"Who won second and third?" cried a noisy hen from across the way.

"They're both at the other end of the hall!" somebody shrieked.

"It's an outrage! It isn't fair! We've been cheated!" Henrietta Hen's
nearest neighbors clamored. But nobody paid any attention to them.

As for Henrietta, she didn't quite know how to act. She had intended,
when she left home, to do a good deal of strutting back and forth in her
pen, with now and then a pause to preen herself, to make sure that she
looked her best. But somehow she no longer cared to put on grand airs, as
of old. She remembered that some of the other hens at the fair had been
haughty and proud and had smoothed their feathers, declaring boldly that
they expected to win the first prize.

Henrietta had heard it said that fine feathers don't make fine birds. And
she knew at last what that meant. It meant that gay clothes and lofty
ways and boastful talk were of no account at all.

So Henrietta tried to behave as if nothing unusual had happened. She told
her chicks that they were going home that evening, and that she would be
glad to be back on the farm again, among plain home-folks.

At last Johnnie Green and his father came to load Henrietta and her
family into the wagon.

"Well," said the old horse Ebenezer to Henrietta. "Did you enjoy the
races?"

"I didn't have a chance to see them," she replied.

"That's a pity," he told her. And then he asked her, "What's that blue
tag hanging from your pen?"

"That--" said Henrietta--"that means that my chicks won the first prize."

"She helped win it herself," cried old dog Spot, who was yelping about
the wagon. "Our little speckled hen was the best hen at the fair!"

"Nonsense!" Henrietta exclaimed. But, all the same, she couldn't help
being pleased.

THE END

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SLUMBER-TOWN TALES
(Trademark Registered.)
By ARTHUR SCOTT BAILEY
AUTHOR OF THE
SLEEPY-TIME TALES and TUCK-ME-IN TALES
Colored Wrapper and Text Illustrations Drawn by HARRY L. SMITH

These are fascinating stories of farmyard folk for boys and girls from
about four to eight years of age.

THE TALE OF MISS KITTY CAT

When Mrs. Rat saw Miss Kitty Cat washing her face, she knew it meant
rain. And she wouldn't let her husband leave home without his umbrella.

THE TALE OF HENRIETTA HEN

Henrietta Hen was an empty-headed creature with strange notions. She
never laid an egg w