The whole barn-yard was in the notion of improving the popular capacity
to sing. And Daddy Longlegs came near breaking his neck in his hurry to
get up on a barrel-head to advocate a measure that he saw was likely to
be popular.
But it did not come to anything. The only song that the rooster could
ever sing was the one in Mother Goose, about the dame losing her shoe and
the master his fiddle-stick, at which Professor Mocking-bird couldn't
help smiling. Mr. Peacock, the gentleman of leisure, could do nothing
more than his frightful "ne-onk!" which made everybody shiver more than a
saw-file would. Gander White said he himself had a good ear for music,
but a poor voice, while the Hon. Turkey Pompous said he had a fine bass
voice, but no ear for tune. Dr. Parrot was heard to say "Humbug!" when
the whole company turned to him for an explanation. He was at that moment
taking his morning gymnastic exercise, by swinging himself from perch to
perch, holding on by his beak. When he got through, he straightened up
and said:
"In the first place, you all made sport of a stranger about whom you knew
nothing. I spent many years of my life with a learned doctor of divinity,
and I often heard him speak severely of the sin of rash judgments.
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