Chapter 2

The Governor addresses the Assembly

Buster barked enthusiastically, tail wagging,"Come on, you're going to miss it!"

Buster was never wrong about something exciting. So I pushed though the screen door and toddled after him, as fast as my short legs could carry me.

The barn was filled with more animals than I knew we had, we were only able to squeeze in at the side, since both dog and boy were bigger than many there - and the good seats had been reserved for members of both Assembly houses. A podium had been raised on on manure spreader parked against one wall. While the barn was too modern to have a loft, the stacked hay on the opposite side acted as the galleries, with the rafters filled with other observers.

Fowl and mammal shared their places peacably next to each other, though the din of animal chatter was almost deafening, as the barnyard Assembly waited to be called to order. Every animal there was excited in anticipation. The Governor was about to give his annual "State of the Farmyard" speech to an Assembly which was composed mostly of the opposing party. Added to this the factor that there had been corruption at the polls in one district; his election was by the same number of votes found to be falsely registered. There was talk of extra corn rations finding their way into certain individuals' feed boxes. Meanwhile, his gala inauguration party had gone over the top in several ways - such that he had to go onto special personal fundraising efforts during the first few months of his tenure, some of which led to a few quiet and not so quietly ordered changes. The mice who worked for him were ordered to join into a union, even though most didn't want to. And some appointments got a few more of his Raccoons into key positions, as well as some lawyer foxes on the payroll.

If you wanted to typify this scene, it was the Raccoons versus the chickens. Raccoons held that the chickens needed to give up all their eggs and some of their feed to support the government, which consisted mostly of their kind, plus the mice and a few rats. Foxes got various employment with the Racoons, as did the occasional Mink.

Chickens had the Cattle on their side, mostly. While Cattle had nothing to fear from the rest of the barnyard, they were always leaving feed under their bunk for the Yard chickens to feast on, as well as other birds, such as the Peacocks and wild birds. The chickens kept them up to date on what happened on the farm. Cattle ate far more than anything else and so had to have huge pastures to sustain them. Yard chickens feared the winter when wild Raccoons, Opossums and Minks started crawling into the rafters where they slept at night. Coop chickens had a much safer life, but only ate from their rations and didn't have much of a choice of nesting, sharing the boxes between themselves. Nesting yard chickens had to hide their nests carefully, hoping they could keep them secure and not loose their lives defending their brood.

The Peacocks were into everything. But that was their job: strut around and check things out, report the facts they saw and give their opinions about it to boot.

The barn was continuing to fill. I was glad that Buster had come to get me so early. The head of the upper chamber, a rugged-looking rooster who had endured many winters, rose and banged the gavel for quiet, which filtered slowly in waves through the assembly. "The Chaplain will begin our session," he said, motioning to a slight, but determined duck, who took the podium.

"Let us pray, she intoned..." A mostly non-political, pretty generic request for blessing on the group followed, asking for help in decision-making and in keeping our ears and eyes open during the coming speeches that day.

She sat, amid some muttered "Amens" and the Upper Chamber Speaker took over.

"Governor, you asked us for more eggs, more grain to cover your plans to make sure your administrations stayed afloat while the crops dried up during the last drought. We said no, but you insisted. We stayed at it and worked out how you could cut some costs and yet ensure the chicks had a good education and the paths could get gravelled and the lawns trimmed. You told us again that more eggs and grain were needed to support the Raccoons, Foxes, Opossums and Minks on your payroll. We worked out how to improve the ration for mice, but you insisted on telling us that we were to blame for the drought and only higher egg and grain quotas could possibly keep our chicks being trained and retained in Chicken College. We again told you no. Yet you held us to a special session, where you again told us to pay more taxes and again we told you no.

"Governor, What part of no don't you understand?"

Most of the chamber erupted in a roar, jumping to their feet. Feathers flew in the room. The mice were quietly neutral in the rafters, their attention on the beady stares which some of the raccoons had on them. In the gallery, there was some mixed applause and jeering. Half of the chamber sat and only stared, at the Speaker, the rafters and each other. They did not approve.

The Speaker of the Lower House then took the podium to introduce the Governor. She was a matronly hen and was polite as she announced his entrance from the rear.

All smiles, the Raccoon entered and glad-handed all those on the left side of the aisle while he was polite to those on the other side. Many of the gallery were cheering and waving small handmade signs that read, "Go, Billy, Go!" and "Our future is our children!" among others. While slowly making his way down the center, the Governor finally mounted the dais, politely smiled and shook the hands of the two Speakers, then took the podium, waiting for the hub-bub to subside.

