Return of A Little Red Hen

“Reports of my death were an exaggeration.”

Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clements)

The New York Journal, June 2, 1897.

At first I thought I was hallucinating, perhaps an onset of Alzheimer’s disease, when I stood at the kitchen sink where a window looks out toward the chicken house. I saw one of the little red hens, presumed dead two days before, walking into the west side of the chicken house. The two little red hens had disappeared from their isolation room in the evening, leaving behind only a wealth of red feathers. They were missing and presumed dead, as the saying goes. I had even written a blob post called, “Farewell To the Little Red Hens,” so my fear of hallucinations was not unfounded.

It was time for a reality check. “Dennis, I think one of the little red hens has returned! I swear I saw one walk into the big door of the chicken house.”

Dennis went to check and returned announcing, “It is true. She is sitting on that makeshift nest I made for them, apparently laying an egg.”

Where did she spend two days and nights? How did she escape the predator that killed her companion? Why did she come home to lay an egg? She isn’t telling.

Now I know how the editors of the newspapers that mistakenly reported the death of Mark Twain must have felt.

Copyright 2014 by Shirley Domer