only enough bugs to quarrel over.

"Indeed!" said one old rooster, "we have learned nothing about the best
way of scratching for bugs, with all our gabbling."

"I should be glad," spoke up a duck, "to learn the wonderful thing that
the little hen has learned, so _I_ could keep from quarreling with my
neighbors."

They all grew quite uneasy, and the gander became very angry.

"Such a stupid lot I have never seen!" he cried. "I have a great mind to
let you go your ways and not bother with you!" and thereat he dismissed
the class in high dudgeon.

The first thing they all did was to take after the little brown hen.

"What is the wonderful thing you have learned?" asked the gobblers,
shaking their red throats and looking very important.

"Oh!" said the wise little hen, "I learned it by listening to the
nightingale, and so can you, I presume, if you leave off that silly
honking. Just gobble as nicely as you can when you have anything to say,
but first be sure it is worth saying."

The turkeys wished the little brown hen would tell them and save them
the trouble of listening, but as they had paid no attention when she
offered, they had nothing to do but follow her advice.

So they stopped honking and did very little gobbling, for they found
that they had not much of importance to say.

The ducks and the chickens and the doves all asked the same question,
and the little brown hen gave them much the same answer:

"Just quack and coo and cluck as nicely as you can, and have a care to
lay nice eggs. Attend very strictly to your own affairs, for I have
found that one learns a great deal by listening."

As they all took her advice, the barn-yard became a quiet, well-ordered
barn-yard again, with only so much cackling and clucking, and so forth,
as to give it a business-like air.

For each one was listening to hear when the nightingale came, and first
thing they knew each one heard the same song as the little brown hen,
for it was singing in all their hearts, and they understood it, whether
they quacked or gobbled or cooed.

"It does seem that there's a deal of talking these days," said the
little brown hen, "and it's mighty hard to listen; but even if the old
gander does honk every now and then, nobody need pay any attention to
him, for, after all, it isn't always those with the loudest voices that
have the best things to say."

The Little Apple Tree Bears a Golden Harvest

[Illustration]

IN A thrivin