The Little Red Hen Gets Unexpected Help

"The little red hen did plant those cotton seeds all by herself. There were thirty-six of them. That's a lot of seeds, isn't it? How many of you can count that high?"
"The seeds began to grow in a few days. First there was one leaf then a lot of leaves. Each cotton plant loved the sunshine and the rain. The leaves reached up as high as they could towards the sun.
 The little red hen went to the cotton garden every day and scratched out the weeds with her little feet. The little red hen had asked her three friends each day if they would help her. Each day her friends said,  'No' in their own way. "Not I," barked the dog. I have better things to do." Oakley, wanted to play. He had such fun with his pink plastic pig."

"Sybil, the cat was too busy getting into mischief; sometimes with her sister, Sadie."
'I like to see if I can jump at people and scare them especially at night. Sometimes I break things and it is so funny', meowed the cat."

"Jake, the turkey continued hanging out with his friends. But one day he said, "Maybe I should help the little red hen. She seems like she is working all the time and not having any fun at all."
"Jake's friends said, 'It's all her fault. She didn't need to plant all those seeds. Now she has to be in the garden all day working. We aren't going help her. We need to get big and strong so we can go to the dinners that we have been invited to. We need to practice how to say, 'Gobble, gobble'. We also need to learn how to make our tail feathers get big and beautiful. We are very handsome you know'."
"So Jake followed his friends and didn't help his friend, the little red hen."

 "The cotton plants grew very tall and within three and a half months each cotton plant had cotton bolls on it. Each cotton boll had thirty-six seeds."

"One day the farmer's wife looked out the window. She saw a huge cotton garden that was almost as big as a field, that was full of  cotton plants. The field looked like a field of snow. When the cotton plants get full grown their flowers or bolls (pronounced, bowls) are white and fluffy. From a distance they look like a lot of cotton balls."

"The farmer's wife was amazed at what the little red hen had done. She said, "I am going to help the little red hen get all that cotton out of the garden. It is a lot of work because all of the seeds have to be taken out of the bolls. There is a machine that will do that called a Cotton Gin, but the little red hen's garden is too small for that. I will pick all those bolls for her. I will ask my husband to help me."

 "After the cotton has been picked it has to be washed and cleaned. Then it is woven into material and sometimes yarn and lots and lots of other things. It goes to big companies and is dyed into many different colors. and patterns. I'm a little worried about my chickens getting too cold. I will make them some coats to keep them warm'."

Bella said, "Oh dear, Grandma Lu, I do need help learning to crochet. Are you sure you don't know how to crochet?"
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Many adults will always remember Eli Whitney as being famous for inventing the Cotton Gin. Little known is that he was also a farmer's son and went to Yale. He went home from college and invented the violin at the age of 12. Soon after he began forging nails and interchangeable parts for guns and his cotton gin.

This is a tiny replica I found of his cotton gin.