"Then you must be ill," Henrietta retorted, "for I've never known you to
go to sleep again, once you've begun your morning's crowing."

"But it's not morning now," the Rooster informed her. "It's not even late
at night--certainly not an hour since sunset."

Henrietta Hen was astonished.

"I noticed that the night seemed short," she muttered.

The Rooster thought it a great joke.

"Ha! ha!" he laughed. And he said to the rest of the flock, with a
chuckle, "Henrietta thought it was morning! No doubt she'd have gone out
into the yard if the door hadn't been shut." And the other hens all
tittered. They always did, if the rooster expected them to.

Well, if there was one thing that Henrietta Hen couldn't endure, it was
to be laughed at.

"Don't be silly!" she cried. "Why shouldn't I think it was morning, when
he crowed almost in my ear?"

"Don't you know why I crowed?" the Rooster asked her. And without waiting
for any reply, he said, "I crowed to let Farmer Green know it was going
to rain to-morrow."

Of course Henrietta Hen had to have the last word. The Rooster might have
known she would.

"Then," she observed, "I suppose you squawked to let him know there was a
skunk in the henhouse."

XVIII

IN NEED OF ADVICE

Something was troubling Henrietta Hen. She seemed to have some secret
sorrow. No longer did she move with her well-known queenly manner among
her neighbors in the farmyard. Instead, she spent a good deal of her time
moping. And no one could guess the reason. She didn't even care to talk
to anybody--not even to boast about her fine, speckled coat. And that
certainly was not in the least like Henrietta Hen.

Always, before, Henrietta had seized every chance to parade before the
public. Now she seemed to crave privacy.

What was the matter? To tell the truth, Henrietta Hen herself did not
know the answer to that question. That is to say, she did not know _why_
a certain thing was so. She only knew that a great misfortune had
befallen her. And she dreaded to tell anybody about it.

To be sure, there was old Whitey--a hen who had lived on the farm longer
than any other. Most members of the flock often asked her advice. Even
Henrietta herself had done that. But this difficulty was something she
didn't want to mention to a neighbor. If there were only somebody outside
the flock to whom she could go for help! But she knew of no one.

Then Henrietta happened to hear of Aunt Polly Woodchuck.