Friday, August 04, 2006
The Chicken Story
I considered calling this "Killing The Old Red Rooster", but I am certain it was a hen, a big, fat hen. I know it was, because when we cut it open, we found eggs not quite ready,......But I'm getting ahead of my story.
I don't know why my sister and I had so much idle time. Maybe it wasn't a school day. I remember that we were in the yard, and growing more bored, because there wasn't anything to do. Not only that, we were getting hungry.
Mama, who was inside taking care of the babies, told us to stay outside a while, and she would call us when dinner was ready. But that seemed like forever, so we bumbled around a little, and kicked some sand in the air. Every now and then, one of us found a rock, and kicked it too. One of them almost hit a neighbor's hen, the one that was so big.
It wasn't really my fault. My sister was always getting me into trouble, or if she got mad at me, would hit me herself. She was just enough bigger than me that if we argued, I usually got the worst of it. So when she told me her plan, about the hen, I thought I better do what she said.
We had seen Mom wring chickens' necks, so we didn't think that would be too hard to do. But when we tried to catch it, that chicken took off. We tried cornering it, but it would rush right between us, or take off a different direction every time.
After a while my sister said it would take all day to catch that old hen, and if we hoped to eat chicken before the sun went down, we'd better find another way to kill it.
That's about when she headed for the old shed, and started looking for something. Pretty soon she held it up, a piece of wire, and I figured out her plan. I just about ran my little legs off, helping her corner that hen, but I still couldn't stand that she planned to choke it to death, and begged her to just chop its head off, like I had seen our father do.
I don't know how we finally caught it. Maybe we just chased it til it got too tired to run. But now we had a bigger problem. Who was going to hold it, and who was going to use the axe. I had never been so afraid before. I squinted my eyes as much as I could, and held that poor old chicken as still as I could, but when my sister raised the axe, I just couldn't hold it any longer. So finally, she threw the axe to one side, and picked up the piece of wire, and before I knew it, that chicken didn't have a head on its shoulders anymore.
Melting slugs with salt seemed bad enough, but seeing that headless hen flop around on the ground felt like murder, first degree murder, because we meant to kill it. I wasn't sure I could ever eat chicken again.
The rest of it would be easy, we thought. Mama's wash tubs were on the wash bench, so we put water in one, and threw the hen in it. Mama still hadn't called us for dinner, but that was O.K. My belly was bothering me so much I didn't think I could eat anyway. It was hard to know if I was having hunger pangs, or just trying to not throw up.
It didn't seem to bother my sister. She decided since she did most of the work that she got both breasts, and wouldn't let me have the wish bone either. But by then I didn't much care. I thought the worst of it was over, but that was before Mama found us.
She grabbed that chicken up out of the wash tub, and held it up, then threw it back in the water. It took a lot to make her mad, but she was mad now.
I don't know for sure how she made things right with the neighbor. She may have given him two smaller hens she said would be good layers, but she got to keep the dead one. Anyway,the neighbor agreed to the deal.
Mama was good at figuring out how to make the best of things. So we figured we weren't in trouble anymore for killing it. She heated water and poured over it. Our punishment was that we had to get every last one of those feathers off that hen.
If you've never had to stand over a tub of very warm water and smell chicken fat while pulling the wet,stickey feathers out, you might not understand that at that point I almost would rather have had a spanking. But Mama would not spank us. I cannot once ever remember her doing that to us. Pulling the feathers out was punishment enough.
I don't know why my sister and I had so much idle time. Maybe it wasn't a school day. I remember that we were in the yard, and growing more bored, because there wasn't anything to do. Not only that, we were getting hungry.
Mama, who was inside taking care of the babies, told us to stay outside a while, and she would call us when dinner was ready. But that seemed like forever, so we bumbled around a little, and kicked some sand in the air. Every now and then, one of us found a rock, and kicked it too. One of them almost hit a neighbor's hen, the one that was so big.
It wasn't really my fault. My sister was always getting me into trouble, or if she got mad at me, would hit me herself. She was just enough bigger than me that if we argued, I usually got the worst of it. So when she told me her plan, about the hen, I thought I better do what she said.
We had seen Mom wring chickens' necks, so we didn't think that would be too hard to do. But when we tried to catch it, that chicken took off. We tried cornering it, but it would rush right between us, or take off a different direction every time.
After a while my sister said it would take all day to catch that old hen, and if we hoped to eat chicken before the sun went down, we'd better find another way to kill it.
That's about when she headed for the old shed, and started looking for something. Pretty soon she held it up, a piece of wire, and I figured out her plan. I just about ran my little legs off, helping her corner that hen, but I still couldn't stand that she planned to choke it to death, and begged her to just chop its head off, like I had seen our father do.
I don't know how we finally caught it. Maybe we just chased it til it got too tired to run. But now we had a bigger problem. Who was going to hold it, and who was going to use the axe. I had never been so afraid before. I squinted my eyes as much as I could, and held that poor old chicken as still as I could, but when my sister raised the axe, I just couldn't hold it any longer. So finally, she threw the axe to one side, and picked up the piece of wire, and before I knew it, that chicken didn't have a head on its shoulders anymore.
Melting slugs with salt seemed bad enough, but seeing that headless hen flop around on the ground felt like murder, first degree murder, because we meant to kill it. I wasn't sure I could ever eat chicken again.
The rest of it would be easy, we thought. Mama's wash tubs were on the wash bench, so we put water in one, and threw the hen in it. Mama still hadn't called us for dinner, but that was O.K. My belly was bothering me so much I didn't think I could eat anyway. It was hard to know if I was having hunger pangs, or just trying to not throw up.
It didn't seem to bother my sister. She decided since she did most of the work that she got both breasts, and wouldn't let me have the wish bone either. But by then I didn't much care. I thought the worst of it was over, but that was before Mama found us.
She grabbed that chicken up out of the wash tub, and held it up, then threw it back in the water. It took a lot to make her mad, but she was mad now.
I don't know for sure how she made things right with the neighbor. She may have given him two smaller hens she said would be good layers, but she got to keep the dead one. Anyway,the neighbor agreed to the deal.
Mama was good at figuring out how to make the best of things. So we figured we weren't in trouble anymore for killing it. She heated water and poured over it. Our punishment was that we had to get every last one of those feathers off that hen.
If you've never had to stand over a tub of very warm water and smell chicken fat while pulling the wet,stickey feathers out, you might not understand that at that point I almost would rather have had a spanking. But Mama would not spank us. I cannot once ever remember her doing that to us. Pulling the feathers out was punishment enough.
