The Farm-Yard Cock and the Weather-Cock
There were two cocks--one on the dung-hill, the other on the roof. They were both
arrogant, but which of the two rendered most service? Tell us your opinion--we'll
keep to ours just the same though.
The poultry yard was divided by some planks from another yard in which there was a dung-hill, and
on the dung-hill lay and grew a large cucumber which was conscious of being a hot-bed plant.
"One is born to that," said the cucumber to itself. "Not all can be born cucumbers; there must be
other things, too. The hens, the ducks, and all the animals in the next yard are creatures too.
Now I have a great opinion of the yard cock on the plank; he is certainly of much more importance
than the weather-cock who is placed so high and can't even creak, much less crow. The latter has
neither hens nor chicks, and only thinks of himself and perspires verdigris. No, the yard cock
is really a cock! His step is a dance! His crowing is music, and weather he goes one knows what a
trumpeter is like! If he would only come in here! Even if he ate me up stump, stalk, and all, and
I had to dissolve in his body, it would be a happy death," said the cucumber.
In the night there was terrible storm. The hens, chicks, and even the cock sought shelter; the
wind tore down the planks between the two yards with a crash; the tiles came tumbling down, but
the weather-cock sat firm. He did not even turn round, for he could not; and yet he was young and
freshly cast, but prudent and sedate. He had been born old, and did not at all resemble the birds
flying in the air--the sparrows, and the swallows; no, he despised them, these mean little piping
birds, these common whistlers. He admitted that the pigeons, large and white and shining like
mother-o'-pearl, looked like a kind of weather-cock; but they were fat and stupid, and all their
thoughts and endeavours were directed to filling themselves with food, and besides, they were
tiresome things to converse with. The birds of passage had also paid the weather-cock a visit and
told him of foreign countries, of airy caravans and robber stories that made one's hair stand on
end. All this was new and interesting; that is, for the first time, but afterwards, as the weather
-cock found out, they repeated themselves and always told the same stories, and that's very
tedious, and there was no one with whom one could associate, for one and all were stale and small
-minded.
"The world is no good!" he said. "Everything in it is so stupid."
The weather-cock was puffed up, and that quality would have made him interesting in the eyes of
the cucumber if it had known it, but it had eyes only for the yard cock, who was now in the yard
with it.
The wind had blown the planks, but the storm was over.