The Silly Chicken

ONCE UPON A TIME, in a country far away, there was a town, and in the town there was a chicken, and he was a very silly chicken indeed.
He went about saying “Tuck-tucketuck, tuck tuck-tuck, tuck-tuck-tuck.” And nobody knew what he meant.
Of course, he didnt mean anything at all, but nobody knew that. They thought that “Tuck-tuck-tuck, tuck-tuck-tuck, tuck-tuck-tuck” must mean something,

Now, a very clever man came to the town, and he decided to see if he could find out what the chicken meant by “Tuck tuck tuck, tuck-tuck-tuck, tuck-tuck-tuck.*
First he tried to learn the chicken’s language. He tried, and he tried, and he tried. But alt he learned to say was “Tuck tuck-tuck, tuck-buck-tuck, tuck-tuck-tuck.” Unfortunately, although he sounded just like the chicken, he had no idea what he was saying.

Then he decided to teach the chicken to speak our kind of language. He tried, and he tried, and he tried.
It took him quite a long time but in the end, the chicken could speak perfectly well,
Just like you and me.

After learning to speak as we do, the chicken went into the main street of the town and called out, “The earth is going to swallow us up” At first the people didn’t hear what he was saying because they didn’t expect a chicken to be talking human language.

The chicken called out again. “The earth is going to swallow us up!” This time the people heard him, and they began to cry out, “Good Heavens!”
“Good Gracious!” “Dear Me!”

“The earth is going to swallow us up.” Yes, indeed! “The chicken says so!”

Thoroughly alarmed, all the people packed up their most precious things and began to run to get away from the earth.

They ran from one town to another.