Eggs (revised version)
I couldn't tell you exactly how it happened. You know how it is with chickens. I had the coop door slightly open, holding it firmly with my right hand while I reached for a tempting clutch of eggs with my left, and I nearly had it. . . My fingers brushed the crackly straw of the nest box. . . When I felt a movement near my leg, and looked down to see a stream of chickens scrambling happily forth to freedom. I yelped and slammed the door on the last few; but too late, the wonderful garden, towards which I had always felt a sort of distant but loving connection, was flooded with ravenous hens intent on destruction. “He told me not to—” I panted aloud, thrusting a stick between a rosebush and an incoming chicken. “If I had only listened—” I stabbed at a busily pecking Wyandotte. “If I hadn't tried—” I lunged for a rogue Rhode Island Red. “to get those eggs—” I stumbled after a group of cackling Barred Rocks. “I would have to deal—” I hurled myself at a marauding Beilefelder. “...