A LITTLE BROWN HEN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VII, Issue 2, 10 January 1891, Page 19

A LITTLE BROWN HEN.

ON. E upon a time, long ago, there was an old-fashioned farmhouse with a very laige kitchen. This kitchen had two doors, one opening into the yard, and one into the orchard, where the hens were sometimes let out to scratch about. One morning there was a dear little baby girl sitting on the floor right in the middle of the room, where she could play with her spools and look out of doors at the same time. < In one side she could look out into the yard and study the big pump, and on the other she could watch the chickens running about under the apple trees. When no one was at the pump, she liked the chickens best, and tried to call them to her. One day the little brown hen came up to the door and looked in. All was still. She could see no one but the brown-eyed baby, sitting flat on her blanket. ‘ Da ! da !’ said baby. ‘ Cluck ! cluck !’ said the little brown hen. ‘ Da ! da '.’ squealed little brown-eyes, shaking her spools in delight. The little brown hen cocked her head on one side and looked at baby’s little red boots with the black buttons on them. ‘ They are good to eat,’ she concluded, and hopped a little nearer, and then a little nearer uutil she came at last to the little red shoes—and soon she was tugging at them with her bill, trying in vain to get them off. ‘ Da ! da !’ said baby, pleased with her new playmate and not a bit afraid. ‘ Cluck ! cluck !’ said the hen, wondering why these strange berries wouldn't come off their stems, when ‘ Shoo ! shoo!' came from behind and sent her flying from the kitchen in a hurry to find the other hens and tell them of her discovery. And then baby began to cry because she didn’t like to have her ealler driven away so suddenly. L.B.