Chasing a Rooster

Back in the day when chickens ran freely in the yard, sometimes Mama would tell me to go catch a chicken so she could cook it for supper. We didn't have big fat chickens you could hem up easily. They ran free and were in marathon shape for running. I was the fasting child in the family so it was up to me to catch supper.

I knew not to catch a hen because we needed the eggs. Now, eggs were another story. We would be sitting around in the house and hear a hen cackle. Mama would tell us to go get that egg. If we were fast enough, we could see which direction the hen came from and back track her to the nest. Anyway, back to the rooster. They were used to us running around the yard so they just walked off when we did and looked for something to peck at.

I angled toward a particular rooster and he picked up on my movements and took off. He was fast. I chased him to the woods where he flew up in a tree. I couldn't fly so I started to climb. He just move up to another limb when I got close. Finally, he had no place to go and flew out of the tree. I couldn't fly so I climbed back down and continued the chase. He ran out of the woods and went under the house. I followed. At first, he was on the high side of the house so i got pretty close to him. Then he started to crawl further back. It was getting hard to squeeze under the big boards holding up the floor. The old rooster did finally go as far as he could go but I could not get under the last board. He just hunkered down to wait me out. I spotted him in a corner where the boards met the ground and reached. He was just out of reach. I bellied down in the dirt, turned by head sideways and stretched. I felt a leg with my finger tips. Somehow, with a second effort, sweating and dirty, I got my fingers around one of his legs and felt the spurs. Ignoring the pain, I pulled that big rooster out in triumph. He went flopping to his death and we had a tasty supper that night.

Maybe it is a worthless story in our modern age but back in school I got an A+ for telling about the chase.

The record builds.