Many, many years ago

When animals could speak,

A wondrous thing the ducks befell;

Their tale is quite unique.

==

Down by a pond dwelt all these ducks

Ten thousand at the least

Their duckish joys were undisturbed

By any man or beast.

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One day down near the entrance gate

There was an awful din

A hundred hens all out of breath

Were begging to come in.

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"Oh let us in" these poor birds cried

"Before we do expire!

'Tis only by the merest inch

That we escaped the fire!"

==

Their feathers burned, their combs adroop

They were the saddest sight.

They'd run a hundred miles or more,

All day and then all night.

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"Come in! Come in!" the ducks all quacked,

"For you our hearts do bleed!

We'll share our happy lot with you;

Just tell us what you need!"

==

And so these poor bedraggled hens

Amongst the ducks moved in.

"For after all," the ducks declared,

"We're sisters 'neath the skin."

==

Before too many months had lapsed,

The hens were good as new.

They sent for all their rooster friends,

And those were welcomed too.

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To please their hosts, these chickens tried

To waddle and to quack.

To imitate the duckish ways,

They quickly learned the knack.

==

This pleased the flock of ducks because

It gratified their pride.

But hear my tale and learn how they

Got taken for a ride.

==

The ducks, it seemed, spent all their time

In fixing up the place,

In growing food and building homes

And cleaning every space.

==

They asked the hens what they would do

To earn their daily bread.

"We'll teach and write and entertain

And buy and sell," they said.

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And so these hens began to teach

The baby ducks and chicks.

They traded food and eggs and things,

With many clever tricks.

==

They wrote great books and put on shows

Of genius they'd no lack.

It wasn't long till chickens owned

The Duckville Daily Quack.

==

One day a mother duck who took

Her ducklings to the lake,

Was flabbergasted when one said,

"A swim I will not take!"

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"Why duckling's always swim" she gasped,

"It's what you're built to do!

Like bunnies hop, and crickets chirp,

And cows most always moo!"

==

"You're nuts!" her son replied,

"That stuff is all old hat!

It's wrong for birds to swim, besides

It's damn cold on my prat!"

==

"Oh fie!" the mother duck exclaimed,

"You're talking like a fool!"

Up quacked the other ducklings then:

"He's right! We learned in school!"

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"Such talk must stop!" the mother cried,

"Those hens can't tell such lies!

For sheer ingratitude and nerve,

I'm sure this takes the prize!"

==

But she was wrong, for even then

The hens did thump the tub

Demanding they be let into

The Duckville Swimming Club.

==

"But you don't swim!" the ducks exclaimed,

"To join, why should you care?"

"That's not the point" the hens replied,

"To exclude us isn't fair!"

==

The younger ducks, who'd been to school

Agreed right there and then:

"To keep them out is bigotry!

'Twould just be anti-hen!"

==

Outnumbered by the younger ducks,

The old ducks soon did lose.

The hens could join the Swimming Club,

If they would pay the dues.

==

That night the Duckville Daily Quack

Contained this banner spread:

"REACTIONARY DUCKS ARE LICKED!

DUCKVILLE MOVES AHEAD!"

==

Down at the Duckville Gaity,

The young set laughed with glee,

At cracks about "old fuddy ducks"

In burlesque repartee.

==

Next day the hens were at the Club;

A petition they'd sent round

They objected to the Swimming Fund

With fury and with sound.

==

"You use our dues to fix the pond,

To keep it neat and trim

And this is wrong" they said, "because

You know we do not swim!"

==

"God help us!" exclaimed a wise old duck,

"Those chickens have gone mad!

We'll take this thing to court, by George!

And justice will be had!"

==

But when they went before the judge,

Imagine their dismay!

A chicken judge decreed that they

A heavy fine must pay!

==

"Minorities must have their rights!"

The judge declared right then

"To use hens' dues to fix the pond

Is very anti-hen!"

==

Once more the Duckville Daily Quack

Emblazoned 'cross the page:

"OLD FUDDY DUCKS REFUSE TO SEE

THE GREAT NEW COMING AGE!"

==

In Duckville's church, on Sunday morn

The preacher spoke these words:

"Discrimination's got to stop!

Remember, we're all birds!"

==

The wisest duck in all the town

Sat down in black despair

"I'll write a book," he thought, "and then

This madness I will bare!"

==

"Let swimmers swim, let hoppers hop,

Let each go his own way

Let none coerce a fellow bird!"

Was what he had to say.

==

"'Twas wrong to force the hens to swim,

So here's the problem's crux:

It's just as bad for hens to try

To chickenize our ducks!"

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"I can't print that" the printer said

"'Twill put me in a mess!

My shop is mortgaged to the hens

The chickens own my press!"

==

This worried duck then tried to warn

His friends by speech and pen,

But young ducks fresh from school just jeered,

"He's a vicious anti-hen!"

