In a minute the little Red Hen came quickly in, and shut the door and locked it.  “I’m glad I’m safely in,” she said.  Just as she said it, she turned round, and there stood the ugly old Fox, with his big bag over his shoulder.  Whiff! how scared the little Red Hen was!  She dropped her apronful of sticks, and flew up to the big beam across the ceiling.  There she perched, and she said to the old Fox, down below, “You may as well go home, for you can’t get me.”

“Can’t I, though!” said the Fox.  And what do you think he did?  He stood on the floor underneath the little Red Hen and twirled round in a circle after his own tail.  And as he spun, and spun, and spun, faster, and faster, and faster, the poor little Red Hen got so dizzy watching him that she couldn’t hold on to the perch.  She dropped off, and the old Fox picked her up and put her in his bag, slung the bag over his shoulder, and started for home, where the kettle was boiling.

He had a very long way to go, up hill, and the little Red Hen was still so dizzy that she didn’t know where she was.  But when the dizziness began to go off, she whisked her little scissors out of her apron pocket, and snip! she cut a little hole in the bag; then she poked her head out and saw where she was, and as soon as they came to a good spot she cut the hole bigger and jumped out herself.  There was a great big stone lying there, and the little Red Hen picked it up and put it in the bag as quick as a wink.  Then she ran as fast as she could till she came to her own little farmhouse, and she went in and locked the door with the big key.

The old Fox went on carrying the stone and never knew the difference.  My, but it bumped him well!  He was pretty tired when he got home.  But he was so pleased to think of the supper he was going to have that he did not mind that at all.  As soon as his mother opened the door he said, “Is the kettle boiling?”

“Yes,” said his mother; “have you got the little Red Hen?”

“I have,” said the old Fox.  “When I open the bag you hold the cover off the kettle and I’ll shake the bag so that the Hen will fall in, and then you pop the cover on, before she can jump out.”

“All right,” said his mean old mother; and she stood close by the boiling kettle, ready to put the cover on.

The Fox lifted the big, heavy bag up till it was over the open kettle, and gave it a shake.  Splash! thump! splash!  In went the stone and out came the boiling water, all over the old Fox and the old Fox’s mother!

And they were scalded to death.

But the little Red Hen lived happily ever after, in her own little farmhouse.

FOOTNOTES: 

[18] Adapted from the verse version, by Horace E. Scudder, which follows this as an alternative.

THE STORY OF THE LITTLE RID HIN

     There was once’t upon a time
       A little small Rid Hin,
     Off in the good ould country
       Where yees ha’ nivir bin.