Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 August 1880 — Trying to Drive a Hen. [ARTICLE]

Trying to Drive a Hen.

BY KATE THORNE

tiling about it. * ftftfag a hi tyyavfr, aad <n» «Ss:lskk?! tntry, aud thwart yon at every tarn. It yoa vast bar to go us somewhere "he’ll be Mre to want to go o«t, and woe m You want to drive her moat when she gets out of the coon, amt gets into jour garden, to the total destruction of tout pet bulbs, aud roote, and seeds, and everything else. One smart, active hen will do more harm in one hour than a cow would in half a day. * A hen is barn with an instinct to get at tlio root of the matter, aud she follows out her nature. When your hen gets out of confinement she makes straight for jour choicest flower-bed, and sue stays there for an hour before von discover her. By that time she has dug out everything that you cured auything about, and has buried herself up all but her head, and there she lies in the sun With happiness and triumph in her speaking countenance. How mad you are! You feel aa if you oould sever ner joints and make her into s pot-iiie with a will—no matter if she is one or the trio that cost ten dollars. You go for her with energy, and scream out “shoo!”at her. and flourish tour apron, aud make wild gestures .in er direction, and call your husband, and the children, ami the hired girl, to help drive her into her quarters. Now it Is never any use to call a man to help drive a hen. We are willing to admit that the lords of creation con do quantities of things tliat the weaker sex cannot, but there is one tiling a man con never do—and that is drive a hen. He’ll break the rake-liandie, and get hang in the clothes-line, and lose his hat, and fall down over the croquet wicketa, and burst off two or three of Ids suspender buttons, and the hen will fly up on the top of the barn, or take refuge in the tallest tree on the premises, aud there site will stay and laugh at him until she is ready to corns down. And all the men in creation cannot drive her down, for site knows that she has got things her own wuy. Your hen that you are going to drive generally cackles all the time you ore trying to drive her. It givee tier courage, per I imps, to defy you. It is like the music of a martial band when the troops are marching into battle. It is as inspiring as theßtramsof Yankee Doodle to the hen’s ear. Yon try gentleneas first.

“Shoo, biddy I shoo, biddy! shoo, there?” and she plunges off in the direction contrary to the one you wish her to go in; and then you draw off youx forces and execute a flank movement, and “pen” her up, but, preatol just as you tniuk you have got her, she squats and gives a scoot right out under your skirts, and away she goes free as sir. Then you get some com and try to bribe her. Oh, no, she doesn’t want any corn, thank you. She is above bribery. She doesn’t take anymtock in vonr “cliicky! chicky! clticky r delivered ih your most cajoling of voices. Still she cackles. AU the roosters cackle, too, evidently tickled with her spank. A few hens who are not curious join in. All the neighbors will be looking out to see “what on earth ? r ou are making them hens screech so or.” Your husband gets a pole ana makes a dive for that lieu. He’ll fix her cackle for her! he says; she’ll go into that henhouse or he’ll know the reason! And by the time he has chased her all over the premises, and tom his pants, and knocked a piece of skin off his hand, and run over little Charley, he does find out the reason: It is because she is not of a mind tv go into that henhouse. And he says that hens are a nuisance, and that he’rl kill the whole of ’em, and he wishes there had never been oue invented. By this time yon are tired of his help, and vou request him to go away and you’ll drive that hen. Then yon begin, and the hen begins, too. She flies over the fence, and up on a neighbor’s woodshed, and down into somebody’s pig-pen, and the pig takes after her with a vim, and she flies out with a screech, and runs under the bam, and there she stays till night, and then if you will leave open your hen-house door she will find her way thither, as meek and innocent looking as you please —for “chickens and curses come nome to roost.”