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The Republican President may have promised a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage but Texans knew better than to believe everything they were told, especially if from a politician and more than that, if the politician happened be a Republican. An elephant may have a memory of renowned but those who survived (and thrived) following the world-wide depression of the 30's from which we were saved by World War II, never forgot or forgave. They viewed the chicken as God's perfect creation which could only be bettered by the shmoo (Complements of Al Capp).
In Dallas, during wartime, harvest from the chicken coop yielded up the best Sunday dinner to be had. Friends, relatives or most anyone off the street was welcome to whatever the backyard provided. The offering could have been called fryers, broilers, roasters or stewers, but none of those names were applied. It was simply chicken and in a country that was meat rationed, it was the best that Mom offered. Served with fresh baked, homemade rolls slathered with butter, an island of English peas surrounded by mashed potatoes, when followed, right from the oven, peach cobbler and black-black coffee from a drip pot, no one left the table hungry. The chicken might be fried if the number in the back yard was getting out of hand, or baked like Thanksgiving turkey if the ratio of roosters to hens was more than required, but most likely it would be chicken and dumplings as some hen passed her prime and wasn't contributing to the war effort and producing eggs. (Rabbits were tried but they just weren't productive enough and besides they just tasted like chicken anyway.) Chicken had other attributes; they were loyal and didn't stray too far from home, managed to find at least a part of their daily feed requirements, provided not only meat for the table but eggs as well and those old hens yielded up a bounty of feathers that went into comforters, pillows and feather beds (mattresses the likes of which are unknown to modern man.) Here in the new suburbs of Dallas a few of the emigrants from the farms continued to raise chickens. No one complained.
But times change; after the war with return of the soldiers and a shifting of the economy from production to fill the needs of war to a more civilized society, some felt the draw of their ancestors to return to the farms and ranches or the small towns from which they had come. "It was the best of times, the worst of times." The house that had been bought on time at what seemed to be an outlandish price, now was worth several times more. With the carefully marshaled savings from eighty hour work weeks and the old home place having been given up to neglect and in serious need of rehabitation, returning to the "farm" seemed the best of all possible solutions. Perhaps an additional incentive was the massive layoffs of defense workers who now must compete with the much younger and brighter returning soldiers. Jobs were to be had but at nowhere the wages of North American Aviation and others. So pack up the dishes, books and furniture and be off to Henderson County.
Settling into an old farm house that had no running water, electricity or heat would be an adventure written up in all the outdoor magazines of today, but in the unenlightened year of 1947 it was nothing special. Putting first things first meant ordering a hundred baby chicks from one of the hatcheries. This before getting a well digger to put in a new well (the old one was blocked by something unknown, deep in the clay casing pipe), delivery of a five-hundred gallon butane tank (Mom shuddered to think they had to pay almost ten cents a gallon for the privilege of burning something that once was flared from the nearby wells in such abundance that you could read a newspaper in the dark of night by the flare gas), and arrival of a group of not too talented plumbers and electricians to make the old central hall house habitable.
Having sold the family car during the war, Dad saw no need to buy one now, although we were ten miles from town and one mile from the stores at Cross Roads. He just assumed that if you stood on the side of the road, someone would stop and pick you up and delivery you to wherever you wanted to go. He was right. And bringing home whatever was needed from the store was just as easy. Sometimes the store would deliver Dad and goods, the trip home was always paid for by his "much obliged."
Within a week the chicks arrived, one hundred or so in a square cardboard box with holes punched for air and bedded down in a thin layer of excelsior. The box was sectioned into four quarters into which were twenty-six yellowish, fluffy white leghorn cockerels. With luck, and you were always lucky, there would be at least five or six pullets in the box, as sexing day-old-chicks was more of an art than a science. The difference was revealed by the space between legs, a measure that left a lot to the imagination, but somehow, those who sexed the chicks got it right at least ninety-five times out of a hundred.
The newly installed bathtub was just the place for them. Clean, safe, easy to keep a watchful eye, and food and water could be added as needed. Too bad that baths would have to be skipped until the chicks found a new home, but the old tin washtub was there if you wanted and besides at that time of the year a bath wasn't all that pleasant even with water from the new hot water heater. Water tinted purple with permanganate was in the mason-jar waterer and placed in the center of the tub. Each chick was made to sample, as its beak was pushed below the surface, after which the chick was set loose in the tub. Since the brood had arrived before a trip to town could be arranged, oatmeal from the pantry was their fare instead of store-bought "starter."
All had survived their trip in good health, save one. This cockerel, which I named "Crip," for an obvious reason had somehow had a piece of string wrapped around his right leg and it was amputated. Crip didn't seem to notice and grew right along with his mates until after some two weeks, they began to hop out of the tub. Somehow they mastered the art of getting atop the waterer and from there, escape was possible. Now it's one thing to have one hundred chickens in the bathtub but quite another to have them ranging around the house. This before the term "range chickens" came into vogue.
