebody else may have laid it after all, and not noticed. You know it is not the only one in the nest."
"Pooh!" said the Dorking Hen. "I guess I know! I am sure it was not there when I went to the nest and it was there when I left. I must have laid it."
The fowls went away, and she tried to roll the shiny one away from the other eggs, but it was slippery and very light and would not stay where she put it. Then she got out of patience and rolled all the others out of the nest. Two of them fell to the floor and broke, but she did not care. "They are nothing but common ones, anyway," she said.
When the farmer"s wife came to gather the eggs she pecked at her and was very cross. Every day she did this, and at last the woman let her alone.
Every-day she told the other fowls what a wonderful Chicken she expected to have. "Of course he will be of my color," said she, "but his feathers will shine brightly. He will be a great flyer, too. I am sure that is what it means when the egg is light." She came off the nest each day just long enough to stroll around and chat with her friends, telling them what wonderful things she expected, and never letting them forget that it was she who had laid the shiny egg. She pecked airily at the food, and seemed to think that a Hen who was hatching such a wonderful Chicken should have the best of everything. Each day she told some new beauty that was to belong to her child, until the Shanghai c.o.c.k fairly flapped his wings with impatience.
Day after day pa.s.sed, and the garden beyond the barn showed rows of st.u.r.dy green plants, where before there had been only straight ridges of fine brown earth. The Swallows who were building under the eaves of the great barn, twittered and chattered of the wild flowers in the forest, and four other Hens came off their nests with fine broods of downy Chickens. And still the Dorking Hen sat on her shiny egg and told what a wonderful Chicken she expected to hatch. This was not the only egg in the nest now, but it was the only one of which she spoke.
At last a downy Chicken peeped out of one of the common eggs, and wriggled and twisted to free himself from the sh.e.l.l. His mother did not hurry him or help him. She knew that he must not slip out of it until all the blood from the sh.e.l.l-lining had run into his tender little body.
If she had pushed the sh.e.l.l off before he had all of this fine red blood, he would not have been a strong Chicken, and she wanted her children to be strong.
The Dorking c.o.c.k walked into the Hen-house and stood around on one foot.
He came to see if the shiny egg had hatched, but he wouldn"t ask. He thought himself too dignified to show any interest in newly hatched Chickens before a Hen. Still, he saw no harm in standing around on one foot and letting the Dorking Hen talk to him if she wanted to. When she told him it was one of the common eggs that had hatched, he was quite disgusted, and stalked out of doors without a word.
The truth was that he had been rather bragging to the other c.o.c.ks, and only a few minutes later he spoke with pride of the time when "our"
shiny egg should hatch. "For," he said, "Mrs. Dorking and I have been quite alone here as far as our own people are concerned. It is not strange that we should feel a great pride in the wonderful egg and the Chicken to be hatched from it. A Dorking is a Dorking after all, my friends." And he flapped his wings, stretched his neck, and crowed as loudly as he could.
"Yes," said the Black Spanish c.o.c.k afterward, "a Dorking certainly is a Dorking, although I never could see the sense of making such a fuss about it. They are fat and they have an extra toe on each foot. Why should a fowl want extra toes? I have four on each foot, and I can scratch up all the food I want with them."
"Well," said the grumpy old Shanghai c.o.c.k, "I am sick and tired of this fuss. Common eggs are good enough for Shanghais and Black Spanish and Bantams, and I should think----"
Just at this minute they heard a loud fluttering and squawking in the Hen-house and the Dorking Hen crying, "Weasel! Weasel!" The c.o.c.ks ran to drive the Weasel away, and the Hens followed to see it done. All was noise and hurry, and they saw nothing of the Weasel except the tip of his bushy tail as he drew his slender body through an opening in the fence.
The Dorking Hen was on one of the long perches where the fowls roost at night, the newly hatched Chicken lay shivering in the nest, and on the floor were the pieces of the wonderful shiny egg. The Dorking Hen had knocked it from the nest in her flight.
The Dorking c.o.c.k looked very cross. He was not afraid of a Weasel, and he did not see why she should be. "Just like a Hen!" he said.
The Black Spanish Hen turned to him before he could say another word.
"Just like a c.o.c.k!" she exclaimed. "I never raise Chickens myself. It is not the custom among the Black Spanish Hens. We lay the eggs and somebody else hatches them. But if I had been on the nest as long as Mrs. Dorking has, do you suppose I"d let any fowl speak to me as you spoke to her? I"d--I"d--" and she was so angry that she couldn"t say another word, but just strutted up and down and cackled.
A motherly old Shanghai Hen flew up beside Mrs. Dorking. "We are very sorry for you," she said. "I know how I should have felt if I had broken my two-yolked egg just as it was ready to hatch."
The Bantam Hen picked her way to the nest. "What a dear little Chicken!"
she cried, in her most comforting tone. "He is so plump and so bright for his age. But, my dear, he is chilly, and I think you should cuddle him under your wings until his down is dry."
The Dorking Hen flew down. "He is a dear," she said, "and yet when he was hatched I didn"t care much for him, because I had thought so long about the shiny egg. It serves me right to lose that one, because I have been so foolish. Still, I do not know how I could stand it if it were not for my good neighbors."
