h diamond dyes so that he was a beautiful
scarlet. His name was Sumner.

I took Sumner the following morning and turned him loose among his old
neighbors. Surprise was written on every face. He realized his
advantage, and the first thing he did was to greet the astonished crowd
with a gutteral remark, which made them jump. He then stepped over to a
hated rival, and ate off about fifteen cents' worth of his large, red,
pompadour comb. He now remarked in a courteous way to a small
Poland-China hen, who seemed to be at the head of all works of social
improvement, that we were having rather a backward spring. Then he
picked out the eye of another rival, much to his surprise, and went on
with the conversation. By noon the bright scarlet rooster owned the
town. Those who had picked on him before had now gone to the hospital,
and practically the social world was his. He got so stuck up that he
crowed whenever the conversation lagged, and was too proud to eat a worm
that was not right off the ice. I never saw prosperity knock the sense
out of a rooster so soon. He lost my sympathy at once, and I resolved to
let him carve out his own career as best he might.

Gradually his tail feathers grew gray and faded, but he wore his head
high. He was arrogant and made the hens go worming for his breakfast by
daylight. Then he would get mad at the food and be real hateful and step
on the little chickens with his great big feet.

But as his new feathers began to come in folks got on to him, as Matthew
Arnold has it, and the other roosters began to brighten up and also blow
up their biceps muscles.

[Illustration: _He looked up sadly at me with his one eye as who should
say, "Have you got any more of that there red paint left?"_ (Page 105)]

One day he was especially mean at breakfast. A large fat worm, brought
to him by the flower of his harem, had a slight gamey flavor, he seemed
to think, and so he got mad and bit several chickens with his great
coarse beak and stepped on some more and made a perfect show of himself.

At this moment a small bantam wearing one eye still in mourning danced
up and kicked Sumner's eye out. Then another rival knocked the stuffing
for a whole sofa pillow out of Sumner, and retired. By this time the
surprised and gratified hens stepped back and gave the boys a chance.
The bantam now put on his trim little telegraph climbers and, going up
Mr. Sumner's powerful frame at about four jumps, he put in some repair