Pa & the Chickens
“My grandparents kept a good-sized garden and some chickens on their land, as was common for folks in rural Montana. My grandmother’s cooking wasn’t fancy, but she made the most of her garden in every season.
“Grandma typically did most of the egg-collecting and harvesting (except for the apples; she didn’t like climbing the ladder into the trees). One day, however, she was busy and asked my grandfather — I called him ‘Pa’ — to go collect the eggs. There’d be about 14-16 eggs if all the hens were laying.
“Now, there were few things Pa wouldn’t at least try; he wasn’t an educated man, but he was well-read and intellectually curious. He’d had to learn to conquer his fears to take care of his family through the Depression and on. But one thing he avoided almost religiously was going into that chicken coop.
“This day, however, there was no getting around it. So he grabbed the basket and headed out to the coop.
“The chickens didn’t pay you much attention when you were outside the wire, and even when you walked into the coop, they’d rather amiably make room for you as they went about pecking and scratching. If you wanted to collect an egg, the hens would look at you with a certain challenge in their little black eyes. Grandma said you had to reach in gently with a steady, firm hand; the hen would raise up ever so slightly in accommodation if you knew what you were doing.
“So Pa started collecting the eggs, one at a time. He looked over his shoulder. A couple of chickens were walking along after him. He sped up a little, and the chickens — were there more now? — sped up, too. Pretty soon he was grabbing straw and eggs willy-nilly and causing all kinds of uproar among the hens. Suddenly he got to the end of the coop. And the chickens — possibly the entire flock — were between him and the door. Looking at him.
“My grandmother had heard the commotion and come outside to see what was going on. She saw Pa running through the coop, firing eggs over his shoulder at the chickens, who were squawking and flapping up a storm.
“Pa slammed the coop door behind him and came around the corner to find Grandma waiting. He smoothed his hair with one hand and gently placed the egg basket in her arms with the other. ‘Here you go, dear,’ he said as he walked past her nonchalantly.
“There was one egg left in the basket.”
