Nest Egg

by JESSE STUART

1

SHAN, I don’t want to tell you the second time to L break that hen from sittin’ on a nest egg,” Mom said. “I don’t have enough hens to spare to let one sit on a nest egg.”

“Why don’t you put more eggs under her, Mom ? ”

I asked. “I never saw a hen that wants to sit on a nest like she does.”

“It’s too late in summer,” Mom said. “She’d hatch off a gang of little chickens in dog-days and they’d die. Now you go take that nest egg from her nest.”

“All right, Mom,” I said.

The wilted grass was hot beneath my bare feet as I walked across the carpet of wilted crab-grass to a patch of pawpaw sprouts. I followed a little path into the pawpaw sprouts where the white agate sun had wilted the pawpaw leaves until they hung in wilted clusters. When I approached the nest, the old Sebright hen raised her wings and clucked. I thought she was tryin’ to tell me to stay away. And when I started to put my hand back under her to get the egg, she pecked my arm in three places faster than I could wink my eyes. Each place she pecked me, my arm bled.

I don’t blame her for sittin’ in this cool place, I thought . I don’t blame her for fightin’ over the egg. She laid the egg.

Since Mom had asked me to take the nest egg from the nest, I ran my hand under her and got the egg and put it beside the nest. And when she started rollin’ it back under her with her long hooked bill, I left the pawpaw patch.

“Did you take the egg outten that nest?” Mom asked me soon as I reached the house.

“I took it out this time, Mom,” I said. “Look at my arm! ”

“That hen’s a mean old hussy,” Mom said.

That week hadn’t passed when Mom called her chickens around the corncrib and fed them shelled corn. Since we lived in the woods and our closest neighbor lived a mile away, hawks, hoot owls, and varmints often caught our chickens. Once a week Mom called them to the corncrib to feed and count them.

“Shan, the old Sebright hen’s not here,” Mom said. Mom knew her chickens since we had such a variety of mixed chickens there were hardly any two with the same color of feathers.

“I guess something’s caught ‘er,” I said.

“With her bright feathers she’s a flowerpot for a hoot owl" Mom said.

Twenty-one days had passed when I saw this old Sebright hen goin’ up the hill toward the woods with one little chicken. The nest egg had hatched.

I didn’t tell Mom what I had seen. I’d let her find out for herself. The old Sebright never came to the corncrib when Mom called our chickens to the house to feed and count them. She lived alone in the woods with her one chicken.

August passed and September came. The leaves had started to turn brown on the trees. I was out huntin’ for a hen’s nest when I heard a hen cackle, and I looked in time to see our old Sebright hen and her one chicken that was growin’ tall and wellfeathered disappear into the brush. I was glad to know that they were still alive and I wondered when they would come to the house. And this was a secret I kept from Mom and Pa.

It was in early October that Pa had finished cuttin’ our late corn. He had come across the ridge and followed the path dow n the point to our house. When he reached the house, Mom was callin’ our chickens to the corncrib to feed and count them.

“Sall, this reminds me of something,” Pa said. “It must’ve been two miles back on the ridge, I either saw a Sebright hen with a young chicken with her ’r I saw a pheasant and a young one. They flew through the brush like wild quails before I could get close!”

“Did you take that egg from under that old hen that day?” Mom turned around and asked me.

“I did, Mom,” I said.

“I don’t want you to lie to me,” Mom said.

“I’m tellin’ you the truth,” I said.

“I guess I saw a couple of pheasants,” Pa said.

It was in late November, when the worms and bugs had gone into the ground for the winter, that the old Sebright hen came to the corncrib when Mom called the chickens. Hunger had forced her to come down from the high hills with her young rooster. She was very proud of him; though he was nearly as tall as she was, she clucked to h im as if he were still a tiny chicken that had just come from the egg. When one of the hens came close to him, she flogged the hen.

Mom looked at Pa and Pa looked at Mom. They didn’t say anything at first, but each stood there lookin’ at the old hen and young rooster and then they looked at me.

“But, Mom, I did take the egg from her nest,” I said.

“Where did you put the egg?” Mom asked.

“Over in the grass beside the nest.”

“Didn’t you know an old sittin’ hen will roll an egg ten feet to get it back in the nest?”

“No,” I said.

“There’ll be bad luck among our chickens,” Pa said.

“We’re havin’ enough bad luck already,” Mom said. “I can’t raise chickens as fast as something catches ‘em. I missed eight in September and eleven in October. Since the trees lost their leaves so the hoot owls could see the chickens, I’ve lost seventeen this month.”

“We’ll lose more now,” Pa said. “I’d put that young gentleman in the skillet and fry ‘im if he wasn’t sich a fine-lookin’ young rooster.”

