"cut-cut-ca-dah-cut! cut-cut-cut-ca-dah-cut!" called the dorking hen, as she strutted around the poultry-yard. she held her head very high, and paused every few minutes to look around in her jerky way and see whether the other fowls were listening. once she even stood on her left foot right in the pathway of the shanghai cock, and cackled into his very ears.
everybody pretended not to hear her. the people in the poultry-yard did not like the dorking hen very well. they said that she put on airs. perhaps she did. she certainly talked a great deal of the place from which she and the dorking cock came. they had come in a small cage from a large poultry farm, and the dorking hen never tired of telling about the wonderful, noisy ride that they took in a dark car drawn by a great, black, snorting creature. she said that this creature's feet grew on to his sides and whirled around as he ran, and that he breathed out of the top of his head. when the fowls first heard of this, they were much interested, but after a while they used to walk away from her, or make believe that they saw grasshoppers whom they wanted to chase.
when she found that people were not listening to her, she cackled louder than ever, "cut-cut-ca-dah-cut! look at the egg—the egg—the egg—the egg that i have laid."
"is there any particular reason why we should look at the egg—the egg—the egg—the egg that you have laid?" asked the shanghai cock, who was the grumpiest fowl in the yard.
now, usually if the dorking hen had been spoken to in this way, she would have ruffled up her head feathers and walked away, but this time she had news to tell and so she kept her temper. "reason?" she cackled. "yes indeed! it is the finest egg that was ever laid in this poultry-yard."
"hear her talk!" said a bantam hen. "i think it is in very poor taste to lay such large eggs as most of the hens do here. small ones are much more genteel."
"she must forget an egg that i laid a while ago with two yolks," said a shanghai hen. "that was the largest egg ever laid here, and i have always wished that i had hatched it. a pair of twin chickens would have been so interesting."
"well," said the dorking hen, who could not keep still any longer, "small eggs may be genteel and large ones may be interesting, but my last one is bee-autiful."
"perhaps you'd just as soon tell us about it as to brag without telling?" grumbled the shanghai cock. "i suppose it is grass color, or sky color, or hay color, or speckled, like a sparrow's egg."
"no," answered the dorking hen, "it is white, but it is shiny."
"shiny!" they exclaimed. "who ever heard of a shiny egg?"
"nobody," she replied, "and that is why it is so wonderful."
"don't believe it," said the shanghai cock, 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 cock, "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 cock fairly flapped his wings with impatience.
day after day passed, and the garden beyond the barn showed rows of sturdy 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 shell. 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 shell-lining had run into his tender little body. if she had pushed the shell 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 cock 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 cocks, 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 cock 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 cock, "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 cocks 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 cock 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 cock!" 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 cock walked away with the dorking cock. "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 cock. they stared into each other's eyes for a minute; then the dorking cock, 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, nobody 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.