==

Now up the stream a little way

Was Gooseville, on the lake

The hens had come to Gooseville too,

But the geese were more awake.

==

When the hens began to spoil the young

And Gooseville's laws to flout,

The geese rose up in righteous wrath

And simply threw them out.

==

Of course you know where they all ran;

On Duckville they converged

"We've got to take these refugees"

Was what the ducks all urged.

==

The Duckville Daily Quack declared:

"Those geese will stop at naught!

They plan to conquer all the world!

Atrocities they've wrought!"

==

"That's right!" the young ducks all agreed,

"We'll help our fellow birds!

Those geese have plans to conquer us!

We've read the Quack's own words!"

==

They let the hens from Gooseville in,

The whole bedraggled pack

And every hen took up a job

On Duckville's Daily Quack.

==

When Duckville's Mayor's term was up,

The Quack put up its duck;

A vain and stupid duck he was,

A veritable cluck!

==

But when he praised the wild young ducks

And cursed the evil geese,

The Quack declared he was "all-wise"

His praise would never cease.

==

The hens chipped in to help this cluck

Give grain away for free

The old ducks sadly shook their heads,

The writing they could see.

==

And sure enough, this stupid duck,

He was elected Mayor

From this point on, the Duckville ducks,

They never had a prayer.

==

The Mayor said, "Gooseville must go!

We'll wipe them off the map!"

While Duckville slept, the scheming hens

For Gooseville set a trap.

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They called the geese by filthy names;

They filled their pond with sticks

They helped the weasels catch the geese,

And other hennish tricks.

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The geese got mad and threw some rocks,

"IT'S WAR!" the Quack announced:

"We ducks must fight those evil geese

Till they've been soundly trounced!"

==

The ducks (who knew not of the tricks

Indulged in by the Mayor)

Were filled with patriotic zeal,

And pitched right in for fair.

==

Now when the ducks had whipped the geese

The Mayor called "Retreat!

Our Henville friends should really take

Goosevilles's big main street!"

==

The hens are back in Gooseville now;

They starved and beat the geese

They prayed for peace but organized

The Henville Armed Police.

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They drained the Gooseville swimming pond;

And 'De-goose-ified' the schools,

They wrung the neck of Gooseville's Mayor

On lately made up rules.

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They formed a council of the hens,

'United Birds' the name

The other birds who joined the thing

Did not perceive their game.

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No sooner had they set this up,

Than they announced their plan

To seize up Swanville as a home

For all their hennish clan.

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They took a vote amongst the hens,

And every one approved!

"Swanville was for hens!" they said,

"Way back, before we moved."

==

And so they kicked the swans all out

With Duckville's help and power

And Duckville could not understand

Why swans on them turned sour.

==

By this time, Duckville was a mess;

The young ducks had gone mad

They stole and laughed at truth and law

They'd gone completely bad.

==

The hens were selling loco weed

In every nasty den

But ducks who dared to mention this

Were labelled 'anti-hen.'

==

The hens all preached of 'Tolerance';

They invoked the 'Golden Rule'

But they subsidized the indigent,

The greedy and the fool.

==

At last the very dumbest ducks

Began to smell a rat

"This Mayor is no good" they cried

"And we will soon fix that!"

==

But the hens had planned for even this

A candidate they had,

Whom even wise old ducks believed

Just never could be bad.

==

This hen-tool duck had whipped the geese;

A soldier duck was he

Although the hens had set him up,

The ducks all thought him free.

==

This hen-tool got elected,

Through ignorance and greed,

Through hennish lies in press and speech

And bribes of 'chicken feed.'

==

The hens now kicked the ducks around,

Without a blush of shame

Until the Mayor ran the town

In nothing else but name.

==

They pumped the swimming pond all dry;

They taught the ducks to crow

While duckish numbers dwindled,

The hens began to grow.

==

The hens stirred up the happy crows

From out the piney wood

To fight and mix and marry ducks

In the name of 'Brotherhood.'

==

Things got so bad that fifty ducks

Who knew of days gone by,

Took up their wives and children

And decided that they'd fly.

==

They flew through storm and tempest;

They froze, and many died

But on they drove, until at last

A lovely lake they spied.

==

They settled down exhausted,

But soon went straight to work

To build and clear and cultivate,

No danger did they shirk.

==

Now after many years of toil,

This little band had grown

The fields around were full of grain

From seeds that they had sown.

==

The first ducks now were long since dead;

Their struggles long had ceased

Through hard work and through suffering

Their joys had been increased.

==

One day down near the entrance gate

There was an awful din

A hundred hens, all out of breath,

Were begging to come in.

==

"Oh, let us in!" the poor birds cried,

"Before we do expire!

'Tis only by the merest inch..."

==

This epic really has no end because

No matter how you fight 'em,

Those hens will show up every time

And so... ad infinitum.

==

Reproduced on condition that the address of the copyright holder is given: New Order, Box 27486, Milwaukee, WI 53227, USA

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