“Don’t do it, Pa,” I said. “She’s had a hard time raisin’ ‘im.”

“Pap had this same thing to happen when I was a little boy,” Pa said. “Before the year was over he lost every chicken he had with the cholera. They died in piles.”

I didn’t want to say anything to Pa, but I didn’t see why a hen’s sittin’ on a nest egg and hatchin’ it and raisin’ her chicken had anything to do with the cholera. I wanted t o beg him to keep this young rooster that I called Nest Egg. Pa must’ve forgot about killin’ ‘im and fryin’ ‘im, for November and December came and passed and Nest Egg still ran with his mother.

2

NEST EGG wasn’t six months old when he st arted crowin’. Now he was much larger than his mother. He was tall and he had big legs and little straight spurs that looked like long locust thorns. His mother still ran with him and clucked to him, but he didn’t pay his mother much attention. He would often stand lookin’ at the spring sun and never bat his eyes. He had a mean-lookin’ eye and a long crooked bill that looked like a chicken hawk’s bill. He didn’t look like his mother. Pa said that he was a cross between a Sebright and a black game. He had almost every variety of colors. I thought he was a mongrel rooster — a mixture of many breeds.

We had five roosters at our house; all five of them ran Nest Egg. They’d run him and flog him. Once our black game rooster, War Hawk, just missed Nest Egg’s hawk-shaped head with his long, straight spur that had killed four of our roosters. But Nest Egg outran War Hawk. He took to the brush cacklin’.

“He won’t always be a-runnin’ you, Nest Egg,” I said while War Hawk boasted to the big flock of hens around ‘im.

Durin’ the spring months we seldom saw Nest Egg. He kept a safe distance away from the house. He stayed away from the five old roosters who fought him every time he got near one’s flock of hens. But once Mom was huntin’ a hen’s nest in the woods and she saw a chicken hawk swoop low to catch a hen. She saw Nest Egg hit the hawk with all the power he had. Mom said he tore a small wind-puff of feathers from the hawk. Mom told Pa about Nest Egg’s fight with the hawk.

“He’s a-goin’ to make a powerful fightin’ rooster,” Pa said. “Any rooster that’s game enough to hit a hawk has good metal.”

And Pa was right in his prediction about Nest Egg. In early June we saw him a-runnin’ Big Bill, our gray game rooster. In late June he whipped Red Ranger, our red game rooster. In July he whipped Lightnin’, our black Minorca rooster. Three days later, he whipped our “scrub” rooster that was mixed with many breeds of chickens. We called him Mongrel. He had whipped all the roosters but War Hawk.

“If Nest Egg can stay outten the way of War Hawk’s spurs,” Pa said, “he’ll whip old War Hawk. He’s a young rooster that’s run over the hills and scratched for a livin’ and he’s got better wind.”

It was in the middle of August when Nest Egg came down to the barn. He tiptoed, flapped his wings, and crowed in the barn lot. This was War Hawk’s territory. It was the choice territory War Hawk had taken for his flocks of hens. Not one of our roosters had dared to venture on War Hawk’s territory. Maybe, Nest Egg had come down from the hills to challenge War Hawk’s supremacy. Since he had whipped Big Bill, Red Ranger, Lightnin’, and Mongrel he wouldn’t be chased by War Hawk. He was a year old now and he felt his youth. He was ready to fight. And when War Hawk heard another rooster crowin’ on his territory, he came runnin’ with a flock of hens following ‘im. He challenged young Nest Egg for a fight.

At first War Hawk and Nest Egg sparred at each other. War Hawk had fought many fights and maybe he was feelin’ out his young opponent. They stuck their heads out at each other and pecked; then they came together with all their might and the feathers flew. Nest Egg hit War Hawk so hard that he knocked him backwards.

Again they struck and again, again, again. Each time the feathers flew lazily away with the August wind. Then War Hawk leaped high into the air and spurred at Nest Egg’s head. His spur cut a place in Nest Egg’s red comb. That seemed to make Nest Egg madder than ever. He rushed in and grabbed War Hawk by the comb and pushed his head against the ground while he flogged him with wings and feet. When Nest Egg’s bill-hold gave away, he left a gap in War Hawk’s battered comb.

War Hawk was gettin’ weaker. But he leaped high into the air and spurred at Nest Egg’s head; Nest Egg dodged and the spur missed his head. That must have given Nest Egg an idea, for he leaped high in the air and War Hawk leaped high to meet him. War Hawk caught Nest Egg’s spur in his craw, which ripped it open. War Hawk fell on the barn lot where he had seen others fall. As War Hawk lay dyin’, Nest Egg stood above him on his tiptoes and crowed. He was the new king of our barn lot.

