Among the Night People | Page 2

discontented in her coop,
although it was roomy and clean and she had plenty given her to eat
and drink. She was quite happy only when they were safely under her
wings at night. And such a time as they always had getting settled!
When the sunbeams came more and more slantingly through the trees,
the Chickens felt less and less like running around. Their tiny legs were
tired and they liked to cuddle down on the grass in the shadow of the
coop. Then the Speckled Hen often clucked to them to come in and rest,
but they liked it better in the open air. The Speckled Hen would also
have liked to be out of the coop, yet the farmer kept her in. He knew
what was best for Hens with little Chickens, and also what was best for
the tender young lettuce and radishes in his garden.
When the sun was nearly down, the Speckled Hen clucked her
come-to-bed cluck, which was quite different from her food cluck or
her Hawk cluck, and the little Black Chickens ran between the bars and
crawled under her feathers. Then the Speckled Hen began to look fatter
and fatter and fatter for each Chicken who nestled beneath her.
Sometimes one little fellow would scramble up on to her back and
stand there, while she turned her head from side to side, looking at him
with first one and then the other of her round yellow eyes, and scolding
him all the time. It never did any good to scold, but she said she had to
do something, and with ten other children under her wings it would
never do for her to stand up and tumble him off.
All the time that they were getting settled for the night the Chickens
were talking in sleepy little cheeps, and now and then one of them
would poke his head out between the feathers and tell the Speckled Hen
that somebody was pushing him. Then she would be more puzzled than
ever and cluck louder still. Sometimes, too, the Chickens would run out
for another mouthful of cornmeal mush or a few more drops of water.
There was one little fellow who always wanted something to drink just
when he should have been going to sleep. The Speckled Hen used to
say that it took longer for a mouthful of water to run down his throat
than it would for her to drink the whole panful. Of course it did take
quite a while, because he couldn't hurry it by swallowing. He had to

drink, as all birds do, by filling his beak with water and then holding it
up until the last drop had trickled down into his stomach.
When the whole eleven were at last safely tucked away for the night,
the Speckled Hen was tired but happy. "They are good children," she
often said to herself, "if they are Black Spanish. They might be just as
mischievous if they were speckled; still, I do wish that those
stylish-looking, white-eared Black Spanish Hens would raise their own
broods. I don't like to be hatch-mother to other Hens' chickens." Then
she would slide her eyelids over her eyes, and doze off, and dream that
they were all speckled like herself.
THEY WERE FREE TO GO WHERE THEY CHOSE.
There came a day when the coop was raised and they were free to go
where they chose. There was a fence around the vegetable garden now
and netting around the flower-beds, but there were other lovely places
for scratching up food, for nipping off tender young green things, for
picking up the fine gravel which every Chicken needs, and for
wallowing in the dust. Then the Black Spanish Chickens became
acquainted with the other fowls whom they had never met before. They
were rather afraid of the Shanghai Cock because he had such a gruff
way of speaking, and they liked the Dorkings, yet the ones they
watched and admired and talked most about were the Black Spanish
Cock and Hen. There were many fowls on the farm who did not have
fam- ily names, and the Speckled Hen was one of these. They had been
there longer than the rest and did not really like having new people
come to live in the poultry-yard. It was trying, too, when the older Hens
had to hatch the eggs laid by the newcomers.
It is said that this was what made the Speckled Hen leave the eleven
little Black Spanish Chickens after she had been out of the coop for a
while. They had been very mischievous and disobedient one day, and
she walked off and left them to care for themselves while she started to
raise a family of her own in a