LOVE AMONG THE CHICKENS
to the fortunes of the chicken farm, but now my power of logical reasoning had left me. All our fortunes seemed to me to center in the hen, now half a field in front of me.
We had been traveling downhill all this time, but at this point we crossed the road and the ground began to rise. I was in that painful condition which occurs when one has lost one's first wind and has not yet got one's second. I was hotter than I had ever been in my life.
Whether the hen, too, was beginning to feel the effects of its run I do not know, but it slowed down to a walk, and even began to peck in a tentative manner at the grass. This assumption on its part that the chase was at an end irritated me. I felt that I should not be worthy of the name of Englishman if I allowed myself to be treated as a cipher by a mere bird. It should realize yet that it was no light matter to be pursued
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