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 to 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.
Zebs 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, bell a-ringing!! The pullets, hearing the rooster coming, would run for cover.
But, to Zebs 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 he entered him in the county fair. Brewster was an overnight success. The judges not only awarded him the NO Bell Piece Prize but also the Pulletsurpise.
Edited by - Jade on 10 December 2002 23:46:27