Dolores and I met Melissa about eight years ago, when we were visiting a woman in a farmhouse in Bass Harbor.

The woman was feeding Melissa grain or corn, and after Melissa ate it all off the floor the woman opened the door and ushered the red hen out.

The woman whom we were visiting told us the red hen wandered all over the neighborhood and the folks she visited fed her. After each meal, she would continue wandering. Good neighbors give good meals.

Since Melissa's wanderings were around an area which is part of my Island Explorer route, I began to tell the tourists about her. I would see her from time to time wandering around the neighborhood or pecking at this or that in her own back yard.

One tourist, who was apparently actually listening to the story, asked me who got the eggs since the hen wandered all over the half-mile-long neighborhood.

"I don't know," I said, "No one has ever told me they found any eggs. That's a good research question, and if I can't find the answer as I drive around the area talking to those who ride the bus, I'll make up an answer."

Too many things in my life remain undone, one of which was finding out who got the eggs. Another never-done activity was creating a fictitious answer as to who found and ate the eggs.

And while, as any news reporter can attest, truth may be over rated, last week I learned the answer -- which may be true.

Last week I was chatting with a passenger, a local resident of the Bass Harbor area whom I'd gotten to know a bit as she rides frequently. She had always gotten off the bus at the Bass Harbor Ferry Terminal (from which a state ferry departs several times daily for Swans Island and Frenchboro).

I said to her, "I don't think you live at the ferry terminal, and I can stop and let you off anywhere you want as long as it's a safe spot."

"Thank you," she replied. "I live just down the hill in one of those houses."

As the bus approached the hill, I asked, "You don't live in that house right there where I used to see the red hen hanging out, do you?"

"Yes," she answered -- although, she may have actually said, "Ayuh," since I think she has lived there most of her life and so would speak as any Maineiac would.

Then she added, "Melissa belonged to me."

"Who's Melissa?" I asked.

"The red hen you saw at my house."

I told her how happy I was to find out who owned the red hen, and added that I hadn't seen the hen in quite awhile.

"A fox got her two years ago," Susan said, after she had introduced herself by name.

Susan said she had begun with a half-dozen hens, but one by one Brer Fox had nabbed them for its dinner.

As Susan got off the bus, I said, "I have one more question. Do you know who got the eggs, since Melissa visited all the neighbors and enjoyed their dinner hospitality?"

"I got a few," she said, "because I knew a few of the places she hid them. But no one knows where she hid the rest."

As far as I know, this tale is true, which I think is pretty good for a former news reporter.*

*I seldom do this because it is not a good idea to give free advertising to a victim of your writing, but Susan told me she rents out to tourists another house she owns next to the late Melissa's former home. This house is located about 75 yards from the shore of Bass Harbor and is right up the hill from the Seafood Ketch Restaurant, as fine a place to dine as you'll find in Bass Harbor. Of course, the competition is slim, Mainely Delight restaurant (which is closed after Labor Day) up the road across from the ferry terminal and about a mile from another more homey appearing bar and restaurant. If you decide you'd like to rent Susan's vacation house out for a week -- she told me she has openings in September -- you can e-mail her yourself at mckinleycottage@yahoo.com.

Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@midmaine.com.

Milton M. Gross Copyright 2011