Aunt Fanny and her chickens

Aunt Fanny loved her chickens. She was known to bring the new batches of chicks into the house first, instead of the chicken coop, if she thought the coop just wouldn’t be warm enough. The closest my mom ever let new batches stay in the house was on our enclosed porch. If that Spring was particularly cold they would spend a brief time in the kitchen corralled on the linoleum floor in front of the little cast iron stove.

How I loved that time of year. Dad would come home with boxes of baby chicks. The boxes looked a bit like an oversized take-out pizza box with air holes on the top. Inside were dozens of peeping chicks. I would sit on the floor next to them and watch them. When I was sure I wasn’t being watched, I would reach out and lightly touch them. Sometimes, I’d pick one up and cup it in my hands and bring it up next to my face for little nuzzles. That time was short lived, and soon they were out of the house. In the chicken house they were kept warm with a heat lamp hanging just above them. With the door closed, it was plenty warm enough. I would know. Too often I would sneak out there to be with them and usually end up heat sick and get a scolding for it. But Aunt Fanny would let hers stay indoors until she was satisfied about the temperature being warm enough in the chicken house.

We only raised chickens to eat, Aunt Fanny had laying chickens. I remember she raised bantams, but everyone I knew called them banty chickens. There was a feisty (cocky) rooster that I particularly remember. He was pretty too. Any animal that was raised by Aunt Fanny tended to be, but this fellow was especially. I would admire him from afar. I was forbidden to ever go near Aunt Fanny’s chickens and the rooster scared me. Farm animals aren’t pets and it’s respectful to give them a wide berth to do their jobs. That was easy on my part. Although, all of the chickens liked to come at me and he more than the hens. Looking back, I think it was my summer footwear that attracted them and caused them to peck at my heels. I often wore flip-flops and from their perspective the rubber sole bouncing under my foot must have looked a lot like a big wiggly worm. This is adult-me reasoning. Child-me was scared when the chickens were coming at me. Them pecking, my heels bleeding, me running away. It was scary.

Our frequent family outings usually involved driving on Sunday to one of several relatives. My parents each had aunts and cousins. Aunt Fanny was my mother’s aunt. She and Uncle Hiram owned a dairy farm and lived in a two-story farmhouse. I enjoyed visiting. The house had an eat-in kitchen, a dining room, and a huge front room that was kept quite formal. The visits took place in the kitchen and dining room. After the initial greetings and catching up, the adults turned to topics of conversation they wanted to keep from younger ears. Many times Aunt Fanny would ask me if I wanted to go into the front parlor alone. She knew how much I liked that.
She would open the door and lead me in and look me in the eyes and have me promise to not break anything or get anything dirty. Then she would leave and close the door and I was there alone in my own private adventure.

Going in there by myself was like taking a trip into another world. I felt so adult, elegant, and sophisticated. The room was always in perfect order. The furniture was oiled and polished. There was a piano. I didn’t know how to play, but oh I wanted to. I would sit at it and gently touch my fingers to the keys and pretend to play. I would walk to every area in the room, the way one walks through a museum. I would take it all in through all the senses I could. I would cautiously touch the surfaces, the whatnots, the doilies, the picture frames. I would inhale that room. My imagination would travel through time and I was the lady of the house and this was my fine parlor and I would entertain my guests. We would sit on the upholstered sofa. I saved that for last, mainly because the fabric was some sort of wool and it was scratchy. Every time I would talk myself into it, saying this time I will be unfazed. Yet every time my skin would start to itch and burn and that would be the end of my trip to my imagined adulthood. Enough! Childhood and the outdoors were calling me.

There was a front door that led out onto the front porch and to the front yard, but I wasn’t permitted to open it. Instead, I had to return to everyone in the dining room and get permission to go outside. It was uncomfortable for me to go back and initiate more conversation. I worried about what I would say or not say. Too often the adults talked about how quiet I was, and that only made me more quiet. I enjoyed them most when I could sit perched close enough to hear their conversations and far enough away to be forgotten and excluded. Happily, this time I was more than welcome by them to go outside and play by myself.

I went out the kitchen door and around the side of the house to the tree swing. If there is a finer piece of play equipment, I have yet to experience it. The swing was homemade out of rope and a flat wooden plank seat. How I loved it. I always had strong legs and I could get the swing to soar up high.
It was like being a bird in the trees. I remember pitying the city children and their asphalt or concrete play yards. Dirt and grass and trees and blue skies, what more could a soul ever want?

After a while I felt the urge to explore the yard and farm a bit. Aunt Fanny grew some pretty flowers, there were often cats with kittens around, maybe a calf, sometimes Ranger the herding dog would keep me company. Back around to the other side of the house, the little buildings, and to the gravel lane that went down to the big barn. One of the little buildings was the chicken house. Mindful to leave them alone, I walked only close enough to say hello. That was fine until they thought maybe they were going to get fed and the hens came toward me. I ran and put enough distance between us, they went back to minding their business. Just as I was going to walk up the lane towards the front yard, the rooster came at me and pecked at my heels and I was bleeding and sweating and running and thinking I might trip on the gravel. My knees were all too familiar with that. Well my strong legs easily outran the rooster.
Realizing he was far behind, I stopped and turned around, and we both stood there looking at each other. Naturally I started giving him a good talking to. Likely, my sassy expressions were setting something off and making him want to reclaim his place as king of the roost. He was starting to charge towards me. I had to think fast. I picked up a rock and threw it at him, thinking to scare him. It hit him. He collapsed. He was still.
Oh no, what have I done?

Thinking I had killed him, and knowing miracles are only a prayer away, I started praying with all my heart. There was much more at stake here than Aunt Fanny’s favorite pretty banty rooster. Me. I was at stake. I was afraid I would be punished, for I most certainly would have. That’s something awful but I could get over that. I did not want to kill Aunt Fanny’s opinion of me. Someone fine enough to be trusted alone in the front parlor does not angrily kill a chicken with a rock. One would have a long road ahead to recover from that, if ever. So I prayed, “Please, God, please let Aunt Fanny’s rooster live! Let him be okay! Make him GET UP! PLEASE!” I was so scared. I thought I was going to die on the gravel driveway right there with that chicken. Or worse, he would die and I would live. “Please, God!”

This went on long enough for me to get good tickled at what was happening. Here I was, after staring at an adversary whose focus a few minutes ago was to chase me and make me bleed, praying passionately for his recovery. My mind was laughing, but my mouth kept praying. And just like that, the rooster stood up and shook it off and went back to the chicken coop. I thought it was a good time too for me to return to my own. I didn’t care if the adults noticed me or not. Seeing that I was flushed, Aunt Fanny made sure I had plenty of ice cold water to drink and I quietly stayed indoors for the remainder of the visit.

A few weeks later when a visit to Aunt Fanny’s made it back on our family outing itinerary, the rooster was the talk. Ranger, who had only love for everyone, had been giving a lot of attention to the feathered fellow. Except, now he was unfeathered. Ranger was giving him so much attention, he had wooled him, as my mother would say. Most of his feathers had fallen out. He looked pitiful. But still walked around cocky, which made him also look comical. But mostly, I felt sorry for him. We had gone through so much together. We shared our mutual near death experience and the farmyard miracle. Seeing him like that made me feel uneasy. This time though I didn’t feel the need to pray for either of us. Deep down I trusted Aunt Fanny was quite capable of nursing the rooster back to his barnyard glory.

(the end)

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