Grandpa had a large chicken yard with a big hen house. There was a tall chicken-wire fence stretched around it, with a makeshift gate that was hard to open and close. To unlock it, you just had to turn a piece of wood nailed to the post by the gate. There was no grass anywhere inside the pen—I think the chickens ate everything there, while they were clucking around, picking at the cracked corn we threw them every day from the metal coffee can.

Grandpa made nests for the chickens inside old wooden boxes from the feed store. He stuffed hay into them and nailed them up above my head to the wall. Little strips of wood were placed between the nests, so the chickens could walk over and visit each other at night, when they were laying their eggs.

Grandpa always made me go get the eggs every morning. [I broke one once when I dropped the basket, but he never knew it.] The eggs were sometimes still warm. Most of them were small and white. But once in a while, I found a light brown one. The chickens didn’t care if I took their eggs, but sometimes I got pecked moving them off the nests to get to the eggs. The smell of the chicken yard was made worse by me walking through it barefooted and having to clean between my toes at the water hydrant after each trip across the pen.

There was one bad thing that Grandpa always made me face. To get to the chicken coop I had to go through the area guarded by old “Black-eye.” He was a red and black rooster with red wiggly skin hanging from his throat, and he ruled the chicken yard. He particularly did not like me. When I opened the gate, he would begin walking toward me, clucking faster as he approached me, and then I would run across the chicken yard while he chased and tried to spur me. He was a mean devil.

Black-eye was not afraid of anything or anyone. But Grandpa knew how to bluff that rooster by slapping his thigh, to keep him at a distance while he was in the pen feeding the hens. One day, Black-eye just cocked his head to the side and watched, while Grandpa was wringing the necks of some of his friends. I don’t guess he knew that Grandma was going to fry chickens for our supper that evening, or he would have tried to chase Grandpa, too.

I think Grandpa was trying to teach me something about life with his chickens and eggs. I would ask “why are you killing the chickens?”

Grandpa would just say, “That’s what chickens are for.” Maybe he did teach me something—but the memory of watching those headless chickens dancing around the yard trying to die made me want to forget about it.

Old Black-eye was the last of the chickens to go. He even outlived Grandpa. After Grandpa died in 1956, Grandma cooked Black-eye in a pot of dumplings and tore down the chicken yard. She used the old hen house for storing junk, and there were no more fresh eggs for breakfast.

Feeling for warm eggs in the nest and overcoming my fear of Black eye—they were part of growing up for me. My memories of those days fire my imagination, recalling those experiences, pungent smells, and of a desire to be there one more time to run with old Black-eye. And I realized that Grandpa gave me his best days—being there to share his red rooster and henhouse and creating unforgettable memories for me.

© 2009 Tuck Mantooth All Rights Reserved

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