Animal Tales - Chickens

     One day, the family drove to Morton to the feed store and bought six baby chicks - one for each daughter.  Vern rigged up a brooder house to keep them warm at first.  It was really fun watching them grow from hatchlings to chickens.  Of course, the girls had to name them.  They can probably remember their names but the only one I remember was Henrietta, Lora's pet.   It wasn't long, however, that we realized that Henrietta was in reality a Henry.  In fact two of the six were roosters and those four hens never had a feather on their back because the male of the species was always jumping on - which was a good topic for sex education.  As Henrietta/Henry got older he became more agressive.  He went from  jumping hens (while mating they jump on the female's back and hold on and peck) to chasing humans.  He would peck at cats, dogs and an occasional pony or human, but the person he attacked most was Mary.  She would come down the back steps and H/H would be laying in wait behind the propane tank or a car parked in the driveway.  Mary would look around, feel it was okay to proceed and whammo! here came H/H, beak extended.  Mary would run back inside or jump behind someone else.  I have to admit the family - since he didn't bother any of us - thought it was pretty funny and began to call her "Birdie" or "Birdlegs."  It's tough being the middle child in a large family.
      At this time, my parents had sold their home in Morton and were living and traveling in their motorhome.  In the summers they came and parked the motorhome in our yard.  Vern hooked them up to the barn for electricity and the well house for water.  My dad noticed H/H's assault's on Mary and one  day when all of the kids and animals plus the four year old son of a friend were playing in the yard, Dad got out a pistol he kept in the motorhome and shot H/H as many times as possible
      When Vern came home he went ballistic.  He wouldn't say anything to Dad but I heard:  "Your father is the most irresponsible person I know, what was he thinking of, shooting off a gun in a yard full of kids?"  Believe me, I heard about this several times.
      Mother cleaned and dressed the chicken, made home made noodles - her specialty - and we had H/H for dinner.  We asked Donnie Montgomery, ouryoung  guest, what he thought of the experience.  He said that seeing the chicken being shot was pretty cool but that it tasted like glue (and it really did).

      One of the chickens sat on eggs and raised chicks that slowly disappeared.  Probably due to Princess and the other barn cats.  On a Sunday afternoon, the daughters were now teenagers, Lisa and Karen Epperly came for a visit with the daughters while their parents, Mary Lou and Russ and Vern and I drove up to Toluca for a meal at Caponis.  While we were gone the last one of the chickens was walking around acting strange and the kids decided it must be sick, so they fed it an aspirin and shortly thereafter the fowl clucked it's last breath.
       Being the good Catholic girls that they were, they decided to give it a funeral.  They dug a shallow grave out behind the corn crib, wrapped the chicken in a paper towel and buried it.  They stood around the grave, holding hands.  They sang a hymn, said a prayer and as a final gesture, they all took one step onto the grave.  They were stunned and scared when from the grave came a 'Braaack!"  They all ran away as they thought they had buried a live chicken.  In reality when they had stepped on the grave, they pushed out the air that was still in it's throat.
       By the time we got home, they were laughing hysterically and when Mall and Epperly daughters get together,  they still laugh uproariously about the last chicken's funeral.