"I hear what you say," he replied politely (Ganders are often the most polite when they are about to do or say mean things). "I hear what you say, but you cannot expect me to change my mind about what I have seen with my own eyes. It was certainly quite wrong for him to get ready to burn those eggs, and the marking of them was almost as bad. As for this nonsense about the table hatching out Chickens, that is quite absurd. You could not expect a Gander to believe that. It is the sort of thing which Hens believe."

So the Man's friends had to give up talking to the Gander. Even the Geese were not sure that it was all right. "We would like to think so," they often remarked, "but the Gander says it cannot be."

Now the fowls had something new to puzzle them, for the Man spent one sunshiny morning in walking to and fro in the fields which had always been used for a pasture, stopping every now and then to drive a stake.

Sometimes he walked with long strides, and then when his Little Girls spoke to him he would shake his head and not answer. Afterward he seemed to be measuring off the ground with a long line of some sort, letting the Little Girls take turns in holding one end of it for him.

After all of the stakes had been driven, the Man harnessed Brownie to the old stone-boat and began to draw large stones from different parts of the farmyard and pasture. He even went along the road and pried out some which had always lain there, right in the way of every team that had to turn aside from the narrow track. All these were drawn over to the stakes and tumbled off on the ground there.

In the afternoon the Farmer from across the road brought a load of lumber, which he left beside the stone and stakes, and then the work began. The Farmer, who was used to building barns and sheds, began to help the Man lay stone for some sort of long, narrow building. For days after that the work went on. Sometimes the two Men worked together, and sometimes the Farmer drove off to town for more lumber, after showing the Man just what to do while he was gone. The Man seemed to learn very easily, and did not have to take out or do over any of his work. That was probably because he listened so carefully when the Farmer was telling him. People always make mistakes, you know, unless they listen carefully to what they are told.

The poultry strolled around and discussed the new building every day.

They could not imagine what it was to be. At first, when only the foundation was laid, it looked so long and narrow that the Gander declared it must be for a carriage house. "Don't you see?" he said.

"There will be plenty of room for the platform wagon, the light lumber wagon, and the implements. When they are all in, there will be room for the Man to walk along on either side of them and clean them off.

It is about the most sensible thing that I have known the Man to do."

The Farmer always left his implements out in all kinds of weather, and sometimes one of his wagons stood out in a storm too.

n.o.body except the Geese agreed with the Gander, and they would have agreed with him just as quickly if he had said that the building was for Barn Swallows. You see the Gander was always ready to tell what he thought, and as the Geese never even thought of thinking for themselves, it was very easy for them simply to agree with him.

Brown Bess looked at the long lines of stone all neatly set in cement, and said that she would not mind having one end of the building for herself and the Calf. "It would be much snugger than my place in the barn," said she, "although that is all right in warm weather."

Brownie may have known what it was for, because he had a great deal of Horse sense, but if he knew he did not tell. Being the only Horse on the place, and so much larger than any of the other people, he had not made friends very quickly, although everybody liked him as well as they had Bobs.

It was not until the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen saw that the long s.p.a.ce was to be divided into many small rooms that she guessed it might be for the poultry themselves. Even then she dared not tell anybody what she thought. "In the first place," she said to herself, "they may prefer to run all over the farm, as they always have done, laying their eggs wherever they can. If any of them feel that way, they won't like it. If they really want a good house to live in, I might better not tell them what I think, for if I should be mistaken they would be disappointed." In all of which she was exactly right. It is much better for people not to tell their guesses to others. There is time enough for the telling of news when one is quite sure of it.

As the work went on, the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen noticed that at each end of the long s.p.a.ce there was a sort of scratching-shed with an open front. The distance between these end sheds was filled by two closed pens, two more scratching-sheds, two more pens, and so on. There were doors from one room to another all the way along, big doors such as Men need, and there were little doors from each pen to its scratching-shed just large enough for fowls.