"My fellow barnyardians," he began, "while we have all in these past few years had to deal with what the weather brought and our losses in grain, and as well as the loss of a few amoung us who are not here today to hear our words. We can however not look to the skies to blame our problem on or as the source of our deliverance from these hard days. I've done my planning and extrapolated that in order to make it through these tough times, we would have to raise our contributions to our government. The Chicken majority are those who have been insistent on withholding their eggs and grain and forcing their own chicks into reduced quality of education and so have been condemning their own chicks to a subsistence-level existence with the lack of schooling which is everyone's right in this modern society... blah, blah, blah; blah, blah, blah..." The governor droned on, working attacks of the Chickens into every sentence, every line of thought, saying that the Raccoons and their affliated omnivores had the best interest at heart of all the denizens of the barnyard,that anything wrong had the Chickens to blame, that the best way to handle the effects of this sad recession left by the drought was to dig deep and put the children first, to increase taxes and cut off loopholes which the horses, cows and other herbivores had been using to escape contributing their grain ration to the whole for use.

At every pause, there was loud applause from the carnivores, while the omnivores sulked and grumbled among themselves. The mice in the rafters got more and more roudy.

Finally, a new precident was set: while the Governor was talking about the necessity to withhold payments from schools because there weren't sufficient funds, and this all could be solved with immediate tax increase, one of the chickens crowed from the back row of the Assembly, "Quit sucking eggs and release the rations, Governor!" No one had ever heckled a sitting Governor from the Assembly before. The gallery went wild, chanting "Save Our Schools" over and over. The mice unfurled a banner supporting higher rations for higher education quality - at least until the Master-At-Arms prowled through those rafters on her quiet feline feet, forcing the mice to take their banner and flee.

At last the Governor completed his bloviating and smiled to the Peacock Press, who were madly noting what he said and peering at the audience, both in the Assembly proper, the rafters and hay bale Gallery as well. As he made his exit, again, he pressed the flesh on the left side, while the right side scowled and clucked among themselves.

Now it was the Lower House Speaker's turn:

"We've heard your economic theories, Governor. We've listened to your plans. We've told you ours and our reasoning. But there is one thing which you have never fully understood to this point - What Point of "NO" Don't You Understand?" This brought roars from the Assembly masses as well as those remaining in the Gallery, as most of the Governor's supporters had left with their hero.

At the uproar, the Peacock Press craned to look at the uproar and made furtive notes for their publications, while continuing to look as though they were impartial observers to the whole scene.

At this point, Buster nudged me outside.

In the cool evening, we could hear the raucous activities in the barn. Buster went to sniff around the ground near the barn to see who had been in and out for the meeting. I don't know how he could tell all that he got from his sniffing, but he took it seriously. After he had set out some new boundary marks, we went under the ash tree near the playhouse to discuss what we had seen.

Buster: "Well, what did you think?"

I replied, "That Governor isn't very popular for someone who got so much of the popular vote."

"There's his problem with being elected with the same majority as there were false votes in just one precinct..."

"But surely his own party would be more behind him than that."

"You did see quite a bit of his support tonight. Some mice really want that Union to go through, as it will give them bargaining power to increase their rations."

"Mice, or Rats? I've heard that not all mice want to have to give up a part of those rations to pay the Rats to administer their Union for them. As well, some say it is only another trick by the Rats to get control of more rations for themselves."

"Got a point there. The other thing that made him unpopular with his own party is his constant bickering with the opposition. Guv'ner Billy Bob blames everything on those Chickens, regardless of whether he had anything to do with the problem or not, then says they are the ones who won't come to the table to resolve their differences. But the other Omnivores don't particularly like to share their rations, either. You see, those taxes wouldn't result in every child instantly getting more rations for their teachers. Most of it gets eaten up in administration, so really only those who suck up to the Guv'ner and his cronies."

"How do you know all this? Seems a bit slanted to me against that Billy Bob..."

"I've got a cushy job guarding the place. Everyone thinks I just sleep all day, just a tired old dog. But my hearing is just as good as ever. So when the Peacocks and anyone else comes by and compares notes, I get an earful."

"Oh, that explains that. And why did you come to get me?"

"Well, you're my best friend for the two-footed types. Also, I feel that I have to help you with your education. TV just doesn't catch it - especially since unless you look at it straight on, you always catch a slant. Since this was a once in a lifetime deal, I thought you should witness real democracy and politics in action before you got exposed to the two-footed kind.

"You got to agree, that you can learn more on the farm than you ever can in two-footed school."

We left it at that. I was learning every day just in being around all my barnyard friends. I'd heard my older brothers complain about their days shut in small rooms and only let out to play a little bit each day. And later, they didn't let them out to play at all! Not something I was looking forward to...