So Refiloe thought for a while. Suddenly she smiled, ‘I have an excellent idea,’ she said to herself. She went and filled a bucket with water from the spring and set to work.

She had a lot of trouble catching her chickens; they did not think that a bath was such a good idea. She had to get them into the corner by the pigsty to catch them.
It took quite a while, but in the end she shut them all into the chicken coop to wait their turn to be washed.

They looked very unhappy.

Refiloe put the first chicken into the bucket of water.

She had to hold it very tight because it clucked at the top of its voice and flapped its wings like crazy.

‘Hold still you silly thing,’ Refiloe shouted, ‘this won’t take long!’

She got a good grip on the chicken, and scrubbed its muddy feet.

Then she ducked the chicken under the water to make sure that all the feathers got wet so that she could give it a really good wash.

The chicken went quite wild.

It twisted and turned in Refiloe’sarms until she was soaked with water.

‘Don’t flap so much,’ shouted Refiloe, ‘I’m washing as quickly as I can!’

It was when Refiloe started to wipe the chicken’s nose and eyes and scrub its scrawny neck that it suddenly went limp.

It flopped over the side of the bucket and Refiloe could not make it stand up.

It lay there with its head hanging over the side and its feet floating on top of the water.

Refiloe was very annoyed.

‘This is no time to sleep,’ said Refiloe, and she gave it a good shake to get all the water out.

The chicken flopped around like an old dishcloth.

‘Well, if you are not going to wake up now, I’ll have to put you somewhere to dry nicely,’ she said, and she laid it out on the grass at the back near the toilet to dry.