THE BROODY HEN.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1439, 13 December 1923, Page 7

THE BROODY HEN.

How quietly she sits upon her nest! From her demeanour it could ne'er be guessed But two short days have passed since she was roaming, O'er far-flung fields in the October gloaming, With me in hot pursuit. Her errant and depraved maternal sense Impelled her first to sit beneath a fence. Safeguarded there by spiny gorse and hawthorn, She clucked defiance, turning all her wrath on If I essayed approach. Ousted at length from this retreat by prods, She left her own selected nest of pods Of furze, and, cackling wildly—looking crazy— Fled post-haste to a plant of common daisy, And made another stop. Imbued with hope I had no right to feel I bore down on her with triumphant zeal; I made a sprawling, wild attempt to catch her— Invoking curses on the hen that hatched her — And missed the mark again! The family had come to lend a hand. And soon we were a tired, perspiring band. Inquired one, recovering from aspha"Who first brought the domestic hen from Asia? I thirst to have his gore!" At last she fluttered to the fowlhouse roost, Thereby convincing us the game was "goosed"; But when we caught her, after this manoeuvre— Showed her the nest where we had planned to move her— She sat upon thj eggs! —R. R. M. Christchurch.