Among the Farmyard PeoplePierson, Clara Dillingham
History
Among the Farmyard People
Pierson, Clara Dillingham
Animals -- Juvenile fiction; Children's stories; Farm life -- Juvenile fiction; Natural history -- Juvenile fiction
So the young Queen flew far away and saw the beautiful world for the
first time. Such a blue sky! Such green grass! Such fine trees covered
with sweet-smelling blossoms! She loved it all as soon as she saw it.
"Ah," she cried, "what a wonderful thing it is to live and see all this!
I am so glad that I was hatched. But now I must hurry home, for there is
so much to be done."
She was a fine young Queen, and the Bees were all proud of her. They let
her do anything she wished as long as she kept away from the royal
cells. She soon began to work as the old Queen Mother had done, and was
very happy in her own way. She would have liked to open the royal cells
and prevent more Queens from hatching, and when they told her it was the
law which made them keep her away, she still wanted to bite into them.
"That poor young Queen Mother!" sighed the tender-hearted Worker. "I am
so sorry for her when she is kept away from the royal cells. This is a
sad, sad world!" But this isn't a sad world by any means. It is a
beautiful, sunshiny, happy world, and neither Queen Bees nor anybody
else should think it hard if they cannot do every single thing they
wish. The law looks after great and small, and there is no use in
pouting because we cannot do one certain thing, when there is any amount
of delightful work and play awaiting us. And the young Queen Mother knew
this.
THE BAY COLT LEARNS TO MIND
The span of Bays were talking together in their stalls, and the other
Horses were listening. That was one trouble with living in the barn, you
could not say anything to your next-door neighbor without somebody else
hearing. The farmer had solid walls between the stalls, with openings so
far back that no Horse could get his head to them without breaking his
halter. This had been done to keep them from biting each other, and as
nobody but the Dappled Gray ever thought of doing such a thing, it was
rather hard on the rest. It made it difficult for the mothers to bring
up their children properly, for after a Colt was old enough to have a
stall to himself, his mother had to call out her advice and warnings so
loudly that everybody could hear, and you know it is not well to reprove
a child before company if it can be helped. Indeed, it was this very
question that was troubling the span of Bays now. Each of them had a
two-year-old Colt, and they knew that it was nearly time for the farmer
to put these Colts to work. The span of Bays were sisters, so of course
their children were cousins, and they were all very fond of each other
and of the Blind Horse, who was the uncle of the Bays and the
great-uncle of the Bay Colt and the Gray Colt.
"I am worried about the Bay Colt," said his mother. "Since he was
brought into the barn last fall and had a stall away from me, he has
gotten into bad ways. I have told him again and again that he must not
nibble the edge of the manger, yet the first thing I heard this morning
was the grating of his teeth on the wood."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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