The Lucky Hen

Once upon a time there was a very stupid but very lucky hen. Let me tell you a story about her to show you what I mean.

You see the stupid hen belonged to a poor old woman who lived in a small hut. So the stupid hen would roam around all over the neighborhood all day and eat whatever she could get and would come back to the hut in the evenings. The old woman didn’t have to take care of the hen and once in a while she got an egg or two so she didn’t mind.

Now in one of the farms nearby where the stupid hen roamed there were two large fierce guard dogs. The dogs were let loose in the garden around the farmer’s house and every animal and every person who had to come near the farmer’s house was afraid of the dogs. Except the stupid hen!

Why?

You see she was just too stupid to be afraid. She would wander into the garden everyday and when the dogs came running and barking towards her, she would cluck-cluck as if asking, ‘Hey, what’s wrong with you both?’, and she would hurry flapping her wings through a hole in the hedge into a neighboring farm. This happened everyday. The dogs were surprised at why the hen came back every day and wasn’t frightened off by their fierceness. They decided to do something about it before they became the laughing stock of all the animals around.


So one day they lay in wait for her. The stupid hen always came in through the same hole in the hedge. The dogs waited, lying close to the hedge on either side of the hole, so that the hen could not see them easily. The hen came in the same way but just as she was almost into the garden she saw something tasty to eat in the hedge and so she withdrew her head and turned to peck at it. The dogs seeing the head come through the hedge pounced at it only to see it vanish back. In all the confusion there was a head on collision and one fierce nose hit one fierce head and the dogs lost interest in the hen for the day.

The next day they decided to let the stupid hen come into the garden before stalking and catching and killing her. The stupid hen like always came in through the same hole in the hedge and started pecking around in her stupid aimless manner. The dogs quietly moved closer hiding behind bushes and trees till they were just behind her. The stupid hen was walking on a pile of dry leaves that the gardener had left for burning on a sloping part of the garden. The dogs leapt at the stupid hen together and would have surely caught her but the stupid hen disappeared in front of their eyes and they were so surprised that they fell slipping and sliding to the bottom of the slope. You see the stupid hen had just fallen into a hole in the ground covered by the dry leaves. She came out of the hole and went about her aimless wandering business and after some time went into a neighboring farm not realizing how close she had been to being caught by the dogs.

The dogs decided that there was no point being clever about catching the stupid but lucky hen. So, from the very next day, they barked at her and drove her out of their garden like they used to and everyday the hen ran away in her stupid but lucky manner.

(Illustrated by my 13 year old daughter Aditi)