en can't be of much
account."

That speech made Henrietta Hen almost lose her temper.

"Mr. Green," she cried, "is a fine man. And I'll have you know that I
wouldn't live anywhere but on his farm!"

XXIII

GETTING ACQUAINTED

Not liking her neighbor on her right, at the fair, Henrietta Hen sidled
up to the wire netting on the opposite side of her pen. Peering through
it, she examined the person whom she saw just beyond, in a pen of her
own.

A very sleek hen was this, who gave Henrietta a slight nod.

"We may as well speak," she said, "since we're to live next to each other
for a week."

"A week!" Henrietta groaned. "Shall I have to stay cooped up here as long
as that?"

"Yes!" said Neighbor Number 2. "And I don't blame you for feeling as you
seem to. A week is a long time for everybody here--except me."

Henrietta Hen didn't understand her.

"I'm going to win the first prize--with my chicks," Neighbor Number 2
announced. "Of course _that's_ worth waiting here a week."

"I don't see how _you_ can win the first prize!" Henrietta exclaimed.

"Why not?" demanded the other. And she pressed against the wire netting
of her pen and stuck her head through it as far as she could, as if she
would have pecked Henrietta had she been able to.

"Because--" Henrietta explained--"because the lady on the other side of
me is going to win it."

"Who said so?"

"She did," Henrietta answered.

"Ha! ha!" cackled Neighbor Number 2. "That's a good joke. She hasn't any
more chance of winning than--than _you_ have!"

Now, Henrietta Hen couldn't help being puzzled. But whoever might win the
first prize, she was sure it couldn't be she. Hadn't her neighbors on
either side of her the same as told her that she couldn't win?

Henrietta would have felt quite glum, except that she couldn't very well
mope in the midst of the terrific racket all about her. Soon her
neighbors--both Number 1 and Number 2--were having loud disputes with the
hens in the pens on the further side of them. It seemed as if every hen
at the fair had left her manners at home--if she ever had any.

"Goodness!" Henrietta Hen murmured to herself. "If there's a prize, it
must be for the one that can make the most noise."

In a little while throngs of men, women and children crowded into the
Poultry Hall. They paused before the pens and looked at the occupants,
making remarks that were sometimes full of praise and sometimes
slighting.

Henrietta He