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He heard the chuck and drowsy clack of the sprinkling-wagon as it ponderously advanced upon its lazy way; he heard the almost whispered clucking of a mother-hen who was calling her chicks to come shuffle with her in the cool loose earth under the shade of the crooked old apple-tree, and presently there came a time when the out-of-doors was all so still that even the falling of a shadow would have made a sound.
By degrees, the observer came to feel nearly as much interest in this chicken of illustrious race as the mother-hen did. Phoebe, after getting well acquainted with the old hen, was sometimes permitted to take the chicken in her hand, which was quite capable of grasping its cubic inch or two of body.
"Mother-hen her wings now are sinking, Chanticleer on one leg stands thinking: 'High, indeed, You gray goose can speed; Never, surely though, she Clever as a cock can be. Seek your shelter, hens, I pray, Gone is the sun to his rest for to-day, Says the rooster." Two small birds sat singing on the gable. "What are the birds saying?" asked Oyvind, and laughed.
Grandpa and his big man commenced raking the hay together vigorously, and a sudden, cool, puffy breeze began to ruffle the little rings of hair on Lily-toes' head, and send the small chickens careening over the knot-grass in such fashion that the careful mother-hen put her head out of her little house and called them in.
On the other hand, young chickens have lost, wholly by habit, that fear of the dog and cat which no doubt was originally instinctive in them, in the same way as it is so plainly instinctive in young pheasants, though reared under a hen. But this instinct retained by our chickens has become useless under domestication, for the mother-hen has almost lost by disuse the power of flight.
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