Cluck, cluck

OLD MA- DONALDS

 

Daddy took the faded paper flowers out of the two blue vases in our black Buick and put in bright yellow buttercups he cut from our back yard this morning. They don't smell good or bad but do make our car look prettier than the paper ones had. We are going for a long ride to visit Aunt Katherine in Harrisburg. Mama doesn't want her to be bothered fixing lunch for us and comes staggering out of the house with a large cardboard box. I know what is in there. Fried chicken  wrapped in waxed paper, a thick fatty corned beef sandwich on fresh rye bread for Daddy, wrapped in waxed paper, and then put into a brown paper bag and a sliced pickled tomato will be  wrapped in a double layer of waxed paper, too. Mama always has extra rolls of waxed paper in her pantry as she finds something that needs to be protected every day. In our lunch carton there will surely be a jar that still says Peter Pan Peanut Butter but in it will be enough potato salad for all of us. Every day kitchen forks will be wrapped in waxed paper too. There will be plenty of paper napkins but only one package of Oreo cookies.

 

By ten o'clock Daddy wants to pull off the road for lunch. He knows just where to stop. There is a very high hill that meets the road. People stop to drink the healthy spring water that runs constantly from someplace we can't see.  Mama has four Dixie paper cups on top of our lunches. Daddy fills all of them and we sit in the car eating lunch for breakfast.

 

We are just about at the half way mark to Aunt Katherine's farm. Mama talks to Dad, warns him about cars behind us, in front of us. Daddy tells her over and over, 'Keep quiet, Blanche. Driving is tough enough without you telling me what to do.' My older sister, Caroline, and I try to play 'I see something blue,' but that is no good because we pass it too fast.' Mama reads license numbers to us and we have to add them fast before another car comes close. We try counting telephone poles, play 'A my name is Alice.' That gets us to the outskirts of Harrisburg and whoosh we are thru the little town. Daddy tells us to be quiet. 'Mom watch for a sign on the right side, your side, that says
'Farmer's Market. After that we go straight for two miles and we'll see a sign that says, 'Ma-Donald's Farm.' Katherine will probably be in the chicken house or down the underground storage room.' She isn't. Dad honks a few times and out she comes from the chicken house carrying a chicken in her arms. It is skinny and making a lot of noise. Aunt Katherine talks to the chicken as if it were her baby. 'Poor little thing. You didn't eat today. You must be sick.' In a minute she says hello to us, tells us to go in the house. 'There's a big pitcher of tea in the ice box. Help yourselves.' I can't help it but I feel the fried chicken I had for lunch hating me.

 

The kitchen table is set with pretty plates. Aunt Katherine tells us  her husband,

 

Donald, who has been in heaven for twenty years already, bought them for her when they were rich.  'You told me not to fix lunch so I fixed you a 'welcome snack.' From the oven she brought out 4 roasted chickens, their heads still on. Zip, zap, her razor edged knife cut off the heads. With the same swift motion, the wings and feet joined the heads on the largest platter. What looked like a ton of slaw and potato salad over-flowed two bowls. Home-made bread she warmed for ten minutes in the oven where the dead chickens had been. Daddy ate some of the chicken breasts. Mama took one thin drumstick. I took only a plate for the salads, told a fib to Aunt Katherine that I had been car sick  and just couldn't eat anything.

 

 

 

'Want to feed the chickens, Mildred?' I could not say 'no thank you' because she already had my hand in hers and was almost dragging me there. Just ten little steps and I was at the hen house door. Before my aunt opened it, I already felt sick. The smell made me hold my nose.
The best part inside was the chickens clucked so loud I couldn't hear a word my Aunt was telling me–but I saw–saw too much. As she walked thru the hen house, I saw her pick up a fat chicken. With her elbow, she nudged me towards a big wooden block and honest to heaven, offered me a great big knife. 'Watch me. I'll show you what to do.'
With that she put the chicken on the block, raised the big knife, kerplunked it down on the chicken's neck. Only one squawking sound froze me to the floor before  blood spurted out. There was no way she was going to catch me. I ran faster than I ever ran before and got out of the hen house.

 

Back with my parents in the house, I couldn't tell them what I saw. I begged them to take me home but no, Aunt Katherine was fixing dinner for us. 'Ma, I'm not staying. I'll walk home.' She laughed at me. 'We are going to have ice cream for dessert, peach, real peach ice cream that Aunt Katherine churned herself.' Ma, you can have mine. I'm sick. Please take me home.' Dad felt my forehead and declared, 'Mildred, it is a long ride home. Maybe we should leave.' Aunt Katherine was upset, angry, disappointed.

 

Just the same she fixed a big box of fried chicken for us to take home. Dad put the box on the floor of the car right near my feet. The ride home was at least twice as long as getting there. I never went to visit the farm again , don't eat chicken any more and may stop eating beef soon. The memory of the beheaded chicken, its last squawk, the blood, the empty eyes was too much, much too much.

 

I eat vegetables, fruits, nuts. They don't bleed, make noise and I am now  a healthy, happy teen, eating my meals alone most of the time.