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The Tale of Henrietta Hen, a short story by Arthur Scott Bailey |
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XV - HENRIETTA'S FRIGHT |
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_ XV - HENRIETTA'S FRIGHT When the old horse Ebenezer stood in his stall in the barn he was always glad to talk with anybody that came along. Henrietta Hen sometimes strolled into the horse-barn to see if she could find a little grain that had spilled on the floor. So it came about that she and Ebenezer had many a chat together. Henrietta had no great opinion of horses. She thought that they had altogether more than their share of grain. But she was willing to pass the time of day with Ebenezer, because he let her walk right into his stall and pick up tidbits that had dropped upon the floor beneath his manger. It was on such an occasion, on a summer's day, that he said to her with a sigh, "Haying's going to begin to-morrow." Henrietta Hen remarked that she wasn't at all interested in the news. "And I don't see why you should sigh," she added. "Goodness knows you'll eat your share of the hay--and probably more--before the winter's over." "It's the work that I'm thinking of," Ebenezer explained. "They'll hitch me to the hayrake and Johnnie Green will drive me all day long in the hot hayfields. I always hate to hear the clatter of the mowing machine," he groaned. "It means that the hayrake will come out of the shed next." Henrietta Hen caught her breath. "The mowing machine!" she gasped. "Is Farmer Green going to use the mowing machine now?" "Certainly!" said Ebenezer. "I hear he's going to harness the bays to it to-morrow morning." "My! my!" Henrietta wailed. "Isn't there any way I can stop him from doing that?" "I don't know of any," Ebenezer told her. "I've often felt just as you do about it. There's nobody that dreads hearing the mowing machine more than I do." "You can't feel the way I do," Henrietta declared. "On the contrary," the old horse insisted, "I don't see how it can matter to you in the least. You don't have to pull the mowing machine nor the hayrake. Besides, didn't you just tell me that my news about haying didn't interest you?" "But it does!" Henrietta cried. "I was mistaken. It means everything to me. It's the worst news I ever heard in all my life." Old Ebenezer looked down at her with mild astonishment on his long, honest face. "Why is it bad news?" he inquired. "If you'll tell me, perhaps I can help you." So Henrietta Hen explained her difficulty. Whatever it was, it amazed Ebenezer. And he had to admit that he could think of no way out of the trouble. "It was very, very careless of you," he told Henrietta. Then suddenly he had a happy thought. "Cheer up!" he cried. "If Farmer Green sits on them, maybe they'll hatch." "Hatch!" she groaned. "They'll break!" And she ran out of the stall and hurried into the yard. She was just in time to hear Farmer Green calling to his son Johnnie. "Look here!" said he. "I started to oil the mowing machine so I could use it to-morrow; and just see what I found in the seat!" Johnnie Green came a-running. And there in the seat of the mowing machine, nestling in the hay which had been put there for a cushion the summer before, three eggs greeted Johnnie's eyes. "They must belong to the speckled hen," Johnnie decided. "I knew she'd stolen her nest again. I couldn't find it anywhere." He picked up the eggs and put them in his hat. "She's a sly one," he said. That remark made Henrietta Hen somewhat angry. At the same time she was glad that Farmer Green had discovered the eggs before it was too late. She wouldn't have liked him to sit on them. It always upset her to see her eggs broken. _ |
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