A WHISTLING WOMAN AND A CROWING HEN

[Mark A. Mandel]

I seem to recall seeing this in one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little
House" books (fictionalized memoirs of growing up in the 1870s in the
settlement of the Midwest, in a plural form: "Whistling women [girls?]
and crowing hens..."

While certainly not an antedate to Barry's of (Republican Compiler -
5/26/1840), it suggests another form to search for.

-- Mark A. Mandel