Henrietta Hen

It is said, if you give some people an inch they will take a mile.
This, I think, is quite true, and it applies as much to people as
chickens. In Henrietta's case, that mile-stretching-inch came the day
the doors to the battery were flung open, and every chicken inside, for
reasons known only to the Hands, was ushered out into the yard.

To Henrietta it all seemed like heaven. That first day she flitted from
one end of the yard to the next, and never had she had as much fun in
her life. That might well have been enough for her, just to fly about
the yard, because it became the thing she loved. But on a day when she
had flown to her hearts content, and was scratching about for worms,
she noticed a sparrow not far away.
The sparrow was likewise searching for worms, and when it found one,
instead of gulping it down, it flew off over the wall with the worm in
its beak. A few minutes later it came back and did the same. The next
time she saw Sparrow, she asked what was on the other side of the
wall.

"Everything," said Sparrow. "Everything the eye can take in. That's
what you'll see over there. Look around this yard, say, then multiply
it a thousand times, and that's how much there is to see."

Henrietta had to admit that she had never seen everything, but as it
was just to the other side of the wall, she contrived to fly atop of it
and look over. But after several attempts, flying vertically into the
air, as he had seen Sparrow do, and never achieving more than half the
height of the wall, she decided that maybe everything wasn't worth
seeing.

And then a robin came. She too flew over the wall, carrying a worm in
her beak. When it returned a few minutes later, and was scratching for
more worms, Henrietta came up to it. Why, she asked Robin, didn't she
just stay on the ground and eat as she did, that way, she could eat to
her heart's content.

"And who would feed the mouths I got," asked Robin, "if I stayed and
ate until I couldn't fly. They would all starve, and I'm not that kind
of bird."

Henrietta asked what mouths Robin was talking about.

"Don't you ever lay eggs?" asked Robin.

"Of course I lay eggs," said Henrietta. "Don't talk to me about eggs.
I'm forever laying them, and the truth be told, I'm tired of it.
Something happens to me every time I lay one. Every egg that comes out
of me I miss, as if somehow I hadn't made the best of them. In fact, I
seldom even see them. Almost before they're laid even, the Hands come
and take them."

"Then you don't set," said Robin. "No wonder you don't have mouths to
feed."

Henrietta asked then what was it like, to have mouths to feed.

"Its like being a bird," said Robin. "You lay the eggs and then you sit
on them to keep them warm, and when they hatch you got mouths to feed.
That's what being a bird is all about."

Now, it must be said here, when the change over came, Henrietta, no
less than Rooster, marvelled at what there was to see, and with the
space they now had to exercise before they were ushered back inside the
battery. More problematical, however, was what Robin had told Henrietta
about the mouths to feed, because now that she knew what her eggs were
for, the idea of the Hands taking them became objectionable to her, and
she began to peck at the Hands whenever they came near her. And as each
time the Hands won out, and her eggs were taken anyway, no matter how
hard she fought, she decided that she would lay no more eggs.

"Then you outta here," said Rooster. "The day you stop laying eggs,
that's when the Hands come and take you away. I've seen it happen more
times than I can count."

Henrietta wanted to say it couldn't be any worse than to have her eggs
taken from her. But then again, the idea of being taken somewhere she
knew nothing about was no more appealing to her than continuing to
produce eggs she would never be given the chance to nest.

"And anyway," said Rooster, "just think about what you got here. I mean
you can't say things not getting better. When you first came here we
were cooped up in the battery day in and day out. You couldn't do
nothing but lay eggs. Now you got the yard to walk around and stretch
you legs, and you can fly until you get tired. Plus, not like Robin and
Sparrow, you ain't got to hunt round for food all day long. The Hands
feed you plenty. All you got to do is what you here for, to lay
eggs."

"You say that 'cause you ain't no hen," said Henrietta.

"And you ain't no robin and you ain't no sparrow," Rooster retorted.
"What you got to say to that?"

Henrietta had nothing to say to that, but it left her no less
dissatisfied with her predicament. Faced with the choice of continuing
to lay eggs that would never be hers to nest, or be taken to heaven
knows where, Henrietta decided to take her destiny in her own hands.
She decided to escape to the other side of the wall.

But about one thing Rooster was right. Henrietta was neither a sparrow
nor a robin, which is to say, her attempt to fly over the wall was not
a beautiful sight. She always could fly higher than any hen Rooster had
ever seen, but no matter how hard she tried, the wall was always going
to defeat her.

Watching Henrietta's repeated failures, Rooster remembered how it
happened that he became cock of the walk. There were plenty of cocks
that could fly higher than he, but what they did not understand, as he
did, was that you did not crow from the first perch, but from the
highest perch you could reach. He had always managed to reach the
highest perch, not by putting all his energy into one attempt, but by
taking the whole thing in stages.

Of course, he hadn't exact analyzed his approach to perching as such,
and only understood that this was what he had done when one day he
noticed Robin hopping from one limb of a tree to another, going higher
and higher, until finally she had reached the top. Of course, Robin was
probably doing no more than frolicking about at the time, but once she
reached the top she simply flew straight over the wall and disappeared
on the other side.

Now, this was how Rooster stuck his oar in. He came up to Henrietta,
who by now was exhausted from her failed attempts to reach the top of
the wall, much less fly over it.

"I always thought you were smart," said Rooster, "but it seem to me you
acting pretty dumb."

"Why are you saying this to me?" asked Henrietta.

"You ain't using your head, that's how come. All you thinking is
getting on the other side of that wall, and you thinking you going to
manage it the same like Sparrow and Robin. But you can't fly like
neither one of them. You can only fly like a chicken, because that's
what you are, and you can't fly higher than a chicken can fly. Now,"
said Rooster, "you see that tree over there, that sweet gum?"

"What about it?"

"Well, you see that low hanging limb on that tree?"

"Yeah, I see it. But just tell me what you driving at? Cause I'm busy
just now."

"What you busy at is being dumb," said Rooster. "You blinded by what
you wanna do, but you haven't thought how you can do it. Everybody
knows how high you can fly, everybody except you. The top of that wall
is going to be higher that you can ever reach."

"Is that what you came over here for, to tell me what I can't
do?"

"All I'm telling you to do is take a good look at that tree limb, and
to look where that tree is."

Henrietta looked at the tree.

"Now you see that low hanging limb," said Rooster.

"I see."

"Well, I reckon you can reach that limb with no trouble. After that you
go up limb by limb, till you reach the top. All that's left then is to
fly right on over the wall. Simple as one, two, three."

"If it's so simple," said Henrietta, "how come you ain't never done
it?"

"Cause I ain't the one wanting to get over the wall."

In any event, it wasn't as simple as Rooster made it out to be. The low
hanging limb, by a chicken's standard, wasn't all that low, as it
happened, not even for Henrietta. And she didn't make it in the first
try, nor the second, or the third. On the fourth try she reached it,
but not squarely, and the next thing she knew she was on the ground
again. But at least, unlike when she had tried to reach the top of the
wall in one go, and didn't even come close, this time all that was
needed was to put just that little more effort in her attempt. The rest
was as Rooster said. It was as simple as one, two, three. In no time,
going up and up and up, from one limb to the next, she was more than
level with the top of the wall. Without giving it so much as a second
thought, she flew over onto the other side.

The next day Henrietta laid three eggs.

Cluck.

Cluck.

Cluck.

And for the first time ever, they were hers to nest.