Chicken Delight 鸡之乐趣_美文_双语阅读-查字典英语网

Chicken Delight 鸡之乐趣

stalk, press their bodies to the ground, swish their tails and give every sign of going for the kill. Then they would register the chicken’s size and become gripped by second thoughts. A face-saving, halfhearted lunge would follow.

The two sides soon achieved parity. Sometimes, I’d look out back and see a cat chasing the chicken. Ten minutes later I’d see the chicken chasing a cat. I like to think they reached the plane of mutual respect. Perhaps affection.

Although it was nice to know the chicken could eat anything, cat food didn’t seem right. I called my mother. Mom drove to the local feed store in La Porte, Texas, and picked up a

25-pound bag of scratch grains, a blend of milo, corn and oats. She began shipping the grain in installments. The chicken seemed to appreciate the feed.

Our care paid off. One morning, Nancy spied an egg on the patio. At the base of the pine tree, where the chicken slept, was a nest containing four more eggs. They were small, somewhere between ecru and beige, but this was it. The blessed event. After I wrote about the chicken in the New York Times, my mail-bag was bursting with letters offering advice on the proper care and feeding of chickens. Disturbed that she did not have a name, fans wrote with suggestions.

Vivian had a certain sultry appeal; Henrietta seemed cute. But Henny Penny? The media jumped in. National Public Radio quizzed me about the chicken for one of its weekend programs. “My producer wants to know, could you hold the telephone up to the chicken so we can hear it? the interviewer asked. Unfortunately, I don’t have a 100-foot cord on my telephone. The