As might have been expected, the new poultry-house was no sooner finished than the fowls began to discuss who should live in the different parts. They could see no reason why they should not all run together, as they always had done. “Perhaps,” the Black Hen had said, “the Man may put us all together and let the table’s Chickens have pens to themselves.”

“What?” said the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen, “put me in one pen and my Chickens in another? That would never do.”

“You forget,” said the Shanghai Cock very gently, “that by winter-time they will not need your care any more, and you will not wish to be with them so much.” And that was true, for no matter how fond a Hen may be of her tiny Chickens, she is certain to care less for them when they are grown.

All the fowls were quite sure that they should have the best pen and yard, because they had been the longest on the place. After they had spoken of that, they had a great time in deciding which was the best pen. Part of the fowls wanted to be in the end toward the road, so that they could see all that went on there and look across to the other farm to watch their neighbors. The Cocks all preferred this. They liked excitement.

Some of the Hens wished to live in the pen next to the barn. “We are fond of the barn,” they said. “We have been there so much, and have laid so many eggs there that it seems like home. We know that it is not so comfortable, but it seems like home.”

However, the Cocks had their wish, and on the day when it was granted there was such a crowing from fence-tops as greatly puzzled the Man. He could not find anything in his books and papers to explain it, although he looked and looked and looked. At last one of the Little Girls told him what she thought, and she was exactly right. “It sounds to me as though they were just happy,” she said. You see the Man had not lived long enough on a farm to understand the language of poultry very well, so he had much to learn. There are many people who think themselves quite wise and yet cannot tell what one of a tiny Chicken’s five calls means, and there are some Men, even some fathers (and fathers need to know more than anybody else in the world, except mothers) who do not know that a Cock can say at least nine different things with the same cry, “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

This Man was a father and had been a school-teacher, too, so he was not an ignorant Man, and after his Little Girl said that he decided to learn poultry-talk. It took some weeks, but you shall hear by and by how well he succeeded.

The Man wanted to teach the Hens to lay in the new nests, so that he would not have to spend much time in egg-hunting, and because he wished to be sure of finding the eggs as soon as they were laid. People should grow good as they grow old, you know, but it is not so with the eggs. The Man did not want to shut the fowls in during the warm weather, for then he would have to feed them more, and that would cost too much money, yet he opened this front pen with its scratching-shed and yard, and fed them there every night. While they were feeding he closed the outer gate, so that they could not go back to roost on the trees or wherever they chose. The perches were comfortable, with room enough for all, and far enough apart so that those in the back rows did not have their bills brushed by the tails of those in front.

The Hens who had Chickens were now kept in the second pen from this, and so were quite safe from prowling Weasels and other hunters. In the front pen, you see, there were only full-grown fowls, and morning was a busy time for most of the laying Hens. The gate was not opened until the sun was well up, and by that time many of the Hens had laid in one of the cosy nests under the perches, nests which were so well roofed over that not even a pin-feather could have dropped into them from above. They were so very comfortable that even the Hens who did not lay before leaving the pen were soon glad to come strolling back to it, instead of fluttering and scrambling to some lonely corner of the hayloft in the barn.

On the first morning that the fowls were shut in there, a very queer thing happened. The first Hen to go on a nest exclaimed, “Why, who was here ahead of me?”

Nobody answered, and the Hen asked again.

At last the Speckled Hen said, “I think you are the first one to lay this morning.”

“The first one!” exclaimed the Black Hen, for it was she, as she backed out onto the floor again. “You must not expect me to believe that I am the first when there is an egg in the nest already.” As she spoke she pointed in with her bill, and the others came crowding around.

There lay a fine, large, and quite shiny egg. While they were still looking and wondering which Hen had laid it, the Brown Hen discovered that there was an egg in each of the six other nests. She was so excited that for a minute she could hardly cackle. The Black Hen began to look angry, and stood her feathers on end and shook herself in a way that she had when she was much displeased. She was not a good-natured Hen.

“You think that you are very smart,” she said, “but I think that you are very silly. Every fowl here knows that I always like to be the first on the nest in the morning, and yet seven of you must have laid in the night to get ahead of me. I don’t mind having an egg in the nest. Every Hen likes to find at least one there. It is the mean way in which you tried to prevent my getting ahead of the rest of you.”

The Hens insisted that they never took their feet from the perches all night long, and the Speckled Hen, who was a very kind little person, tried to show the Black Hen that it was all a mistake of some sort. “Perhaps they were laid in there yesterday,” said she, “only we did not notice them when we came in.”

The Cocks kept still, although they looked very knowing. They did not want to offend any of the Hens by taking sides. At last the Brown Hen spoke. It always seemed that she made some trouble every time she opened her bill. “I remember,” said she, “that there was not an egg there when I went to roost last night. The last thing I did before flying up onto my perch was to look in all the nests and try to decide which I preferred.”

Then there was more trouble, and in the midst of it the Speckled Hen hopped into one of the nests. “Sorry to get ahead of you,” she said politely to the Black Hen, “but the truth is that I feel like laying.” She gave a little squawk as she brushed against the egg there. “It is light!” she cried. “It is light and slippery! None of us ever laid such an egg as that.”

“Of course not,” said one of the Cocks, who now saw his way to stop the trouble. “Of course none of you lay that sort of eggs. I could have told you that long ago, if you had asked me.”

When the fowls were all looking at each other and wondering what sort of creature it could be who had slipped in and laid the eggs there, a tiny door in the outside wall, just back of one of the nests, was opened, and the Man peeped in. All he saw was a number of fowls standing around and looking as though they had been very much surprised. Half of the Hens stood with one foot in the air. He dropped the door, which was hinged at the top, and then the fowls looked at each other again. It was a great comfort to them at times like these to be able to look both ways at once. “The Man opened those little doors while we were asleep, and put those eggs in,” they said. “They are not Hens’ eggs at all. Probably they are some that his table laid.”

It was only a minute before all the nests were in use, and soon the noise of puzzled and even angry clucking was replaced by the joyous cackling of Hens who felt that they had done their work for the day. “Of course,” said the Speckled Hen, “those eggs cannot be so good as the ones we lay, but I do not mind the feeling of them at all. And I must say that finding them already in a strange nest makes it seem much more homelike to me. This Man acts as though he really understood Hens and wanted to make them happy.”