Little Red Hen was scratching the ground in the farmyard, looking for nice juicy worms to eat. Instead, she found a grain of wheat. She showed it to her friends—the duck, the goose and the cat.
“I could eat it right away,” she said, “Or we could plant it and have wheat to feed all of us. Will you help me plant it?”
But her friends were not interested, so Little Red Hen went ahead and planted the seed firmly in a little hole in the ground.
The next day, she had to water the dry patch and asked help from her friends to water the grain. But they brushed her off. So, she brought a watering can and watered it.
When the plant was tall and heavy with ripe wheat, they again refused to help her cut the wheat. She cut it and gathered it to be ground into flour. But her friends wouldn’t help her to get the wheat ground either.
Little Red Hen took the wheat in a cart to the miller and he made it into a whole bag of flour! Little Red Hen drove the cart back proudly carrying the bag in it.
But her friends were too lazy to help her even bake some bread! So Little Red Hen baked a warm fresh loaf of bread and sat down to eat it. Her friends arrived immediately to share the bread with her.
“No one helped me plant the grain, water it, cut the wheat and carry it to the miller to make flour. But my friends would like to eat the bread, wouldn’t they?” asked Little Red Hen.
“O, yes!” chorused the duck, the goose and the cat.
“O, no! You won’t share it!” said Little Red Hen, munching happily on the bread and eating all of it.
