As we all know, basically everything is open for interpretation. However, all stories should stem from the truth. All people of good standards should agree with this. Unfortunately, this simple truth of life has been stretched and bent – and sometimes, it just breaks. Such was the case with the Little Red Hen.
My name is Pig. No sarcastic jokes, please; I actually am, in fact, a pig. It's not my fault that the writer of the original story was unoriginal in names. I could make up a name for myself, true, but I leave the business of telling lies to certain chickens around the joint. I lived on a farm with a few other animals, and we usually all got along fine. We split up the chores evenly and usually sang a song or two while doing them. Life was fine and dandy until a red hen came to roost here. She changed everything.
The Red Hen basically took over the place. Within a day she had everybody doing twice their usual work – while she herself took none of it. There was no more singing; no more late night poker games. She seemed to have put an embargo on fun, and somehow nobody had the guts to stand up to her. I mean we're just animals, right? So we all coped as best we could, grumbling only when she wasn't around – nobody wanted their eyes getting pecked out or anything.
And then – oh joy – the clucking Hitler hatched a few eggs and out popped the fuzzy yellow Nazi chicks. Now the work was tripled, as we also had to make food for the fiends. This was getting too out of hand.
One day, the Hen was out making her rounds to check up on our progress building a monument. (It was a statue of a large Hen standing above countless, unimportant barn animals, who all seemed to be taking the "Heil-Hitler" stance.) She bent down, examining a grain of wheat. Then she looked up at us and barked an order. Everyone dropped what they were doing and looked up.
"This wheat shouldn't go to waste!" She clucked. "Who will bake some bread with it?"
There was silence in the barnyard.
"WELL?"
"I—I will?" stammered Cow.
"I—I'll help?" stuttered Horse.
I third-ed it, and we set to work. We slaved away all day, planting the wheat in the field... every day after, we took care of the grain, lest it should freeze up or dry up or some otherwise horrible thing that would cost us our jobs. Soon, the wheat grew into a tall, yellow stalk.
Now, the Hen said, it was time to cut and thresh the wheat. Donkey joined our crew and we set to work again. The Hen sat down on her lawn chair and sipped her lemonade, watching us all the while.
"Now who will take it to the mill?" She demanded, when it was threshed.
And surprise surprise, we volunteered; because we knew perfectly well that the "?" at the end of her sentence was really just a stylized "!".
It continued in a vicious cycle. Once the grain was ground into flour, she "suggested" we make bread dough. Next we had to bake the dough. She grew more cantankerous with every task she assigned, until finally, the last one came.
"Now... this bread needs to be eaten." She looked up at the four of us, and I nearly had a heart attack when I thought I saw a smile.
"You—You mean us?" I asked hopefully. But apparently, not tactfully.
Hitler grew outraged. "YOU?!" She screamed. "You ingrates! Never! I will feed this bread to myself and my chicks! How dare you think you deserve it?!"
"With all due respect..." Cow said nervously. "We did make the bread..." And right then, we all knew he'd gone too far. The Hen flew at him in a rage... I hear he still wakes up at night screaming. The rest of us turned tail and fled, leaving the monument half-finished, in search of another – safer – barn.
Now when we went to the authorities to have this maniac committed, what do you think they said? That they had heard from a reliable source that we were of no help at all, and that she had perfect right to eat her own bread. Imagine!
Well, we were all very upset to (say the least) that our good names had been ruined while this deranged twit was looked upon thereafter as a martyr. So, I took it upon myself to write this, the true story. Because while the truth may be bent every day, it very rarely exceeds breaking point in such a way. And when it does, the wrongs must be righted.
I comfort myself, however, in looking back at the 1940's, and remembering the devastating end that Hitler's domain came to... it gives me great hope for the future.
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