The Rooster Whose Crow Went Visiting
Once, on a round green hill, there was a golden farm, and on that farm a rooster’s crow was a thing you could see.
When a rooster crowed there, his crow came out of his beak as a ring of gold light. It rolled down the henhouse roof, bounced once in the yard, and went bowling round the farm like a hoop with somewhere to be. Whatever it touched woke up. It touched the ducks on the pond, and the ducks woke up. It touched the pig in the straw, and the hens on their perches, and Bess the cow in her stall, and they all woke up. Then it rolled back up the roof and popped into the rooster’s beak, the way a hat goes back on its peg.
The rooster was called Rufus. He was red all over and proud all over, and he had the finest comb on the hill, because he took care of it. Every night he borrowed the feather duster from its hook by the farmhouse door and polished his comb until it shone. Every morning, before anyone in the farmhouse was up, he hung the duster back on its hook. Nobody in the farmhouse ever found out. They only wondered, now and then, why the feather duster smelled faintly of rooster.
Rufus was sure of one thing above all. The sun came up because he told it to. Each dawn he flew to the top of the henhouse, puffed out his chest and crowed, and each dawn, a little after, the sun came up over the hill.
“You see?” Rufus said to the yard. “It waits for me.”
Nobody argued. It is hard to argue with a rooster before breakfast.
There was one more thing about Rufus, and he would not have wanted it told, so I will say it quietly. Behind the water trough, every morning, the smallest chick in the yard practised crowing. Her name was Dot. She stood on tiptoe, stretched her neck as long as it would go, opened her beak as wide as it would go, and out came “peep.” No ring. Not even a spark. Rufus could have strutted right past and stared. Instead he went the long way round the trough every single morning, so that Dot would never know anyone had heard.
So one morning, when Rufus’s crow woke everybody and then went bowling off behind the water trough, Rufus did not see it go. He was going the long way round, admiring his comb in the farmhouse window. And he did not see that it never came back.
You may already have an idea where it went. Rufus had no idea at all, and he did not find out it was gone until that evening.
Every evening, after his polish, Rufus did his practice. He let out one small crow, no bigger than a saucer, and sent it once round the weathervane and home again.
That evening he dusted his comb, cleared his throat and opened his beak.
Nothing came out. Not a ring. Not a spark. Not even a peep.
He tried again, harder, with his eyes shut. Nothing.
Rufus dropped the feather duster. “The sun will not rise without me!” he said.
There was nothing for it. He had to wake the yard by hand, or rather by wing. He knocked on the henhouse door. He flapped at the ducks until they came off the pond. He stood on the pig’s gate and shouted, and he shouted into Bess’s ear until she opened one large brown eye.
“I have lost my crow,” said Rufus. “If we don’t find it by dawn, the sun will not come up, and it will be night on this hill for ever. No breakfast. No dew drying off. You will all have to sleep until you are flat.”
It was a lovely night, with stars over the hill in great handfuls, but nobody stopped to look.
Rufus counted heads, because even in a fluster he counted heads. “Where’s Dot?” he said.
Old Hen Maud fluffed herself on her perch. She was the eldest hen on the farm, and she had seen a great many mornings, and she did not waste words on any of them.
“Busy,” said Old Hen Maud.
Rufus was much too worried to ask what she was busy with.
First they looked in the well. Rufus leaned over the edge and called, “Hello? Are you down there?”
“Down there,” said the well.
“Is that you?” said Rufus.
“That you,” said the well.
It was only the echo. An echo is very willing, but it is no help at all in a search.
Next they looked in the haystack. Bess had her own way of searching, which was to lie down on things and see if they squeaked. She lay down on the wheelbarrow, which squeaked, but only because it always did. She lay down on a bucket, which did not squeak, and was never quite the same shape again. Then she lay down on the haystack, which took some doing, and stayed there a long time, listening.
“A crow doesn’t squeak, Bess,” said Rufus.
“Anything lost squeaks a bit, if you lie on it,” said Bess. “You’d be surprised.”
But there was nothing in the haystack except hay, and nothing on top of it except Bess.
“The sun will not rise without me,” said Rufus. He said it more quietly this time, and he looked up at the sky as if he were checking.
Last of all, Rufus flew up the barn roof to the weathervane, which was the highest place on the hill. “If my crow were lost,” he said, “it would go somewhere high, to look for me.”
There was nobody on the weathervane but the iron rooster, and the wind did not have it either.
Over the edge of the hill, the blue was going pale. Then it was going pink.
“The sun will not rise without me,” said Rufus, very small. “Will it?”
At that very moment, a great gold ring came rolling off the henhouse roof.
It was as big as a cartwheel. It bounced once in the yard and went bowling round the farm, past the pond and the pig and the haystack and Bess. Everyone it touched woke up, even though they were all awake already. They simply woke up more.
Rufus knew that ring.
He flapped down off the barn and up onto the henhouse, and there, on tiptoe, with her neck stretched as long as it would go, stood Dot.
The gold ring rolled back up the roof and popped into her beak, the way a hat goes back on its peg.
“I’m sorry,” said Dot. “It came round behind the trough yesterday, and it just stayed. I didn’t take it. I think it came to visit. I’ve been up here all night trying to get it out, so I could give it back.”
Rufus opened his beak to say that the sun would not rise without him. Then he looked over his shoulder. The sun was coming up, round and gold, sitting on the hill like an egg in an egg cup.
Rufus shut his beak again.
“Did it go all the way round?” he said instead.
“All the way,” said Dot.
“Round the pond?”
“And back,” said Dot.
“Then you did it properly,” said Rufus. “The coming back is the hard part.”
Dot opened her beak, and Rufus’s crow rolled out, small and polite, and hopped across into his. He tried a little saucer-sized one, just to check. It went round the weathervane and came home.
Dot stood on tiptoe, stretched her neck as long as it would go, and tried one of her own. Out came a ring no bigger than a saucer, wobbly but gold, and it went round the weathervane and came home.
“Properly,” said Rufus, and this time he did not look away.
Then Rufus sat down on the henhouse roof rather suddenly. “It would have come up anyway,” he said. “All these years.” He thought about it for a while. “Do you know, that’s a great weight off my comb.”
That night Rufus borrowed the feather duster and polished two combs instead of one. His own took a long time. Dot’s took one stroke, because it was very new.
In the morning he flew to the top of the henhouse, and Dot fluttered up beside him. Rufus did not say anything about the sun. He said, “Ready?”
They crowed together. Out of Rufus’s beak came a big gold ring, and out of Dot’s came a little one, every bit as gold. They rolled down the roof side by side and went bowling round the farm, and everyone they touched woke up. Then each one went home to its own beak.
Old Hen Maud watched them from her perch. She had seen a great many mornings, and this was a good one.
“A crow that goes visiting is never lost,” said Old Hen Maud. “It comes home with company.”
That was all she said about it, then or ever.
From that day on, Rufus shared the henhouse roof with Dot every dawn. The sun came up every morning over the round green hill without being told. But it was always told good morning, twice, by a big gold ring and a small one, and Rufus said that was a much better job than being in charge of the sun.
The end.