A Burnt Hen — Saving Her Chicks from the Fire

1915

During a long, dry summer in the northwest of America, a prairie fire suddenly sprang up in a district where there were many settlers; it raged along the country, burning in its course several farm-yards and wooden houses — in some cases the farmer and family being unable to escape.

After the fire had passed over, a relief party rode out from a neighboring town, to see if any one might perchance have escaped the flames and would be requiring relief. Riding past a charred cottage, one of the men saw what appeared to be a black hen sitting on the ground. On going to it, he found that it evidently had been a hen, but was quite dead, the head and back being burned to almost a cinder, but the bird sat in such a striking way, with her wings partly spread out, that he gave her a kick with his foot, when three little chickens ran out.

Bravely the poor mother hen had covered them, in face of the roaring fire; and bravely she had sat still in the midst of the scorching flames, choosing rather to be burned to death than that one of them should perish.

This true story shows us how the Lord, who planted this instinct in the heart of the timid hen, to defend her young in the hour of danger, would bring with great force to our memory His words, as He wept over Jerusalem: "How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!" Had the little chickens taken no heed to their mother's cry of "Chick, chick, chick," when she saw the fire coming, or had they said to themselves: "We shall be safer in the farmer's house; see the big strong walls; they can better resist the flames than our poor, weak mother," they would certainly have perished.