3

NEST EGG’S victory over War Hawk spread among our neighbors and many of them asked to bring their roosters to fight Nest Egg.

“He’s not the fight in’ stock,” Pa told them. “He’s only a scrub rooster. I don’t like to fight chickens, but if it’s a pleasure to you, bring your roosters around.”

In September he killed Warfield Flaughtery’s great Hercules game rooster that had never lost once in fight in fifty-three fights. Hercules had whipped War Hawk. Two weeks later he killed Warfield Flaughtery’s young game rooster, Napoleon. In early October he killed Eif Nippert’s red game rooster, Red Devil; two days later he spurred Ennis Sneed’s gray game rooster, Big Bee Martin, blind in both eyes. Later that month he pecked a hole in a hoot owl’s head that had caught one of our hens. Before January he had killed nineteen roosters and one hoot owl.

“He’s some rooster,” Pa said. “But he’s sure to bring us bad luck.”

Pa was offered fifty dollars for Nest Egg by a man from a showboat on the Ohio River. He watched Nest Egg kill his twenty-fifth rooster before he offered Pa the money.

“He’s bad among my other roosters here,” Pa said. “They used to make him live in the woods; now he makes them live in the woods. But I don’t want to sell him.”

“That’s a big price, Mick,” Mom said. “You’d better take it.”

But Pa wouldn’t sell him. Finally, the man from the showboat offered Pa seventy-five dollars. Then he said he wouldn’t offer him another dime. He started back toward town, turned around, and came back and offered Pa a hundred-dollar bill, the first hundred-dollar bill that any of us had ever seen.

“I still won’t sell ‘im,” Pa said.

Then the man went away and Mom was mad.

“Hundred dollars is a lot of money, Mick.”

“I like that rooster,” Pa said. “I’m not a-sellin’ ‘im.”

Anybody would like Nest Egg if he could’ve seen him strut about the barn lot with fifty hens around him. He had nearly half the flock followin’ him. When Nest Egg wanted one of our other roosters’ hens, he just said something to her in his language and she followed ‘im. And now when Mom called our chickens to the corncrib to feed and count them, she found that our flock was gradually growin’. This was the first time since we had had chickens that our flock had increased without our raisin’ chickens or buyin’ them. Mom couldn’t understand how the number had grown. She saw several different-colored hens among our flock.

In February our flock increased seven; in March it increased twelve; in April it increased twentyseven; in May it had increased thirty-two. In the meantime, Nest Egg had fought seven more fights and had killed six of the roosters; the seventh finally recovered.

In May, Warfield Flaughtery came to our house with his mule and express wagon.

“Mick, have you got some extra hens in your flock?” he asked Pa.

“Think we have, Warfield,” Pa said. “How many did you lose?”

“About sixty,” he told Pa.

“Would you know your hens?” Pa asked.

“Shore would,” he said. “Call your hens to the corncrib.”

“You’re not right sure the hawks, hoot owls, and varmints didn’t take some of them?” Pa asked.

“I’m sure they didn’t,” he said. “A two-legged varmint got ‘em.”

“Do you mean I stole your chickens?” Pa said.

“Not exactly,” he grunted.

“They must’ve come to my rooster,” Pa said.

“They didn’t do that,” Warfield said as Pa called the chickens and they came runnin’. “They wouldn’t follow that scrub rooster.”

Warfield and Pa were mad. Mom heard them talkin’ and hurried to the corncrib.

“Then take your hens,” Pa said. “Here’s a coop. Catch ‘em and put ‘em in it.”

Mom stood by and didn’t say anything until Warfield got Nest Egg’s mother. Mom made him put her down.

“You’re a-takin’ hens that I’ve raised,” Mom said.

But Warfield insisted that he wasn’t and kept takin’ our hens until he had sixty. Then he hauled them away on his express wagon. He must have told others about our havin’ his chickens. Jake Hix came and claimed thirty of our hens. And Pa let ’im have ‘em. And then Cy Pennix came and wanted fourteen. We knew that Cy didn’t even raise chickens and Pa wouldn’t let ‘im have ‘em. Pa and Cy almost had a fight, but Pa told ‘im to climb on his express-wagon seat and get outten the hollow fast as his mule could take him. Wiley Blevins, Ott Jarvis, and Jot Seagraves came and claimed our chickens. “Who do you think I am?” Pa asked them. “A chicken thief?” Pa showed them the way back down the hollow and they told Pa that he would be sorry.

