Bertie
the Rooster
By
Jan Cole
Bertie
woke up early one Sunday morning as he always did. It was his job to
call the animals together for their worship under the old oak tree.
They had been doing this on the farm for as long as he could
remember. He had inherited this important task from his father
Hercules and undertook it proudly each week. On the other days, the
under-roosters woke the farmyard for work.
As
I was saying, Bertie woke up on this particular Sunday, threw his
head back in preparation for his usual melodic ‘cock a doodle doo’
when all that came out was a pathetic ‘du’. He shook his head and
started once again, the same thing happened, ‘du’. This was
terrible, what was going on? Every day since his voice had broken he
had fulfilled this duty without fail. Now no one would know that it
was time to get up.
Bertie
perched in his usual place on top of the hen house and glanced
towards the old oak tree to see if Torquar the gander was yet ready
in his fine white feather robes, in the shade of the tree. He was
feeling quite desperate when he suddenly had an idea. If he could
bribe his fellow competitors, the crows, to help him he just may get
away with not letting the rest of the animals down. The crows were
also early risers but had only one boring note each with which to
greet the morn.
He
managed to persuade four of his feathered friends to line up beside
him on the hen house roof. He had carefully chosen birds with
different call-notes. Dotty was the first with a low tone which would
have to imitate the ‘cock’ then a short ‘a’ from a little
baby crow call Ala, the doodle and do followed with the mellow
contralto sounds of Dotty’s aunt and her sister. Now all Bertie had
to do was position himself in front of his impromptu choir and
conduct them with as much aplomb as he could muster.
Off
they went, a bit wonky at first but once they had mastered the
rhythm, the effect was amazingly similar to Bertie at his best.
The
animals began to appear at the doors of their pens and proceed
respectfully to the oak tree where Torquar was waiting in his coat of
feathers. At first, no one even noticed that the four crows had
cleverly fabricated Bertie’s call.
When
they did, they laughed aloud and voted that ―from
this day on ―
the Roosters’ rallying call would always be known as a ‘Crow!
November
14th
2012
Jan
Jan
© Copyright Act 1994
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ReplyDeleteI'd like to say that Bertie is a very lucky Rooster. He gets to live his life. Most of the little Roostlings never get to greet the morn; they are killed immediately after hatching in exttraordinary cruel ways. Another member of our group will soon post a poem highlighting this practice.
ReplyDeleteThat should have been 'extraordinarily cruel'
ReplyDelete