When I was growing up, one of my favorite books my mom would read to me was called The Little Red Hen. An 1874 American fable by Mary Mapes Dodge.

It’s a story about perseverance, belief in yourself and the ability to ignore all those that doubt you and think you are not capable of getting it done. We always called it, “The Chicken and the Bread.”

Briefly, the story is about a barnyard chicken that wanted to simply bake a loaf of bread. The chicken went from farm animal to farm animal asking for help to cut the wheat, prepare the ingredients, chop wood, and build the fire for baking her bread. She just needed a helping hand, that’s all.

But the farm animals were all too busy doing their own thing to help. The portly pig had a long list of things to do and had no extra time to help the chicken achieve her goal. The horse was far too proud to waste his time on an untalented barnyard chicken and offered no help or encouragement. The uninterested cow was busy chewing her cud and just did not feel like it. So, no help was to be found.

As the story goes, the chicken decided to go ahead and do it all by herself despite the lack of help from others. She went out and cut the wheat, prepared the ingredients, chopped the wood, and built the fire for baking.

The cow just chewed her cud and rolled her eyes when she saw the chicken cutting the wheat. The portly pig just lied in the mud and chuckled as he watched the chicken gathering ingredients to prepare the bread for baking. The proud horse just ignored the chicken as she chopped wood and built the fire to bake the bread. All the other chickens talked about her behind her back and teased her that she was just wasting her time.

Well, it wasn’t long before the chicken had everything, she needed to bake her loaf of bread. She mixed the ingredients, stoked the fire, and placed the dough on a flat stone and placed it over the fire.

Well, it did not take long for the mouthwatering aroma of bread baking to fill the barnyard air. When all the barnyard animals caught a whiff of mouthwatering bread baking, the smell was irresistible so naturally they all wanted a piece of bread.

As the chicken was pulling the bread out of the fire, she noticed that she had an audience around her. All of the barnyard animals were standing in line for a piece of bread.

She looked at them and said, I paraphrased this a bit, “Hey pig, where were you when I needed help gathering ingredients? Hey cow, where were you when I needed help cutting the wheat? Hey horse, were you not too proud to help? Hey chickens, did you not make fun of me and say I was wasting my time? And now you want me to share my bread with you although you did nothing to help? I thought you were my friends.”

Naturally, the farm animals were ashamed that they did not help the chicken. They were asked to pitch in but only offered excuses not to help. They were either too busy, too lazy, too proud, too doubtful, or too jealous to assist the chicken.

Nobody was willing to give, but they were all willing to take. The chicken did not show grace; she ate all the bread herself, and I don’t blame her.

I have been on both sides of that story. There have been times in my life when I was unwilling to help a friend in need, even in some of the simplest of tasks. There have also been times when I could have used a helping hand, but did it on my own because there was no help to be found. We can all do more than we think.

A friend in need is a friend indeed, especially if they are baking fresh bread.

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Todd Howey is a columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose articles appear on Fridays. Email comments to [email protected].