100个儿童英语小故事: The Great Rooster 大公鸡

（单词翻译）

039 The Great Rooster

There once were two roosters in a town. One was living in a henhouse, and the other was living on top of a high roof. One day, an eggplant and a cucumber¹ in the field talked about the two roosters.

"Which rooster do you think is better, between the one in the henhouse and the one on the roof top?" The cucumber asked first. "Of course, the one on the roof top is better!" The eggplant answered. "He sits on that high roof top and makes himself proud. Don't you think he is great when you see him?"

"But the one on the roof top is made of iron. It just lets us know where the wind blows. If the wind does not blow, he can't even move by himself." "So, do you think the rooster on in the henhouse can climb up to that roof top?" "The one on the roof top is all alone with no children and no hens." "He is the greatest rooster even if he is all alone." The cucumber and eggplant kept arguing.

At that moment, a strong wind came and blew. Both the cucumber and the eggplant could not talk anymore. As it got dark, the wind grew stronger. With it came with rain, and a severe rainstorm started to fall. 

"Help me!" The cucumber and the eggplant trembled because of the storm. They hung on to their vines² as hard as they could because they felt they would pull out. In the henhouse, all the chickens got together and were shivering³.

But the rooster on the top of the roof was very busy while he was showing the directions of the rainstorm. "Shriek⁴, it's from the east. Shriek, it's from the south!" In the middle of the hard rainstorm - the tiles⁵ of the roof were falling down to the ground, and the branches of the trees were breaking into pieces-, he didn't seem to care how severe the rainstorm was.

"Well, that's my rooster!" The eggplant trembled and said. But even before the eggplant finished saying this, the iron rooster on the roof top broke and fell on the ground with a big noise, 'boom⁶!'.

The rainstorm stopped and the next morning came. "Cock-a-doodle-do! Sun is shining!" The rooster of the henhouse, who was shivering all night long, came out of the house first and told everyone the morning had come.