es.

MARGARET BEECHER WHITE.

The Little Brown Hen Hears the Song of the Nightingale

[Illustration]

A POMPOUS old gander who lived in a barn-yard thought himself wiser than
the rest of the creatures, and so decided to instruct them.

He called together all the fowls in the barn-yard, and the pigeons off
the barn-roof, and told them to listen to him.

They gathered around and listened very earnestly, for they thought they
would learn a great deal of wisdom.

"The first thing for you to learn," said the gander, "is to speak my
language. It is very silly for you to chatter as you do. Now we will all
say, 'honk!' one, two, three,--'honk!'"

The creatures all tried very hard to say "honk!" but the sounds they
made were so remarkable that I cannot write them, and none of them
sounded like "honk!"

The gander was very angry.

"How stupid you are!" he cried. "Now you all must practise till you
learn it. Do not let me hear a peep or cluck or a coo! You must all
'honk' when you have anything to say."

So they obediently tried to do as he said.

When the little brown hen laid an egg, instead of making the fact known
with her sharp little "cut--cut--cut-cut-ah-cut!" as a well-ordered hen
should do, she ran around the barn-yard trying to say, "honk! honk!"

But nobody heard her, and nobody came to look for the egg.

The guinea-fowls way down in the pasture ceased calling "la croik! la
croik!" and there was no way of finding where they had hid their nests.
In the afternoon, when their shrill cries should have warned the farmers
that it was going to rain, they were still honking, or trying to, so
the nicely dried hay got wet.

Next morning chanticleer, instead of rousing the place with his lusty
crow, made an effort at honking that could not be heard a stone's throw
away, and so the whole farm overslept.

All day there was a Babel of sounds in the barn-yard. The turkeys left
off gobbling and made a queer sound that they thought was "honk!" the
ducks left off quacking, the chicks left off peeping, and said nothing
at all, for "honk!" was too big a mouthful for them; and the soft
billing and cooing of the doves were turned into an ugly harsh sound.

Things were indeed getting into a dreadful state, and they grew worse,
instead of better.

The hens forgot to lay eggs, the doves became proud and pompous like
the gander, and as for the turkey gobblers, they kept th