Part I, Running, Chapter 5 Summary

Chapter 5 is the brief story of a banty hen named Hawk. Banty hens are small chickens that Paulsen and his wife often kept around in order to feed the dogs, lay eggs and the like. But Paulsen respected even these animals. One day while running his dogs, Paulsen happened upon a dead grouse which the dogs quickly devoured. When Paulsen discovered that the grouse had laid a number of eggs that were still alive, he decided to have some mercy on her and take them home to keep warm and hatch. However, when he took the eggs home, he found that Hawk quickly adopted them. For Paulsen, this was a strange and surprising thing for a hen as difficult and irritable as Hawk to do. Nonetheless, Hawk sat on them until they hatched and treated them like...