Once upon a time, there was a little boy called David. Everyone called him Dopey because . well, read on and you will see why. David lived with his mother in a nice house with a courtyard, a vegetable plot, a cellar and a hen run. One day his mother, since she had to go shopping, said to him, "I'll be away for an hour or two, son. Now, the broody hen is sitting on her eggs. Make sure nobody goes near her. Keep the house tidy and don't touch the jar in the cupboard, it's full of poison." "Don't worry, Mum," the little boy said, and when his mother had gone, he went into the yard to keep guard over the broody hen. However, tired of sitting, the hen got up to stretch her legs for a little before going back to the eggs. David picked up a stick and yelled: "You nasty creature, get back on those eggs!" But the broody hen, annoyed, only said, "Cluck! ", and so David hit her with his stick. He didn't really mean to do her any harm, but the blow fell on the middle of her neck and the poor hen dropped dead. "Oh!" gasped the lad. "Who is going to sit on the eggs now? Well, I had better do something about that!" So he sat on the eggs . and broke the lot.
Getting up with the seat of his trousers sticky with egg yolk, David said to himself, "Mum will give me such a scolding! But to keep in her good books, I'll give her a surprise! I'll make her lunch!" He picked up the hen, plucked its feathers and put it on the spit to roast.
"A roast calls for a good wine!" he said to himself. He took a jug and went down to the cellar where he started to draw sparkling red wine from a barrel. "Mum will be pleased with me," he told himself. At that moment, there was a dreadful noise in the kitchen. David said to himself, "Who can that be? I must go and see!" And he went . forgetting to turn off the tap on the barrel.
He run up to the kitchen and saw the cat with the roast hen in its jaws and the spit overturned. "Hey thief!" shouted the lad. "Put my hen down!" He picked up a rolling pin and started to chase the cat which, terrified as it was, firmly held on the roast chicken as it dashed from room to room. The pair of them knocked against the cupboards, overturned tables, sideboards, stools, smashed vases, pots, plates and glasses. The devastation ended when the cat dropped the hen, leapt out of a window and vanished from sight.
