"We want to sleep here," answered the Chicken on the ground. "There is plenty of room if those fellows wouldn't push." Then he flew up and clung and pushed until some other Chicken tumbled off.
"Well!" said the Black Spanish Cock. And he would have said much more if the Black Spanish Hen had not fluttered down from the apple-tree to see what was the matter. When he saw the expression of her eyes he decided to go back to his perch.
"There is not room for you all," said the Black Spanish Hen. "One must sleep somewhere else."
"There _is_ room," said the Chickens, contradicting her. "We have always roosted on here."
"There is _not_ room," said the Black Spanish Hen once more. "How do your feathers grow?"
"They are getting very big," was the answer.
"Do you think the Speckled Hen could cover you all with her wings if she were to try it now?"
The Chickens looked at each other and laughed. They thought it would take three Speckled Hens to cover them.
"But she used to," said the Black Spanish Hen. She did not say anything more. She just looked at the potato-crate and at them and at the potato-crate again. Then she walked off.
After a while one of the Chickens said: "I guess perhaps there isn't room for us all there."
The mischievous one said: "If you little Chickens want to roost there you may. I am too large for that sort of thing." Then he walked up the slanting board to the apple-tree branch and perched there beside the young Shanghais. You should have seen how beautifully he did it. His toes hooked themselves around the branch as though he had always perched there, and he tucked his head under his wing with quite an air. Before long his brothers and sisters came also, and heard him saying to one of his new neighbors, "Oh, yes, I much prefer apple-trees, but when I was a Chicken I used to sleep on a potato-crate."
"Just listen to him!" whispered the Black Spanish Cock. "And he hasn't a tail-feather worth mentioning!"
"Never mind," answered the Black Spanish Hen. "Let them play that they are grown up if they want to. They will be soon enough." She sighed as she put her head under her wing and settled down for the night. It made her feel old to see her children roosting in a tree.