The Barred Plymouth Rock Hen grew more and more sure that her guess was right, and still she said nothing, although she was happy to see how warm and snug the Man was making the pens. "Why," she said to herself, "if he will let me live in that sort of house I will lay eggs for him in the winter." She had hardly got the words out of her bill when the other poultry came up. It was growing late, and they came for a last look at the house before going to roost.

"I declare," said the Gobbler, "I believe that house is for the Hens!"

"Surely not," said the Gander. "You don't mean for the _Hens_, do you?"

"That is what I said," replied the Gobbler, standing his feathers on end and dragging his wings on the ground. "Why not? The Man knows that Turkeys do not care much for houses, else we might have a place in it.

I really wouldn't mind staying in a quiet home sometimes, but in pleasant weather my wives will go, and of course I cannot let them walk around the country alone, so that is how I have to spend my days."

The Turkey Hens looked at each other knowingly. They wished that he would leave them and their children quite alone. He was not fond of children, and the year before the Turkey mothers had had dreadful times in trying to keep theirs out of his sight.

"Let us go inside and see what it is like," said the little Speckled Hen, leading the way. Not until they reached the very last pen did they see enough to make them sure that the Gobbler was right. There they found the perches in place, the nest-boxes ready, and a fine feeding-trough just inside the large front window, where they could stand in the sunshine in winter and eat comfortable meals. The c.o.c.ks flew up at once to try the perches. "Fine!" said the Shanghai c.o.c.k.

"Fine! These perches exactly fit my feet. I am glad that he made them large enough. Low, too, so that we cannot hurt ourselves in flying down."

"I like this," said the White c.o.c.k. "The perches are all the same height from the floor. I like a low perch, but not if other fowls are above me. Now you larger fellows can't roost any higher than I do.

c.o.c.k-a-doodle-doo!" It is not strange that he crowed over it, because every night the fowls had been fighting for the highest roosting places, and the strongest were sure to win.

"Nests!" cackled the Hens. "Nests! How pleasant this will be! They are all in a row, so we can visit with each other while we are laying."

"That is a good plan," said the Brown Hen, who really seemed pleased at last. "I am always thinking of things to say when I am laying, and there is hardly ever any other fowl near enough to hear. It has been very annoying."

"I don't care so much about that," said a very sensible White Hen. "I can stand it not to talk for a while. What I want is a warm nest where the rain cannot strike me, and where I shall have quite room enough for my tail."

"That is what we want, too," said three or four others.

"There have always been so many unpleasant things," said the Brown Hen. "I have tried many places. I find a warm one where the wind cannot blow upon me, and usually there is not enough room for my tail.

No Hen can lay comfortably in a nest when her tail is pushed to one side. I have tried laying under the currant bushes in warm weather, and there one has all out-of-doors for her tail, but on rainy days one has to change. I do not like changes."

"You do not?" asked the Shanghai c.o.c.k. "I thought all fowls liked changes. If you live here in winter, you will be walking from the pen to the scratching-shed half of the time."

"You know very well what I mean," said the Brown Hen. "I like the changes that I like, of course. Any fowl does. What I do not like is the changes that I don't like." She said this in a dignified and truly Hen-like manner, and then she walked off.

"All I hope," said the White c.o.c.k, sadly, "is that we shall not be shut up in these places during the summer. One cannot tell what may happen. One must expect the worst. When I see the wire front of the scratching-shed, I fear that we shall be kept in."

"Nonsense!" cried the Shanghai c.o.c.k. "Don't be a Goose. The Man has begun to put a wire fence around a great yard outside, and there will be plenty of room to run there if we are to live here. I do not believe that we shall be shut in, in pleasant weather."

"Come," clucked the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen to her brood. "Come with me to the carriage house. It is time all good little Chickens were asleep."

She was very happy over the pleasant things which she had heard said about the Man. Only a truly polite Hen could have kept from saying "I told you so," all this time, but she had shut her bill tightly and kept back the words she wanted to say.

