You know, I expect, that cocks are given to fighting; that is why you seldom see two cocks in the same run. The hens are different and live together very happily; they are too busy with their eggs and looking after their baby chickens to be quarrelsome. But Fluffy and Cheeky were going to grow up cocks which probably made them more inclined to quarrel. Joan thought, perhaps, they still bore each other a grudge over the worm which neither of them had been able to enjoy. So what began as a quarrel ended in a regular fight. Weren’t they naughty chickens? Cheeky and Fluffy grew so fierce and angry with each other that they began to fight like grown-up cocks. They tried to fly up and pounce down on each other, but their little wings were too short and weak and they could only give little hops. They pecked and jumped and peeped loudly while the other chickens stood round looking on, for they had never seen such a fight before. Cheeky gave one fly up and came down on Fluffy, giving him a really hard peck full on his little breast, when he fell over and lay quite still just as if he were dead.
They began to fight.
I should like to be able to tell you that, when Cheeky saw what he had done he was desperately sorry because he had not meant to hurt Fluffy like that. If he had been a child he would have been terribly sad and ashamed of himself, I am sure, but chickens are different. In spite of Joan’s ideas of them they haven’t really much feeling and very little intelligence, and so Cheeky just strutted off and didn’t seem to care a bit. He even began scratching the ground as if the fight had given him an appetite and he was looking for another worm. The others, too, were quite happy and busy, and took no more notice of poor Fluffy lying in a little heap on the ground.
He fell over and lay quite still as if he were dead.