“That rooster’s a-bringin’ us bad luck,” Pa said. “These men live from one to three miles from us. Nest Egg isgoin’ back into the hills now since worms are scarce here. And he meets with other roosters and their flocks and he steals the hens. God knows I’m not a chicken thief. It’s that good-lookin’ rooster Nest Egg that the hens all take to. He tolls the liens here.”

4

IN June the four neighbors that Pa had chased away had indicted Pa for stealin’ their chickens. Pa was branded as a chicken thief, for it was printed in the Greenwood County News about his bein’ indicted by four men. And before the trial was called in August, Warfield Flaughtery came back with his express wagon and hauled away forty-six more hens; Jake Hix came and claimed seventy. He said all his hens had left, and Mom said our flock had increased more than a hundred. Warfield Flaughtery and Jake Hix had always been good neighbors to us, but Warfield’s roosters had always killed our roosters before, and now Nest Egg had killed two of his best games and he was sore at us over it. Pa asked him if he’d been summoned for a witness in the trial, and he told Pa that he and Jake both had.

Pa was tried on the indictment made by Cy Pennix. The courthouse was filled with people to see how the trial ended since there’d been much chicken stealin’ in our county. We proved that Cy Pennix didn’t even have any chickens — that he had just claimed our chickens but did not get them. And Pa came clear. Then Wiley Blevins’s indictment was next to be tried. And when Wiley said that he would swear to his chickens’ feathers, Judge Whittlecomb threw the case out of court. Since Warfield Flaughtery and Jake Hix had claimed and had taken their hens, saying they knew them by the colors, they got scared at the decision made by Judge Whittlecomb and they hauled the chickens they had taken from us back before sunset.

“That Nest Egg’s a wonder,” Pa said. “Our flock has doubled and he’s killed fifty-one roosters. He’s just a little past two years old.”

But boys threatened me when I went to the store. They threatened me because Nest Egg had killed their roosters. And neighborhood men threatened Pa over our rooster. Once Pa got a letter that didn’t have a name signed to it and in it was a threat to burn our barn. He got another letter and the man said he was a little man, that he would meet Pa sometime in the dark. He said a bullet would sink into a chicken thief in the dark same as it would in the daytime.

“I didn’t know as little a thing as a rooster could get people riled like that,” Pa said. “I didn’t know a rooster could turn a whole community of people against a man.”

Cy Pennix shook his fist at Pa and dared him to step across the line fence onto his land. And Warfield Flaughtery wouldn’t speak to Pa. Tim Flaughtery hit me with a rock and ran. And often Pa would get up in the night and put on his clothes and walk over to our barn. He was afraid somebody would slip in to burn it.

“I feel something’s a-goin’ to happen soon,” Pa told me one day in September. “This can’t go on. Our flock is increasin’ day by day. Look at the chickens about this place!”

There were chickens every place. Even our old roosters had increased their flocks with hens that Nest Egg had tolled to our house — hens that could not join Nest Egg’s ever increasin’ flock. When we gathered eggs, two of us took bushel baskets. We found hens’ nests under the ferns, under the rock cliffs, under the smokehouse corncrib, — in hollow logs and stumps, — and once I found a hen’s nest with twenty-two eggs in it on top of our kitchen behind the flue. An egg rolled off and smashed on Pa’s hat is how come us to find the nest. We had to haul eggs to town four times a week now.

One early October mornin’ when Mom called our chickens to the corncrib to feed them, Nest Egg didn’t come steppin’ proudly on his tiptoes. And that mornin’ he hadn’t awakened Pa at four o’clock by his six lusty crows. I missed my first day of school to help Pa hunt for Nest Egg. We looked around the barn. We scoured the steep hill slopes, lookin’ under each greenbrier cluster and in each sprout thicket. We looked every place in Nest Egg’s territory and were about to give up the hunt when we walked under the white-oak chicken roost between the barn and house. We found Nest Egg sprawled on the ground beneath the roost with several hens gathered around him cacklin’. A tiny screech owl was sittin’ on Nest Egg’s back, peckin’ a small hole in his head.

“Think of that,” Pa said. “A rooster game and powerful as Nest Egg would be killed by a damned little screech owl no bigger than my fist. A hundreddollar rooster killed in his prime by a worthless screech owl.”

Pa reached down and grabbed the owl by the head and wrung its neck. “I can’t stand to see it take another bite from Nest Egg’s head,” he said.

I stood over Nest Egg and cried.

“No ust to cry, Shan,” Pa said. “Nest Egg’s dead. That damned owl fouled ‘im. It flew into the chicken roost and lit on his back when he was asleep. It pecked his head until it finished ‘im.”

“But I haf to cry,” I said, watchin’ Pa take his bandanna from his pocket to wipe the tears from his eyes.