You remember that the Shanghai c.o.c.k had always liked the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen, and now he thought she should be told how they had come to feel about her friend, the Man. He was not used to saying pleasant things, but having praised the perches made it a little easier for him. You know saying one kind thing always makes it easier to say another. So he ran after her.

"Er-er! I don't want the Farmer to come back," he said. Then he thought that did not sound quite right and he tried again. "I'm not sorry he went away. I mean I'm glad that the Man came. All of us are now, except the Gander and the White c.o.c.k, and you don't really care for them, do you?"

He looked at her lovingly with his round eyes, and the wind waved his drooping tail feathers. The Barred Plymouth Rock Hen thought that she had never seen him look so handsome. "I don't care at all about them,"

she replied quite honestly, "and I am glad that you and the others like the Man."

She said "you" much more loudly than she said "the others," and the Shanghai c.o.c.k must have known what she meant, for he stretched his neck, opened his bill, and gave such a crow as he was never known, before or since, to give at that hour of the day.

The Barred Plymouth Rock Hen went happily to her nest, and stayed awake long after her last Chicken was fast asleep. Even if one is grown-up and the mother of a family, even if one comes of a finer breed than one's neighbors, he cannot be truly happy without their hearty liking. This Hen felt that she had it at last, and that just by doing the thing which she thought right, but which the other poultry had not liked at all at first. It is often so.

THE PEKIN DUCK STEALS A NEST

The Ducks were not much interested in the new poultry-house. To be sure the Hens talked of hardly anything else now, and several had said that they would be glad to lay in the new nest-boxes as soon as they should be lined with hay for them. So the Ducks heard enough about the house, but did not really care for it at all.

"It is too far from the river," said they. "We are quite contented with the old Pig-pen. Since the Hog and her children were taken away and the Man has cleaned it out, we find it an excellent place. There is room for all of us in the little shed where the Hog used to live, and the Man has thrown in straw and fixed good places for egg-laying.

Besides, there is no door, and we can go in and out as often as we choose."

That was exactly like the Ducks. They seemed to think that to go where they wished and when they wished was the best part of life. The best part of sleeping in the old Pigpen, they thought, was being able to leave it whenever they chose. They knew perfectly well, if they stopped to think about it, that a Weasel or Rat could get in quite as easily as they, and it was only their luck which had kept them safe so long.

The Ducks were very pleasant people to know. They never worried about anything for more than a few minutes, and had charmingly happy and contented ways. There were only a few of them on the farm, and no two exactly alike in color and size. The Farmer had never paid much attention to them, and the Boy, who bought and kept them for pets, had tired of them so soon that they had been allowed to go wherever they pleased, until they expected always to have their own way.

They took their share of the food thrown out for the poultry, and then went off to the river for the day. During the hot weather they stayed there until after all respectable Hens had gone to roost. Even the Geese left the water long before they did. When they went to sleep, they settled down on the floor and dozed off. "It is much easier than flying up to roosts and then down again," they said. "Find a place you like, and then stay there. We see no reason why people should make such a fuss about going to sleep."

When the Shanghai c.o.c.k heard these things, he shook his head until his wattles swung. "That is all very well for the Ducks," said he, "but from the way this Man acts, I think there may be a change coming for them by and by. I notice that things are more different every day."

The Ducks soon began to see that it was different with them. Ducks, you know, are always very careless about where they lay their eggs.

Some of these were so old that they seldom laid eggs, only the Pekin Duck and her big friend, the Aylesbury Duck, laid them quite often after the middle of winter. At first the Man looked in the old Pig-pen for them, but after he had looked many days and found only one, he drew a book out of his pocket and read a bit. Then he called the Little Girls to him and talked to them. "I want you to watch each of those white Ducks," said he, "and for every one of their eggs which you find I will give you a penny."