More Hardscrabble Farm Life
Night of the great chicken raid:
The following is a true story. The names have not been changed to protect the innocent, because none of us were. There were about a dozen of us, perhaps more, ranging in ages from 8 to 15 years. Among the younger ones were Roger White, Darrell Kuhen, Lee Roy Riter and myself. The older boys were Jack Anderson (ringleader), Roger Sapp, Hubert Morris and Greg Clark. I believe Lyle Knapp, Dewey Morris and several others whose names and faces now have the advantage of escaping my memory were part of the midrange group.
We found ourselves wandering aimlessly on country roads between Endicott and Morris Run that night. I no longer recall whether it was a dissipating birthday party, church meeting, or some other function that had drawn us together. Our impromptu army, awash in clouds of premature testosterone was, no doubt made possible by a lack of l’odeour de la femme to follow on this particular occasion. The result was a curiously dangerous crowd without a shred of intelligence among us to limit our imagination. We were the perfect storm of “Mollie McGuires”.
We younger members were not of sufficient rank to make decisions regarding where and with whom we would wreak havoc, only whether or no we could tag along. Our alternative was to go home and keep our mouths shut. Given the wisdom our limited years had imparted to us, that wasn’t even an option. Of course, we would tag along, common sense and the Devil be damned.
Our management team decided that we were collectively hungry and in order to acquit ourselves as men tonight, something must die for our consumption. Stealing apples from a farmer’s orchard would scarcely qualify as a crime, nor would watermelons from his garden. Tonight we would be felons, shedding blood and cooking fresh meat by light of the moon.
Wild game would not fill the bill because it runs too fast. The same applied to sheep in an open field. Cows were too large for even our group to consume in one sitting; besides, if we accidently tapped a bull for our victim, life might suddenly become more tenuous than even we were comfortable with. We were bold, brave, and modestly stupid. We were not, however, insane. We would dine upon fowl before morning, specifically chickens, the domestic variety stolen from a local farmer.
Our benefactor would be George Morris. His chicken coop was near the road. His domicile was fifty yards beyond the coop. We could grab a pair of cluckers and run before he knew what was happening. Even if he came out armed with the proverbial shotgun, his son, Dewey was one of us and might be able to persuade his dad to hold fire. Chickens are easy to collect at night and make little noise if captured properly. Our acquisition team was not up to the task. The very trees in the valley shook with shrieks of terrified Rhode Island Reds while neighborhood hills echoed with panic.
Suddenly; there was George, shotgun in one hand, lantern in the other. A kerosene lantern only casts a spray of light about ten or twelve feet and its effect is not to shed light upon the target, but the gunner. As I stood there wondering if George would suddenly start emptying that blunderbuss in our direction, it occurred to me just how well defended those old hillbilly farms were. I also realized that the older boys were as cowardly as I. One of them began to stammer whatever excuse he could think of just when George interrupted him. “If you boys just want a couple of roosters to cook, you should’ve asked me. I’ll help you catch them.”
Suitably chastened, we walked down the road for about a mile with our semi-stolen meal when one of the boys produced a Zippo and lit a fire. Someone else found a pocket knife and there was some discussion if it were an appropriate tool for beheading. An axe would have been cleaner and faster, but no one had thought to bring one. Dewey said there was no way in Hell that he would go back and ask his father for one. Greg Clark came to the rescue. He showed us how to wring a chicken’s neck. It worked. Grab the chicken by the head and neck with your thumb pointing towards its body. Swing your arm hard in circles a few times and the whole chicken will fly off leaving the head and upper neck in your clenched fist. It was surprisingly fast and quiet. Greg said it was also painless, but we all knew better.
The feathers were sort of pulled off. The birds were sort of eviscerated and then sort of hacked up, all with that same stubby pocket knife. The parts were then distributed to the rest of the gang, who put them on sticks and burned them on the open fire without so much as salt and pepper. At some point, I volunteered my share of the feast to anyone that would take it and sauntered home alone.
The experience put me off chicken (no matter how well seasoned and prepared) for a long time. It would be some years before the other boys would admit just how horrible those things tasted. It would be longer still before most of them would admit to wetting their pants at the silhouette of George and his twelve gauge in the lantern light.