Scene FIRSTThe GUINEA-HEN, HENS, DUCKS, etc.; the PHEASANT-HEN, the BLACKBIRD, later PATOU.At the rise of the curtain, multitudinous clatter and confused swarming of HENS and CHICKENS.THE GUINEA-HEN. [Going impetuously from one to the other.] How do you do? How do you do? — There is scarcely room to move! My guests reach all the way to the cucumber patch!CHORUS. [Up in the air] Busily buzzing———THE GUINEA-HEN. A regular crush!A HEN. [Gazing at a row of huge pumpkins.] What attractive objects!THE GUINEA-HEN. Art pottery! Rather good of its kind, if I do say so!A CHICK. [Listening with his bill in the air.] Singers?THE GUINEA-HEN. Yes.CHORUS. Busily buzzing——THE GUINEA-HEN. [In her sprightliest manner.] The Wasps![To a CHICKEN.] How do you do?[She flits from one guest to the other.] THE WASPS. Busily buzzingFestival glees. Fill we with murmurs The mulberry trees! THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Passing with the BLACKBIRD and laughing.] So you were caught?THE BLACKBIRD. [Finishing his story.] Exactly as if a hat had been plumped down over me. But I managed by beating my wings to throw off the beastly pot.[Looking around him.] Chantecler has not come yet?THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Surprised.] Is he coming?PATOU. [Suddenly appearing on the wheelbarrow, from whence he can watch the scene as from a pulpit] I still hope he may change his mind.THE BLACKBIRD. Patou there, in the wheelbarrow?PATOU. [Shaking his surly head, and a bit of broken chain hanging from his collar] Chantecler told me every- thing, Blackbird, as he went by. In a towering rage I broke my chain, and am here to keep an eye on the wicked lot of you.THE GUINEA-HEN. [To the BLACKBIRD.] Has he invited himself 'to my party, that moth-eaten old thing?CHORUS. [Among the trees] Our praises, Sun, our praises!THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Looking upward] Music?THE GUINEA-HEN. The Cicadas!CHORUS OF CICADAS. We simmer in thy gaze, We bask beneath thy blaze, Receive our grateful praise! THE YOUNG GUINEA-COCK. [Low and quickly to his mother.] Tsicadas, mother, You must pronounce it Tsi!A MAGPIE. [In black coat and white tie, announcing the guests as they arrive through a hole such as Chickens dig at the foot of hedges] The Gander!THE GANDER. [Entering, jocularly.] What's all this fuss and feath- ers, my lady? Our names called as we enter?THE GUINEA-HEN. [Demurely] Yes, you see, expecting some rather great people, I thought it well to stand an usher at the blackthorn door.THE MAGPIE. [Announcing] The Duck!THE DUCK. [Entering, impressed by the elegance of the occasion] Here is style and grandeur indeed! Our names called!THE GUINEA-HEN. Yes, you see, expecting some rather great people ——THE MAGPIE. The Turkey-hen!THE TURKEY-HEN. [Entering, after a supercilious glance] This is quite more of an affair, my dear, than I was anticipating.— Names called!THE GUINEA-HEN. Yes, I had in the Magpie to supplement my usual staff.CHORUS. [Among blossoming branches.] Boom! Boom! From bloom to bloom! THE TURKEY-HEN. [Lifting her bill.] A Chorus?THE GUINEA-HEN. [Breezily] The Bees!CHORUS. Make distant flowers Bride and groom! THE TURKEY-HEN. Wonders on every side!THE GUINEA-HEN. The Bees here, the Tsicadas yonder ——[To a passing HEN.] How do you do? How do you do?BEES. [At the right] Boom!CICADAS. [At the left] Our praises!BEES. Boom!CICADAS. Our praises!THE GUINEA-HEN. [To the PHEASANT-HEN.] My garden produces the most remarkable of everything!THE YOUNG GUINEA-COCK. The brightest flowers!THE GUINEA-HEN. The big potatoes!THE BLACKBIRD. And peaches! Perfect peaches!THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Inconvenienced by the movement and the crowd, to the BLACKBIRD.] Let us stand out of the crowd a moment, behind this watering-pot.THE BLACKBIRD. The watering-pot, alias the Intermittent Baldpate, so called because there flows from his copper scalp when he is tilted a marvelous growth of silver hair.THE GUINEA-HEN. [Spying the CAT, who, outstretched along an apple- bough, is watching with half-closed eyes.] I have