The Hen

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 109, 1 February 1930, Page 19

The Hen

All along the farmyard gables the swallows sat a-row, twittering uneasily to one another, telling of many things, but thinking only of Summer and the South, for Autumn was afoot and the North wind waiting _ And suddenly one day they were all quite gone. An eveiyone - the swallows and the South. “I think I shall go South myself next year,” said a hen. And the year wore on and the swallows came again, and the year wore on and they sat again on the gables, and all the poultry discussed departure of the hen. And very early one morning, the wind being from the North, the swallows all soared suddenly and felt the wind in their wings; and a st J came upon them and a strange knowledge and a more than human fa th, , an fivta" high they left the smoke of our cities and small remembered eaves, « last the to® .nd Iwmsless se., and steering K«eey sealer »ts went southward with the wind. And going bouth they went by glittering old Island, llfttos tn.lr beads abor. them; be, ,a« be slow quests o( tbo wandering ships, and the divers seeking pear s, an . at war till they came in view the mountains that they sought and the sigh " X 'penlX know; and rhe/descended Into an an.t.al r.ney, and saw Summer sometimes sleeping and sometimes singing song. Summer someum heu; she d her wings and ran out of the poultry-yard. And she ran fluttering out on o the road and some way down it until she came to a garden. At evening she came back panting. And in the poultry-yard she told the poultry how she had gone South ns far as the high road, and saw the great world’s traffic go by, and came to lands where the potato grew, and saw the stubble upon which men live and at the end of the road had found a garden, aud there were roses in it—beautiful roses!—and the gardener himself was there with bis braces on. “How extremely interesting,” the poultry said, “and what a really away> an(l the bitte r months went by, and the Spring of the year appeared, and the swallows came again. “We have been to the South,” they said, “and the valleys beyond the sea.” But the poultry would not agree that there was a sea in the bouth: “You should hear our hen,” they said.-Lord Dunsany (“Fifty-One Tales”).