Biscuit Counts Everyone In
Biscuit was an old sheepdog with her own numbers. They went one, two, both, several, plenty. They are not the numbers they teach at school. But Biscuit had been counting with them on Hill Farm for eleven years, and they had never once come out wrong.
Plenty was the best of them. Plenty meant everybody.
Hill Farm sat on top of a round green hill, with a duck pond at the bottom and a tin rooster on the barn roof. Every evening, when the sun went down behind the far hills, Biscuit counted everyone in. She had never once gone to her basket by the kitchen fire before every animal on the farm was counted and settled. She counted most things twice, just to be sure. And she liked to be in her basket before Mom put out the kitchen lamp, because the last of the fire is the best part to fall asleep by.
Mom always said she was not going to wait for that dog. Mom always waited.
Upstairs, at the little window over the porch, Rosie was supposed to be in bed. She had her nightie on, so that was half of it. Every evening she knelt on the window seat to watch Biscuit go round, and every evening Mom said, “Bed, Rosie,” and Rosie said, “When Biscuit’s done.” She had watched so many times that she knew the numbers too.
Biscuit began, as she always began, at the hen house. The hens were already going up their little ramp, in no hurry at all, the way hens go anywhere. Biscuit sat by the door and counted them in.
“One, two, both, several,” she said.
Then she put her nose round the door and counted them again on the perch. “One, two, both, several.” Several hens. That was right.
Then she sat down in the yard and looked up at the barn roof, because there was one more to come.
On the very top of the barn stood the Tin Rooster, who had spent the whole day pointing at the wind. As the sun slipped behind the far hills, he gave a long creak and let go of his pole. He came down the slope of the roof on his tin feet, creak, creak, creak. He dropped onto the rain barrel with a clang, and off the rain barrel with a clank, and then he walked across the yard, clank, clank, clank, with his tin tail up. He looked like a rooster who had had a long day at the top of things, and he had.
“Evening, Biscuit,” said the Tin Rooster. “West all day. Light. It’s gone quiet now.”
“One rooster,” said Biscuit. “Thank you.”
That is why the nights on Hill Farm are so still. With the Tin Rooster off the roof, there is nobody up there to tell the wind which way to go. So the wind lies down in the long grass at the bottom of the hill and waits for morning. Before the sun comes up, the Tin Rooster clanks back up the barn roof, so the wind will know where to start.
The hens were quite used to him. They shuffled along the perch to make room in the middle. His tin was always cold after a day in the wind, so the hen on his left and the hen on his right fluffed up their feathers and leaned on him. By the time Biscuit pushed the door shut with her nose, he was as warm as a spoon left in a cup of tea.
Biscuit dropped the latch with her paw and counted once more through the crack. Several hens and one rooster.
Up at her window, Rosie said it under her breath. “Several and a rooster.”
The goat was standing on the upside-down wheelbarrow, because a goat will always stand on the highest thing in the yard.
“One,” said Biscuit. She looked again. “One.”
A goat is very hard to count wrong, but Biscuit counted twice all the same. The goat got down off the wheelbarrow and walked into the shed, which was all Biscuit had wanted.
In the cow barn the two cows were already lying in the straw, chewing in the slow, sideways way that cows chew.
“One, two, both,” said Biscuit. “One, two, both.”
The cows did not stop chewing. They were used to being both.
Then came Hamlet. Hamlet was a large pig. He was a very large pig, and a dignified one, and he was standing in the middle of his sty with his chin up, waiting.
“Good evening, Hamlet,” said Biscuit.
“Two, please,” said Hamlet.
He said it every single night. Biscuit went to his front end, where his ears were, and his good pink nose. “One,” she said. Then she walked the whole way round him, which took a little while, to his back end, where his tail was. “Two,” she said.
“Thank you,” said Hamlet. “Both of me are very tired.” And he lay down in the straw all at once, with a whump that rattled the gate.
Now, you might think a sheepdog would mind counting one pig as two, night after night. Biscuit did not mind at all. A pig that size has earned it. And she never counted Hamlet twice, the way she counted everyone else. Hamlet always came to two, and on that subject he could be trusted.
Up at her window, Rosie laughed and put her hand over her mouth.
Last of all, Biscuit went down the hill to the duck pond. The sky had gone the deep blue it goes just before the stars, and the moon was coming up round and yellow behind the barn.
The ducks were out in the middle of the pond. The ducks always wanted one last swim. It was never really one, but it was always called that.
Biscuit did not bark. A young sheepdog knows that you cannot hurry a duck. An old sheepdog knows that you should not try. She lay down on the bank with her chin on her paws and watched them go round. Once round the pond. Twice round the pond, which she counted, to be sure. Then the ducks came paddling in, one, two, both, several, and climbed out onto the grass, and shook their tails.
“Lovely swim,” said the first duck.
“I’m glad,” said Biscuit, and she was.
She walked them up the hill in a line, ducks in front and Biscuit behind. They went slowly, because ducks are not made for hills and Biscuit was in no hurry. At the top the ducks went into the duck house beside the farmhouse. Biscuit counted them in at the door, and again through the little round window. Several ducks.
Then Biscuit sat on the farmhouse step, looked out over all of Hill Farm, and counted it one last time. The hen house: several hens and a rooster. The shed: one goat. The cow barn: both cows. The sty: Hamlet, who was two. The duck house: several ducks. She put them all together, the way she did every night.
“One, two, both, several,” said Biscuit. “Plenty.”
Plenty. That was the right number for Hill Farm. It always was.
Behind her, in the kitchen window, the lamp was still lit, but only just. Mom had her hand on it. She opened the door.
“There you are,” said Mom. “I wasn’t waiting.”
Biscuit trotted across the kitchen floor to her basket by the fire. She turned round three times, the way she always did, and lay down with a sigh. Mom put out the lamp, and the kitchen was all orange firelight.
Then Biscuit saw Rosie sitting on the bottom stair in her nightie, with her knees pulled up inside it.
“Rosie,” said Mom. “Bed.”
“In a minute,” said Rosie. “Biscuit missed one.”
Biscuit lifted her head. She had not missed one. She had never missed one in her life. She had counted every creature on Hill Farm, and most of them twice.
Rosie came across the kitchen in her bare feet and knelt down by the basket. She put her hand on Biscuit’s head, between the ears, where the fur was going gray.
“And one Biscuit,” said Rosie. “Now everyone’s in. Goodnight, Biscuit.”
Then she went up the stairs, and Mom went up after her.
Biscuit put her chin down on the edge of her basket. In eleven years of counting everyone in, she had never thought to count herself. Tonight somebody had. One Biscuit. In. That was right.
Out in the yard the hens were asleep, with the Tin Rooster warm in the middle. The goat was asleep in the shed, and both cows in the barn, and both of Hamlet in his straw. The ducks were asleep with their heads tucked under their wings. Down at the bottom of the hill, the wind lay in the long grass and waited for morning.
And in her basket by the fire, Biscuit fell asleep too, warm and glad and counted. Everyone on Hill Farm was in for the night, and that came to plenty, and one Biscuit.