There were two natural reasons for keeping chickens. They lay eggs and they taste good cooked. That was a good thing, because there were two parents and four children who needed to eat on a regular basis. Most of the time we lived in the Jones house, my father's work, when he had some, didn't pay enough to meet the needs of our growing family. There was also a period when he had some medical problem and had to go to a Veteran's Hospital in Muskogee, Oklahoma for a while. I never knew just what was the problem.
Across the dirt lane in front of our home was a large cornfield that belonged to Mr Gilcrist who lived a little distance away. Many Sundays we ate some of that corn with our chicken and vegetables from our small garden. My father would go several rows into the cornfield and pick an ear of corn here and there from different stalks which weren't close together. That way it wouldn't be as noticeable as it would be if he picked clean a few stalks in a close group.
Uncle Dorsey's home was the next one on Rylie-Kleberg Road going away from Rylie and on the other side of the cornfield. Late at night, he would leave home, drive somewhere, turn around, approach the cornfield from the opposite direction and park next to it. With a bushel basket in hand, he would go into the field and pick a basketful, after which he would return to his car, drive somewhere away, wait a little while and return home from the side away from the cornfield.
One day while Mr Gilcrist was visiting his cornfield, he stopped by and asked my dad if he had noticed anyone stealing his corn. What was my father to say, "Why, yes. As a matter of fact, I steal a little, now and then, to help feed my family?" Dad told him he hadn't.
Soon after, late at night, we heard two shots, some yelping and a car being started and driving away fast. Mom was sure Mr Gilcrist had surprised Uncle Dorsey picking corn and hoped he hadn't been hurt. After a while we heard another car being started and driven away. Probably Mr Gilcrist going home.
At Mom's insistence, Dad walked down the road to Uncle Dorsey's to see if it had been him in the field. I fell asleep but found out the next day that it was, indeed, Uncle Dorsey. He had caught a few bits of rock salt in his backside from a shotgun, dropped his basket and ran, making his getaway. He had waited about an hour or so, just to be sure, before returning home. I'm sure Aunt Velma was quite distraught, wondering whether her husband had been seriously hurt. I know Mom was very worried.
Sitting was uncomfortable for a time for him, but Uncle Dorsey suffered no long term effects from the dose of rock salt. I think he stopped picking midnight corn after that.
Dad was very careful about looking into the cornfield from our porch, to see if Mr Gilcrist was out there, before picking any more corn.
Willard, Uncle Dorsey's son was about a year older than me and was in my class at the grade school in Rylie. Occasionally, I would go to their home, on the other side of Mr Gilcrist's cornfield, to pal around with Willard. Buford Jett, who lived across the road from them, would join us sometimes. One thing we often did was to try to see who wrestle who to the ground. Willard was the only one I was able to put on the ground. No fighting, just wrestling.
When I was at Uncle Dorsey's, I always spent some time looking at his thumb in a jar of alcohol. After it was accidently cut it off, he decided to save it and it sat, in its jar, on a horizontal piece of 2x4 that was part of the garage framework. I never asked how it had happened. I would just look at it and wonder if it ever twitched.
©Copywrite August 2004; ALL Rights Reserved