Not liking1 her neighbor on her right, at the fair, Henrietta Hen sidled up to the wire netting on the opposite side of her pen. Peering through it, she examined the person whom she saw just beyond, in a pen of her own.
A very sleek2 hen was this, who gave Henrietta a slight nod.
"We may as well speak," she said, "since we're to live next to each other for a week."
"A week!" Henrietta groaned3. "Shall I have to stay cooped up here as long as that?"
"Yes!" said Neighbor Number 2. "And I don't blame you for feeling as you seem to. A week is a long time for everybody here—except me."
Henrietta Hen didn't understand her.
"I'm going to win the first prize—with my chicks," Neighbor Number 2 announced. "Of course that's worth waiting here a week."
"I don't see how you can win the first prize!" Henrietta exclaimed.
"Why not?" demanded the other. And she pressed against the wire netting of her pen and stuck her head through it as far as she could, as if she would have pecked Henrietta had she been able to.
"Because—" Henrietta explained—"because the lady on the other side of me is going to win it."
"Who said so?"
"She did," Henrietta answered.
"Ha! ha!" cackled Neighbor Number 2. "That's a good joke. She hasn't any more chance of winning than—than you have!"
Now, Henrietta Hen couldn't help being puzzled. But whoever might win the first prize, she was sure it couldn't be she. Hadn't her neighbors on either side of her the same as told her that she couldn't win?
Henrietta would have felt quite glum4, except that she couldn't very well mope in the midst of the terrific racket all about her. Soon her neighbors—............