ooking at her."

"_Prenez garde aux enfants_," said the Father-Owl. "That's not a story for
the children to hear."

"I'll tell it to the neighbor owl; she's a very proper owl to associate
with." And she flew away.

"Hoo! hoo! to-whoo!" they both screeched in front of the neighbor's
dove-cote to the doves within. "Have you heard it? Have you heard it? Hoo!
hoo! there's a hen who has pulled out all her feathers for the sake of the
cock. She'll die with cold, if she's not dead already."

"Coo! coo! Where, where?" cried the Pigeons.

"In the neighbor's poultry-yard. I've as good as seen it myself. It's
hardly proper to repeat the story, but it's quite true!"

"Believe it! believe every single word of it!" cooed the Pigeons, and they
cooed down into their own poultry-yard. "There's a hen, and some say that
there are two of them that have plucked out all their feathers, that they
may not look like the rest, and that they may attract the cock's
attention. That's a dangerous thing to do, for one may catch cold and die
of a fever, and they are both dead."

[Illustration: "Pass it on," piped the bats.]

"Wake up! wake up!" crowed the Cock, and he flew up on to the plank; his
eyes were still heavy with sleep, but yet he crowed. "Three hens have died
of a broken heart. They have plucked out all their feathers. That's a
terrible story. I won't keep it to myself; pass it on."

"Pass it on!" piped the Bats; and the fowls clucked and the cocks crowed,
"Pass it on! Pass it on!" And so the story traveled from poultry-yard to
poultry-yard, and at last came back to the place from which it had gone
forth.

"Five fowls," it was told, "have plucked out all their feathers to show
which of them had become thinnest out of love to the cock; and then they
have pecked each other, and fallen down dead, to the shame and disgrace of
their families, and to the great loss of their master."

And the Hen who had lost the little loose feather, of course did not know
her own story again; and as she was a very respectable Hen, she said,--

"I despise those hens; but there are many of that sort. One ought not to
hush up such a thing, and I shall do what I can that the story may get into
the papers, and then it will be spread over all the country, and that will
serve those hens right, and their families too."

It was put into the newspaper; it was printed; and it's quite true--_that
one little feather may easily become five hens_.

THE OL