Lessons From the Farm

Lessons From the Farm
by Tresa Martin


I was seven the summer I learned the ugly truth about how chickens die. In my mind, before my enlightenment, they just magically appeared in the grocery store, nicely packaged and preferably disguised as nuggets or patties. It came about after my grandparents invited my little brother and me to spend two weeks with them in the country. Since my trouble in New York, the psychiatrists had recommended we move to a less violent setting. So we moved to a modest sized town near my grandparents' farm.

James and I, three days after school let out for the summer, were collected by our grandparents and driven over dusty, bumpy roads for an hour or so until we finally reached it. I had been there once before, but had only a vague memory of what it was like. But now, with my advanced state of maturity, I had certain expectations of what the country would be. I had, after all, read stories about it and I certainly knew more about it than James. So with this lofty attitude, I stepped from my grandparents' old car with no idea of what kind of rude awakening was about to befall me.

Grandma Idy helped James out of the back and he soon was running, with hoots of delight, toward the goats that roamed free on the place. Grandpa Mac looked a little startled and hurried to catch up with him. "James. Wait son. You don't want to scare them off, do you?"

I looked up at Grandma Idy and she smiled, her clear blue eyes crinkling up at the corners. "Come on Shelly. Let's go put your things away. Then we'll feed the chickens." I followed her to the house, both of us laden with suitcases. To me, Grandma and Grandpa seemed impossibly old. They had, after all, gray hair and wrinkles. I know now that they probably hadn't been more than forty-nine or fifty. I didn't really know them well then, but I'd already decided that I liked them.

Later after our things were put away and Grandpa Mac succeeded in getting James's attention diverted away from the goats and onto the joys of tractor riding, Grandma and I went out to the shed and each of us put feed in a bucket. Before we could get all the way through the gate of the chicken yard, I was amazed to see twenty or thirty sturdy hens running straight for us. The din their clucking made was a little scary and I stayed close to Grandma.

"They won't hurt you," she said, laughing a little at the worried expression on my face. "They're just hungry and are coming to meet us. I only keep gentle hens." The significance of this statement escaped me at the time. "Now throw out handfuls of the feed until it's all gone, like this." She demonstrated, which made the chickens clamor even louder. But they weren't pecking her or anything, so I relaxed a bit and set to emptying my bucket. Soon, the chickens were busily eating and paying us no attention.

"That was neat, Grandma," I said as we went to put our buckets back. "Can I do that again?"

"Every day if you want to, hon. But you have to watch out for the rooster. He's a little mean sometimes, but usually he stays by himself. He thinks he's too good to socialize with the hens."

As the days passed, the chickens became my favorite animals on the farm. James was still enamored with the goats, but Grandpa Mac had shown him how to approach them quietly so they wouldn't run. They also had cows and pigs and two cats. The cats usually hung around the barn though, so I didn't really spend a lot of time with them. But the chickens were my friends. I even became brave enough to stroke their coarse feathers and feel of their strange leathery feet. They became used to me quickly and would follow me around, which delighted me. It was probably food that they associated me with, but at the time, I believed they just liked me.

My other favorite pastime was sitting up in the giant embrace of the old cedar tree in the side yard, where I would read for hours. I loved to read and was ahead of my class in that respect. Having already read all the second grade level books offered, I was now into Jack London's Call of the Wild and anything I could get my hands on about horses. So I was thus employed on the day the chickens died.

James and Grandpa Mac had gone into town for feed. I had thought I would tag along, but changed my mind at the last minute, after finishing the first chapter of my new book. What I really wanted to do, I decided was to sit up in my tree and pretend I was one of the children in Robinson Crusoe. A slight breeze ruffled my hair and the pungent odor of the cedar sap registered vaguely in the back of my mind. But for the most part, I was more in the world on those pages than in my own. I was so engrossed, in fact, that I didn't notice anything was happening below me until I heard the terrified squawking of the doomed hen.

I looked down and to my bewilderment saw Grandma Idy engaged in wringing a chicken's neck. Now at the time, I didn't know that was what she was doing. To me, she just seemed to be playing a strange game. She had the chicken by the neck, then she swung it up and around, the white underside of her arm flashing in the sunlight. Just as the chicken's own weight added to the momentum of its downward path, she gave a hard flick of her wrist and jerked the hen's head in the opposite direction. The squawking stopped suddenly and the hen's still struggling body was dropped to the ground, where it flopped bonelessly.

Horrified, I watched, my book forgotten, as Grandma selected another hen and repeated the procedure, efficiently and methodically. By the time she had finished, tears were streaking down my cheeks, but I couldn't utter a word. Five chickens, all of which I recognized and two of which were favorites, lay dead or dying in the afternoon sunlight. What was wrong with Grandma? Why was she mad at the hens/?

Then she did something even more shocking. An axe was propped against the house. She picked it up and stepped over to a hen that lay motionless. Raising the axe high in the air, she brought it down with considerable force. In the next instant, the head of the slain chicken shot away from the body and a torrent of blood gushed out of the stump. Grandma Idy then, picked up the dead hen by the feet and tied it upside down on the clothesline. Blood was still coming out in a steady stream and flecks of it were beginning to show up on Grandma's white apron and even, I noticed, her shoes.

I thought she had gone crazy. My sweet gentle Grandma had become a murderer. Who knows what she might do if she saw me witnessing her derangement. Clamping a hand over my mouth and smelling the sticky cedar sap on my fingers, I sat there fighting nausea and trying not to cry too loudly while she beheaded and hung the rest of the ill-fated birds on the clothesline. The grass beneath the clothesline looked black where the blood had pooled and soaked into the ground. I sniffled involuntarily and Grandma looked up sharply. Her face paled at the realization of what I must have seen.

She just stood there for a moment, wiping her hands on her apron, adding bloody streaks to the speckles. "Oh Shelly," she finally whispered. "You come down here and I'll try to explain." But there was no way I was coming down, not with that mad woman who had once been my trusted grandmother. I wished I could just blend in with the tree and disappear. "Please Shelly. Come down and let me talk to you. I know this looks bad, but it is just something that has to be done so we can have things like fried chicken and chicken and dumplings. You like those things Shelly. Well, you have to kill chickens to get the meat, you see?"

She pleaded for probably fifteen minutes before I finally decided she hadn't lost her mind and maybe she was still the Grandma I knew and loved. So hesitantly, I finally came down. Careful to avoid the blood, I stared down at the severed heads, fascinated in spite of myself and then back at my bloodstained Grandma.

"Their eyes are open. Can they see?"

"No, honey. I made sure they were dead before I cut their heads off. They couldn't see anything."

I forgave Grandma Idy, but it was some time before I could enjoy chicken nuggets again. But as time has a way of doing, it passed and now I can remember the incident with a smile. Who knows? Maybe it directly influenced my choice of professions. For I do think of myself as a professional since my efforts are beneficial to the chicken plant where I work. Although, the occasional surplus of meat is puzzling to the management, their profits have never been so high. Come to think of it, maybe that old memory is why the smell of cedar still brings on the urge to stalk and why my white apron is the last thing my human fowl see before the axe comes down. I faithfully uphold Grandma's ideals too, for I never terminate the gentle ones.