“What a dreadful story!” exclaimed a hen; “it so frightened me that I did not dare to sleep alone in the hen-house all night. I was glad there were so many of us.” And she began to relate to the other hens who were on the roosting-perch above, the story she had heard, till their feathers stood on end, and even the cock let his comb droop, it was so dreadful.

But we will begin at the beginning, and discover what really had happened in the hen-house on the other side of the town.

One evening just before sunset the hens as usual went early to roost, and among them was a pretty hen with white feathers and short legs, who laid regularly such fine eggs that she was very valuable, and much esteemed by all her relations.

As this hen was flying up in the hen-house to the roosting-perch, she either pecked or scratched herself with her beak till one of her feathers fell off.

“There goes another,” she said good humoredly; “how beautiful I shall look if one falls off every time I scratch myself.” This white hen was not only very much esteemed, but also the merriest of all the hens in the hen-house.

But she forgot all about the fallen feather, and was soon asleep.

It became quite dark. The hens were seated side by side near each other on the perch, but one of them could not sleep, for she had partly heard what the white hen said.

The wakeful hen stayed and thought, and then said to her next neighbor: “Have you heard? I name no one, but a hen has plucked out all her feathers, and is not fit to be seen. If I were the cock, I should despise her.”

The gossiping hen soon after left the hen-house, and went to visit an owl who lived just opposite with her husband and children. The owl families have very sharp ears, and they heard every word that their neighbor the hen said, and the little ones rolled their eyes about while the mother owl fanned herself with her wings.

“To repeat just what you have been told is nothing,” continued the hen, “but I really and truly heard what was said with my own ears, and people must hear a great deal, even if they do disapprove. It is about a hen who has forgotten what was due to herself in her high position; she has pulled out all her feathers, and then allowed the world to see her in that bare condition.”

“Prenez garde aux enfants,” said the owl father, “all this is not fit for the children to hear.”

“I will just fly over and tell my neighbor,” said the mother owl; “she is a very highly esteemed owl, and worthy of our acquaintance.”

“Hu! hu! uhu!” howled the children, as the mother flew away and passed by her neighbors, the pigeons, who were in the pigeon-house.

“Have you heard—have you heard about the hen that has plucked off all her feathers, and is going about quite bare? She will freeze to death, if she is not dead already.”

“Ooo! Ooo!” cooed the pigeons.

“I heard of it in the neighboring farm-yard,” said another; “I have as good as seen it with my own eyes. The story is really so improper that no one cares to relate it, but it is certainly true.”

“We believe it, we believe every word,” said the pigeons, and they flew down cooing to the farm-yard, and exclaimed:

“Have you heard about the hen?”

“The hen! why, people now say there are two hens who have plucked off all their feathers; yet one of them is not like the first, who did not wish to be seen, for she has positively tried to attract the attention of everybody.”

“It was a daring game; however, they caught cold, and are both dead from a fever.”

“Wake up! wake up!” crowed the cock as he flew out of the hen-house to the palings. Sleep was still in his eyes, yet he stood and crowed lustily.

“Listen,” said the hen. “There is a cock in the next farm who has unluckily lost three of his wives; they had plucked off all their feathers, and died of cold.”

“Go away!” he exclaimed. “I will not hear it—it is an ugly story. Send it away!”

“Send it away!” hissed the bat, while the hens cackled and the cock crowed.

“Send it away! send it away!” and so the story flew from one farm-yard to another, until it came back at last to the place where the original circumstance occurred.

“There are five hens,” thus now ran the story, “who have plucked off all their feathers, at least so they say; and it made the cock so unhappy that he became quite thin. And he has pecked himself so dreadfully ever since from indignation and shame that at last he has fallen down and died, covered with blood. For these hens had not only disgraced his family, but occasioned a great loss to his owner.”

And the hen who had really lost the one feather naturally could not recognize her own story, but she was a sensible, worthy hen, and she said:

“I despise these cackling hens; however, there shall be no more tittle-tattle of this sort. When people have a secret among themselves to gossip about in future, I will find it out, and send it to the newspapers, so that it may travel through the whole land and be heard of by everybody.

“This will just serve these cackling hens and their families right.”

And the newspapers took it up and so altered the wonderful story that at the last “it was actually true”—“ONE LITTLE FEATHER HAD BECOME FIVE HENS!”