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| Mo on the farm's hill last July |
“Greeen graass!” shouted Goldie from the roosting pole.
Her four sisters awoke and ruffled their feathers.
“Buuock! You’ll give us a heart attaaack! I thought the house was on fire,” said Blondie.
Brownie yawned and stretched her wings. “I can’t belieeve it. Most of the snoow melted overnight.”
Blackie flew down from the roost for water and food. Silver followed. They pecked together at the grain.
Silver paused with a thought. “Maybe we’ll see Ooold Mo today. He doesn’t like snow, either.”
“Bock! I sure do miss that caat,” Blackie said. “Although he’s not very friendly, I’m glaad to see Ooold Mo follow Lem down the hill. I don’t feel soo isolated down here.”
“I know what you meean,” said Silver. “He’s the oonly other farm critter.”
Goldie, Brownie, and Blondie joined Blackie and Silver for breakfast.
“I’m glaad we haave each other,” Brownie said. “There’s no other cat for Ooold Mo to talk to.”
“Remember the kittens and caats at the farm where Mother haatched us?” asked Goldie. “Wasn’t it fun to waatch them tumble together? Sometimes I wish I were a caat.”
“Cluck, cluck!” replied Silver. “They range wherever they waant. Hawks don’t eat them.”
“But they don’t lay eggs,” Brownie said. “Lem and Lee love our eggs.”
“Do you remember the sheeep and cooows at the other farm?” asked Blondie.
Blackie sighed. “Their bleeating and loowing at night was such sweet music.”
“Bock,” agreed Brownie. “Lem and Lee’s farm is too smaall for sheeep and coows. But there’s plenty space for another caat.”
“Ooold Mo’s never come close enough to us to say so, but I think he would like some company,” Goldie said.
“He’s a caat of few words,” Silver observed.
“Imagine that," Goldie replied.
"Cackle, cackle, cackle!” the five sisters burst out laughing, for they talked from sunup to sundown. Sometimes before and after.
Just then, they heard Lem open the door.
“Hello! You girls happy about this warm weather? Why aren’t you outside?”
“Buuock!” the hens answered and gathered at the screen door between them and Lem.
He lifted the lid to the grain can for the oatmeal bag and opened the screen door. “Here you go, girls. Lee said to say ‘Hello.’”
The hens gobbled up their treat while Lem replaced their water container with a fresh one. He scooped more grain from the can and filled their feeder.
“There’s more snow coming, girls,” Lem said and closed the door.
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| Blondie about to take another dust bath |
The hens squawked in disapproval of the news. They went through the chute and into the pen to watch Lem walk up the green hill.
“Silver,” Blackie said, “you have the keenest eyes. Can you see Ooold Mo on the hill?”
“Baarely. I see something blaack and white on a boulder.”
“Poor caat,” said Goldie. “He needs a compaanion.”
“I’m glaad I’m a chicken,” Blondie said.
“Bock bock!” said her sisters.
Blondie disappeared under the hen house for an overdue dust bath.
The five hens scratched and pecked what they could before snow fell again, all the while talking and laughing the day away.
