s as well. Then the other Cocks
crowed because he did and he crowed again because they did, and they
crowed again because he had crowed again, and the Chickens asked if it
were not almost morning, and their mothers told them not to talk but to
go to sleep at once and make morning come more quickly.

All of this took quite a while, and the Shanghai mother could not sleep
again. She could see her brood quite plainly in the moonlight, and one
of them was not plump like the rest. She roosted there and worried about
him until suddenly (she could never tell how it happened) she seemed to
know just what was the matter.

She flew down beside him and poked him under his wing. "Wake up," she
said. "I want to ask you something. Do you eat gravel?"

"No," he answered sleepily, "I don't like gravel."

"Didn't I bring you up to eat it?" she asked sternly.

"Yes, but I don't like it, and now that I am old enough to roost in a
tree I don't mean to eat any more. So!"

Just imagine a Chicken talking to his mother in that way! His mother,
who had laid the egg from which he was hatched; who had sat upon the
nest through all the weary days and nights while he was growing inside
his shell; who had cuddled him under her soft feathers; who had taught
him all he knew, and would have fought any hawk to save him! She had
begun to love him before he even knew that he was, and had lived for him
and his brother and sisters ever since.

The mother said nothing more to him then. She spent the rest of the
night watching the stars and the moon and the first rosy flush of the
eastern sky which told that morning was near. Then she said to her
naughty Chicken, as he began to stir and cheep, "I shall never try to
make you eat gravel if you think you are too big to mind your mother. I
shall just tell you this, that you will never be strong unless you do. I
have not told you why, because you never asked, and I supposed you would
do as you ought without knowing the reason. You have no teeth, and you
cannot chew the grain you eat before it is swallowed. You have a strong
stomach, and if you eat gravel this stomach or gizzard will rub and
press the tiny stones against the grain until it is well broken up and
ready to make into fat and strength for your body."

"But it doesn't taste good," he replied, "and I'd rather eat other
things. I don't believe it matters, and I won't eat it anyway."

The Shanghai Hen flew down from the tree and clucked to her Chic