First me and Daddy built the new rooms on our house. Then we laid the sidewalk and the foundation for the garage, built the garage, and then had our workshop so we could build our shed. After all this was done then we started on our chicken pen and garden. Daddy said we'd build the chicken pen around the pepper tree and along side the shed just until my tree was big enough for a swing. Then, he said, we'd get rid of the old chickens so I could play there. That seemed okay to me 'cause I knew Daddy always kept his promises. So I helped him put up the fence and build the chicken coops for the girl chickens to lay eggs and hatch babies.

    After we finished that and Grandma bought some chickens to put in the chicken yard, then me and Daddy, and Grandma, too, started on the garden. We had all kinds of good food. Daddy grew corn and lettuce and green onions and radishes and peas and green beans, and, best of all, watermelon. Behind the garage all the way to the back fence, along the side fence that ran beside the vacant lot next door, Daddy planted one big long blueberry vine. And in the rest of that part of the back yard we planted fruit trees. We had an apricot tree, a lemon tree, and a plum tree.

    We did flower beds for Grandma too, a few rows of roses in the front of the vegetable garden, in the front yard along the fence, and on the side where after a while the Teel's moved in. I don't remember who lived there when we first planted the flower beds, just that later it was the Teel's and they raised game birds in their back yard. Long after Grandma and Daddy stopped raising chickens, Grandma got some little banty hens from the Teel's, and they were pets, not food like the chickens. Anyhow, me and Daddy built a trellis over the front gate and planted honeysuckle there. Then, when the honeysuckle was blooming, it smelled so sweet to come in our yard. But it took us a long time and a lot of work before we got it all done just right.

    And we all worked hard to make it look just right, even Grandma too. Daddy and me watered and hoed and picked bugs from the garden. Grandma took care of the flowers, and then when the vegetables were ready, it was Grandma who picked them and canned them. That was really hard work 'cause Grandma would be in the hot kitchen all day boiling stuff in the pressure cooker that she had to watch real close or it would explode. Then she'd have to put all the cooked stuff into certain kinds of glass jars with pretty gold lids that had to be screwed on real tight or the food would spoil. Then, after it was all canned - why did they say that when it really was put in jars? - Grandma would put it away carefully on shelves Daddy had built in the garage just for the canned food. Grandma would feel so good when the shelves were filled with food. At the end of canning every year Grandma would say the same thing. "Well, if we ever have another war, at least the Elsey's and all their's won't go hongry." And she'd usually say that in the garage while she was looking at the shelves, and as soon as we'd get outside, she'd give a big spit of snuff as if daring anybody to say Grandma Elsey was a liar. I'd feel good too 'cause I knew Grandma wasn't lying and I also knew I was one of theirs.

    Another job that Grandma had was to buy the chicken feed if we ran out during the middle of the week while Daddy was at work. There was a feed store two blocks over across the highway and me and Ronnie loved to go with Grandma when she went. And a lot of times she went with Daddy when she really didn't need to 'cause that way she could pick out the sacks of feed. The sacks came in pretty patterns, or anyway some of them were pretty, and Grandma would use them later to make me dresses and shirts. But I didn't care much what sacks Grandma got; what me and Ronnie liked best was going into the huge, huge room of millions of sacks of feed in the back. While Grandma was picking out just the sacks of chicken feed she wanted, me and Ronnie would climb all over in the dark, damp, pleasant smelling warehouse of sacks of feed piled high to the roof. We'd find little cave like groups of sacks, and tunnels, and mountain peaks of sacks. In the caves we would hoot like owls, in the tunnels we would growl like hungry grizzly bears, and on the mountain peaks we would yodel at the top of our lungs. That's usually when Grandma would holler at us to get down from there before the sacks fell on us and crushed us to death.

    Another job that Grandma had was to get the eggs from the chicken coops every morning, but Daddy fed the chickens every night after work and he'd check for eggs then, too. And whenever we had a chicken for Sunday dinner, Daddy would kill it and Grandma would pluck it and cook it, though sometimes me and Daddy did the plucking. I hated that job 'cause first we'd dip the dead chicken in real hot, hot water in a tin tub, and the chicken feathers stunk. I never could figure out how such a stinky thing could taste so good at the table. And I always felt just a little yucky when Daddy killed the chickens 'cause of the way he did it. But I sure didn't mind the day he killed the bad rooster. That rooster deserved to die.

    I was just trying to be helpful. Daddy had just come home from work and I'd been waiting to close the gate behind his car like I did every night. Then, after we closed and locked the big garage doors, me and Daddy would walk out to the chicken pen. On the way I asked Daddy one night if I could look for the eggs. Daddy said I could, then he went into the shed to get the chicken feed. But I didn't wait 'cause I didn't know the chickens were supposed to be fed first before looking for the eggs. I just went on into the chicken pen and straight toward the coops. I was almost to them when that stupid old rooster attacked me. He ran fast at me and then just a few feet away he leaped into the air feet first with his wings spread wide open. His nasty old feet were coming straight at my face and if I hadn't got my hands up that old rooster might have scratched my eyes out, but instead all it did was knock me down. Then that old rooster flapped its wings all over me and tried to peck me. I screamed and Daddy came running fast to save me. He grabbed that old rooster by the neck and threw it clear across to the other side of the chicken pen by the Teel's fence. Then he picked me up and checked me real careful to make sure I wasn't hurt. I wasn't, I guess, but I was sure scared and Daddy held me real close on his shoulder while I cried 'cause that mean old rooster had tried to kill me.

    After I quit crying, Daddy explained that first we had to feed the chickens, then we could look for eggs, and that the rooster was only mad 'cause it expected food and didn't get any. But I told Daddy that was still a mean old rooster 'cause I didn't know I was supposed to feed it first and it might have hurt me bad if Daddy hadn't saved me. And I told Daddy I didn't think we should have such a mean rooster 'cause maybe it might hurt the girl chickens it was so mean. Daddy said I was right and that he was going to take care of that mean old rooster right then and there and that I should go tell Grandma we were having chicken for dinner.

    I hurried to the back door, leaned in, and hollered real fast at Grandma that Daddy said he wanted chicken for dinner, then I went running back to the chicken pen. But Daddy had already grabbed the old rooster and was on the lawn part of our back yard under the clothes line, and he was all ready to kill it like he did all the chickens. I watched, this time very happy to see Daddy kill a chicken.

    Daddy had a special way of doing it on account of he was very strong and could do it that way. When Grandma killed a chicken to cook she had to use the axe to chop its head off. But Daddy didn't need the axe. He grabbed that old rooster by the neck, swung it around about three times over his head to get up speed, then on the fourth swing he gave a sharp snap to his wrist that just snapped that old rooster's head right off. That's what you call wringing a chicken's neck. The rooster's head and neck was still in Daddy's hand, but its body was in the center of the lawn flopping around all over the grass. Chickens flop like that for at least twenty minutes after their neck has been wrung. That's about how long it took Grandma to heat up a big pot of hot water on the stove for Daddy to put in the tin tub outside. By the time the rooster quit flopping, the water was ready and me and Daddy plucked that mean old rooster. It tasted good, too, though tougher than a hen would have been. Daddy told Grandma that's why we killed it for dinner, 'cause it was tough and mean and if it'd lived any longer it would have been too tough to eat. Then Daddy winked at me and gave me the other leg.

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