While Mrs. Dorking was talking with the Bantam by her nest, the Black Spanish Hen scratched a hole in the earth under the perches, poked the pieces of the shiny egg into it, and covered them up. "I never raise Chickens myself," she said, "but if I did----"
The Shanghai c.o.c.k walked away with the Dorking c.o.c.k. "I"m sorry for you," he said, "and I am more sorry for Mrs. Dorking. She is too fine a Hen to be spoken to as you spoke to her this morning, and I don"t want to hear any more of your fault-finding. Do you understand?" And he ruffled his neck feathers and stuck his face close to that of the Dorking c.o.c.k. They stared into each other"s eyes for a minute; then the Dorking c.o.c.k, who was not so big and strong as the Shanghai, shook his head and answered sweetly, "It was rude of me. I won"t do it again."
From that day to this, n.o.body in the poultry yard has ever spoken of the shiny egg, and the Dorkings are much liked by the other fowls. Yet if it had not been for her trouble, Mrs. Dorking and her neighbors would never have become such good friends. The little Dorkings are fine, fat-breasted Chicks, with the extra toe on each foot of which all that family are so proud.
THE DUCKLING WHO DIDN"T KNOW WHAT TO DO
"Quack! Quack!" called the Duck who had been sitting on her nest so long. "My first egg is cracked, and I can see the broad yellow bill of my eldest child. Ah! Now I can see his downy white head." The Drake heard her and quacked the news to every one around, and flapped his wings, and preened his feathers, for was not this the first Duckling ever hatched on the farm?
The Drake had not been there long himself. It was only a few days before the Duck began sitting that she and her five sisters had come with him to this place. It had not taken them long to become acquainted with the other farmyard people, and all had been kind to them. The Geese had rather put on airs, at first, because they were bigger and had longer legs, but the Ducks and Drake were too wise to notice this in any way, and before long the Geese were as friendly as possible. They would have shown the Ducks the way to the water if it had been necessary, but it was not, for Ducks always know without being told just where to find it.
They know, and they do not know why they know. It is one of the things that are.
Now that the first Duckling had chipped the sh.e.l.l, everybody wanted to see him, and there was soon a crowd of fowls around the nest watching him free himself from it. The Drake stood by, as proud as a Peac.o.c.k. "I think he looks much like his mother," said he.
"Yes, yes," cackled all the Hens. "The same broad yellow bill, the same short yellow legs, and the same webbed feet."
The mother Duck smiled. "He looks more like me now than he will by and by," she said, "for when his feathers grow and cover the down, he will have a stiff little one curled up on his back like the Drake"s. And really, except for the curled feather, his father and I look very much alike."
"That is so," said the Black Spanish c.o.c.k. "You do look alike; the same white feathers, the same broad breast, the same strong wings, the same pointed tail, the same long neck, the same sweet expression around the bill!" That was just like the Black Spanish c.o.c.k. He always said something pleasant about people when he could, and it was much better than saying unpleasant things. Indeed, he was the most polite fowl in the poultry-yard, and the Black Spanish Hen thought his manners quite perfect.
Then the Duckling"s five aunts pushed their way through the crowd to the nest under the edge of the strawstack. "Have you noticed what fine large feet he has?" said one of them. "That is like his mother"s people.
See what a strong web is between the three long toes on each foot! He will be a good swimmer. The one toe that points backward is small, to be sure, but he does not need that in swimming. That is only to make waddling easier."
"Yes, yes," "A fine web," and "Very large feet," cried the fowls around the nest, but most of them didn"t care so much about the size of his feet as the Ducks did. Large feet are always useful, you know, yet n.o.body needs them so badly as Geese and Ducks. The Geese were off swimming, and so could not see the Duckling when first he came out of the sh.e.l.l.
"Tap-tap, tap-tap," sounded inside another sh.e.l.l, and they knew that there would soon be a second damp little Duckling beside the first. The visitors could not stay to see this one come out, and they went away for a time. The eldest Duckling had supposed that this was life, to have people around saying, "How bright he is!" "What fine legs!" or "He has a beautiful bill!" And now that they all walked away and his mother was looking after the Duckling who was just breaking her sh.e.l.l, he didn"t like it--he didn"t like it at all.
Still, it was much better so. If he had had no brothers and sisters, he would have been a lonely little fellow; besides, he would have had his own way nearly all the time, and that is likely to make any Duckling selfish. Then, too, if all the other fowls had petted him and given him the best of everything, he would have become vain. Truly, it was a good thing for him not to be the only child, and he soon learned to think so.
After there were two Ducklings, a third one came, and a fourth, and a fifth, and so on until, when the broken sh.e.l.ls were cleared away and the mother had counted bills, she could call to the Drake and her sisters, "Nine Ducklings hatched, and there were only nine eggs in the nest."
"Then come to the brook," said the Drake, "and let the children have a bath. I have been swimming a great many times to-day, and they have not even set foot in water yet. Why, our eldest son was out of his sh.e.l.l before the Horses were harnessed this morning, and here it is nearly time for their supper."
"I couldn"t help it," said the mother Duck. "I couldn"t leave the nest to take him swimming until the rest were ready to go. I am doing the best I can."
"I didn"t mean to find fault," said the Drake, "and I suppose you couldn"t get away, but we know that Ducklings should be taught to bathe often, and there is nothing like beginning in time."