[SOC] Brighter thoughts to start the year

[Bill Cunningham]

Zebediah was in the fertilized egg business.  He had several hundred young
layers, called pullets, and eight or ten roosters, whose job was to
fertilize the eggs.
Zeb kept records, and any rooster that didn't perform well went into the
soup pot and was replaced.  That took an awful lot of Zeb's time; so, Zeb
got a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters.  Each bell had a
different tone so that Zeb could tell, from a distance, which rooster was
performing.  Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report
simply by listening to the bells.

Zeb's favorite rooster was old Brewster.  A very fine specimen he was, too.
But on this particular morning, Zeb noticed that Brewster's bell had not
rung at all!!  Zeb went to investigate.  The other roosters were chasing
pullets, bells a-ringing!  The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would
run for cover.  BUT, to Zeb's amazement, Brewster had his bell in his beak,
so it couldn't ring.  He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to
the next one.

Zeb was so proud of Brewster that he entered him in the county fair.
Brewster was an overnight sensation.  The judges not only awarded him the No
Bell Piece Prize but also the Pullet Surprise.