among my guests the Cat.THE BLACKBIRD. Tomkyns de Tomkyns![A BIRD is heard warbling in a tree.] THE GUINEA-HEN. I have the Chaffinch!THE BLACKBIRD. Let him chaff inchworms, what care we?THE GUINEA-HEN. The Darning-needle!THE BLACKBIRD. She shall mend up Ragged Robin, now's his chance!PATOU. [More and more disgusted.] All that is supposed to be funny!THE GUINEA-HEN. [Pecking a cabbage leaf from which roll drops of dew.] I have the Dew!PATOU. [Grimly] Your witticism for her?THE BLACKBIRD. [Brightly] Fresh-water pearls!THE GUINEA-HEN. [Pointing out several CHICKS walking among the crowd.] Have you seen them? I have several of the A.I.'s Chicks!THE PHEASANT-HEN. A.I.?THE GUINEA-HEN. The Acme Incubator.THE PHEASANT-HEN. Oh, have you?THE GUINEA-HEN. [Presenting the CHICKS.] All from the topmost compartment!THE PHEASANT-HEN. Indeed?ONE OF THE CHICKS. [Nudging his neighbour.] She is dumbfounded!THE GUINEA-HEN. [Contemptuously] Eggs hatched by the old vulgar method, fie!THE BLACKBIRD. Good Lord, exempt us!THE MAGPIE. [Announcing] The Guinea-pig!THE GUINEA-HEN. It's the famous one, you know! The Guinea-pig who was inoculated — surely you remember the case — very well, that's the one! There you see him. I made a point of getting him to come. Everybody is here! I have everybody! I have——[To the GUINEA-PIG.] How do you do?[To the PHEASANT-HEN.] I have our great philosopher Tur-Key — Yes, it should be written with a hyphen — who will give us a little talk among the currant bushes under the tea-roses —[To a passing HEN.] How do you do?[To the PHEASANT-HEN.] Educational Tea or Currant Topics![Whirling from one to the other.] Everyone is here, everyone of the slightest mark or consequence! The Pheasant-hen is here, in a -frock from fairyland. The Duck is here, who is so good as to say he will recite for us by and by. The Tortoise is here ——[Noticing that the TORTOISE is not there.] I was mistaken, the Tortoise is not here. She is late.THE BLACKBIRD. [Affecting deep concern.] What is the little talk she seems so regrettably likely to miss?THE GUINEA-HEN. [Suddenly serious.] The Moral Problem.THE BLACKBIRD. What a pity![The GUINEA-HEN goes to the back, scattering greetings, in ecstasies of sociability] THE PHEASANT-HEN. [To the BLACKBIRD.] Who is the Tortoise?THE BLACKBIRD. A hard old character, impervious, I fear, to moral problems, who goes in for walking matches in a loud check suit![Murmur among the hollyhocks.] THE PHEASANT-HEN. Listen, a Drone!THE GUINEA-HEN. [Briskly returning.] The Drone is here! In the bright light overhead, what a stylish figure of a fly!THE BLACKBIRD. No " at home" complete without it! Ladies cry for it! Won't be happy until——THE GUINEA-HEN. [Jumping up in the air toward the DRONE.] How do you do? How do you do?[She follows his flight with excited leaps and hops.] THE BLACKBIRD. [Touching his brow with his wing.] She is dotty!THE GUINEA-HEN. [At the back, with shrill GUINEA-HEN cries.] It's my last day! How do you do? My last day until August! Mondays in August, don't forget!A HEN. [Seeing cherries dropping around her.] Oh, cherries, look!THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Looking upward.] It is the Breeze!THE GUINEA-HEN. [Fluttering forward again, excited as ever.] I have the Breeze, who now and then shakes down a cherry! I never ask her. She comes unasked. What's-his-name is here! And What's-her-name is here, and ——[To the back tumultuously.] THE BLACKBIRD. And Thingumbob, and Stick-in-the-mud![He has arrived without appearance of design beneath the tree where the CAT is lying, and asks rapidly, under breath.] Cat, what about the conspiracy?THE CAT. [Who from his tree can see beyond the hedge.] It is afoot. I see the interminable file of phenomenal Cocks approaching, headed by the Peacock who comes to present them.A CRY. [Outside.] Ee—yong![The CROWD throngs toward the entrance] PATOU. [Grumbling.] That abominable concertina cry ——THE MAGPIE. The Peacock!THE PHEASANT-HEN. [To the BLACKBIRD.] Have you a fancy name for him?THE BLACKBIRD. [Imitating the PEACOCK'S cry.] Our great Accordee——yong! |
