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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />Each bell had a different tone so that Zeb could tell, from a distance, which rooster was performing.<br /><br />Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.<br /><br />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!<br /><br />Zeb went to investigate.<br /><br />The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells a-ringing! The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />Zeb was so proud of Brewster that he entered him in the county fair. <br /><br />Brewster was an overnight sensation.<br /><br />The judges not only awarded him the No Bell Piece Prize but also <br />the......... Pullet surprise