A WHISTLING WOMAN AND A CROWING HEN

[Kathleen E. Miller]

In the bathroom in our cabin in West Virginia there is a kitchy, country
plaque that reads, "Whistling girls and crowing hens all come to some bad end."

Kathleen E. Miller
The New York Times


At 10:32 AM 3/15/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>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