Master Frisky/Chapter 12
Madam Cluck was a cross old setting hen, as black as a coal, and as obstinate as she was good-looking. She had been setting for several days; but as it was late in the season, I did not put any eggs under her, so she took matters into her own hands and stole her nest, and try as I would I could not find it.
After this I saw little of her for a time; but when she did at last appear, she was clucking vigorously, and was closely followed by ten chickens. It was a fine brood of as bright-looking chicks as I had ever seen, but of all colors and kinds. I forgave her for stealing her nest, and rigged up a box for a coop, and put Madam Cluck into it, and the chicks all ran in after her, and hid under her wings; but I could still see some little yellow legs and bright eyes peeping out.
Having done everything I could for the old hen and her family, I left them considerably to themselves, but took pains to feed and count them three or four times a day. The very next morning after the appearance of Madam Cluck and her brood, I was sitting on the piazza reading the morning paper, when, as I happened to glance up, I noticed a peculiar-shaped shadow moving rapidly across the lawn.
There was no object upon the lawn to make it, and for a second I was puzzled; and this hesitation did the mischief, for as the truth dawned upon me, I glanced up into the sky and a large hawk swooped down upon silent wings, snatched up a little chick but a few feet away from the coop, and flew rapidly away towards the woods.
Madam Cluck called to her chick, and beat her wings and head against the slats of her coop until she fell down senseless. I swung my paper and shouted, but it was of no use. Red Tail had too firm a hold upon his prize, and was too far away to be scared into dropping it. So while the pathetic peeps grew fainter and fainter, the hawk bore the chick far away, and it was never seen again.
Madam Cluck soon revived, and called her remaining nine chickens to her, and hid them under her wings for the rest of the day, they only coming out when I fed them, and then not going out of the coop.
For about a week after this occurrence, everything went well in the family of Madam Cluck. The children grew, and were very happy looking in the dirt for worms and bugs, and bathing in the dust that their mother had provided for them.
She was very particular about the dust-bath, for she knew it kept lice and other insects from them; and for all Madam Cluck was so cross, she was a very good mother, and dearly loved her children. One night, about a week after the visit of Red Tail, I was awakened by a great noise in the hen-coop.
Madam Cluck was flying about frantically, and the chicks were peeping at the top of their voices. I dressed hurriedly and went out. White-plume was after the chickens; he was an old skunk whom I imagined lived in a brush-heap back of the barn. I had seen Master Frisky chase him into this retreat several times, and almost get him by his bushy tail as he went in.
When I got to the coop the commotion had partly ceased, and no skunk was to be seen, but the odor was unmistakable. I put extra boards against the box, and went back to bed. The next day Madam Cluck and the chicks were very shy, and kept near the coop. There were but eight of them; and on going to the brush-heap, I found one pathetic yellow leg, and there was no mistaking the thief.
The next night I staked boards down around the coop, and set several traps, but in the morning everything was as I had left it. I was rather glad of this; for I hated to catch poor White-plume, who had to live in some way, and was merely getting a late supper; but I preferred that he should live on the worms and slugs that ate the crops, as he usually did.
I had made the coop proof against White-plume, but had not thought of Sly-Boy. Sly-Boy was a weasel, who lived under the barn; and a very dangerous fellow he was, for he could kill hens as well as chickens when he chose to do so.
A few nights after the visit of White-plume, Sly-Boy came; and in the morning I picked up three dead chicks in the coop, and a fourth was missing. This left but four; and the distress of Madam Cluck, as she moved about among her rapidly-disappearing family, was truly sad.
I stopped up all of the cracks in the coop but one; and at that one I set a trap, and the next morning, to my surprise, found Sly-Boy in it. I treated him just as he had treated the chickens, and was glad to get rid of him. I hate to catch other dumb creatures; but the weasel is a destroyer, and he does not kill just to get food for himself.
Perhaps it was the stealing of the nest—a sin of the mother—that brought misfortune to the children; for certainly this was a most unfortunate family. It was only three days after the visit of Sly-Boy, that one of the remaining chickens strayed under the barn, where the long-tailed and long-whiskered family lived. He was soon spied by Charkey Kibbler, the oldest son of the rat family, and in a few minutes they were breakfasting on a tender young chicken.
This left but three chicks for Madam Cluck, and the poor hen was nearly heart-broken. After this she did not allow the children to go out of the coop for three days, without their first promising not to go beyond the sound of her cluck, and even then she called them back at the slightest noise. But no mother, however vigilant, could be proof against the gapes, which, disease one of the remaining chicks soon fell a victim to.
Only a pair were left, one for each wing; and the old black hen cuddled them more closely than ever to her breast, and gave them all the love she used to give the whole ten.
The coming of great storms are things that not even man, with all his boasted knowledge, can stand against, much less a feeble black hen. So who could be blamed when one night there came a terrific shower that flooded the coop, drowning one of the chicks, and forcing the other to take refuge upon its mother's back. I found them in the morning huddled up in one corner of the coop, Madam Cluck knee deep in the water, and her one chicken high and dry upon her back.
After this experience with the coop, I turned them loose, and let them roam as they pleased over the place, thinking they could not fare worse than the brood had in the coop; and the black hen guarded this one chick as the apple of her eye. She followed it all day long with her warning curr, and at night she took it upon her back on a low roost that the rats and the weasels might not get it. Together the black hen and the white chicken hunted grasshoppers and scratched for worms, while the summer came and went; and by the time of the first frosts Madam Cluck's wee chick was a fine rooster, much taller than his mother, and already getting vain of his plumage.
But all of this happened two years ago; and since that time the fame of Sir Cock-a-doodle, my white rooster, has gone abroad through the countryside, both as a winner of first prizes at the fairs, and a faithful guardian of the farmyard. Even now I can hear the strong beating of his wings against his great breast, closely followed by that long, shrill war-cry that is the envy of all poultry-yards for half a mile around.
Sir Cock-a-doodle is probably standing on the barnyard fence, proud and erect, perfect in form and plumage, sounding his note of defiance to the neighboring cocks, while the hens walk admiringly up and down, saying to one another, "Isn't he magnificent?" and, "Did you hear that last fine note?" Such is the pride and vanity of the farmyard fowls; but well, they have reason to be proud of Sir Cock-a-doodle.