A trip to town produced a "brooder" which was nothing more than a square, galvanized tent with a light bulb in the center. It could be raised or lowered to a proper height, permitting the growing chickens necessary warmth and a degree of protection. This new acquisition was put in the shed, newspapers spread on the floor, an electrical wire run and with the light bulb turned on, all was ready. Several trips to the shed with a bucket-full of chickens were all it took to put them in their new home. As Crip had bonded with us, rather than his look-alikes, he was permitted to stay in the house. It seemed only proper that food and water would remain in the bathroom for his daily feed and he adapted well to being separated from the rest. At night, after the sun was down and we retired to the living room. There we would read until nine or ten. Crip would hop on someone's shoulder and doze off. Later at night when we went to bed, he would be left alone on the arm of a chair.
Now it should be pointed out that heat for the house was provided by the cook stove, a bathroom heater, and one other unvented space heater in the living room. There was no heat in the bedrooms, or other rooms of the house. To save money, the heaters and stove were turned off at night. Further, this house was built up off the ground. Sandstone rocks had been selected to give support and there was at least two feet of crawl space under the entire house. Insulation didn't exist. So the floors and walls quickly were at the same temperature as the outside world and inside it wasn't much different. It's no wonder that the trip to bed and the ice-cold sheets was not something that you looked forward to, but it had to happen. Jump into bed, pull the pile of quilts over you so that not even your nose stuck out for the first five minutes, and finally you stopped shivering and you slowly unwound from the small ball that you had curled into. If you needed proof of how cold it got, there would be ice in the sink in the kitchen in the morning when Mom would get up and start a fire in the stove (actually light the oven and put on a pot of coffee). Like as not, she would then come back to bed until the kitchen warmed up. Sad to say, Crip froze to death one night.
Time marches on and the other chickens grew. Here is where the wisdom of ordering one-hundred came into play. When the first ones reached the size of a quail (or dove), they were invited to dinner. At first Mom would select three of the largest ones and with a flick of her wrist would separate the body from the head. She'd turn loose the first and go on to the second and third. "Running around like a chicken with its head chopped off" is an apt expression. In just a minute they would have bled dry and would lay there in the yard ready for the next act. Deftly, the knife that she carried would be inserted under the skin providing an opening into which she could reach her fingers. With little effort, the skin, feathers and all would be pulled back and down until it draped about the feet. (Here the term, "skin a rabbit" is apt.) Then, a cut with the knife separated the body from the feet. Into the dishpan went the first, to be followed by his companions.
In the kitchen, water was added to the pan and with a single stroke of the knife the visceral cavity would be opened. Carefully separating the liver, heart and gizzard from the waste and adding them to the dishpan was the next step. The gizzard would be split and scraped clean before the job was finished. There on a plate would be the three birds. Separating the drum sticks from the thighs, the wings from the breast, carefully removing the neck and finally split the breast into two pieces and the job was finished.
Usually this would all be done in the matter of fifteen minutes or so while on the cookstove a skillet of grease would be heating. On the old wooden cutting board was a pile of flour seasoned with salt and pepper. A bit of water on the fingers was flicked into the grease and if it sizzled and popped it was ready to receive the chicken. Each piece was rolled in flour and eased into the skillet. Now the smell of frying chicken filled the house. The cats that had shown little interest in the outdoors activities, suddenly appeared under the kitchen table, ever mindful that occasionally a piece would slip and quick as only a cat can be, could be claimed.
Somehow, during all this, biscuits, potatoes and whatever else might be for supper was prepared so that when the chicken was judged to be done, all appeared on the table simultaneously. The ever-present coffee from the drip pot, or water was the usual drink. Only later when a cow became a part of the growing menagerie; did fresh milk, buttermilk, cream, clabber, whey and butter become standard fare.
What had started out with three or four birds to make a meal, shrank to two then one. It was a race against time as the birds grew. In three months it was necessary to eat at least ninety. And then the game started all over again with the purchase of another box of cockerels. From the first batch, some six to eight months later, eggs began to be a part of our diet as well. And then not too much later, spent hens made their way to the table. The only waste to the system was when a chicken died naturally or was caught and carried away by a wild animal, which didn't happen all that often.
Eggs had especial value. Not only could they be eaten but better yet, sold. Within a year it became known that fresh eggs could be had at the farm and people stopped to get a dozen or so. Imagine if you will that a dozen eggs sold for one dollar in 1958. With such a valuable commodity, getting all the eggs was important. Sensing this, the hens didn't cooperate and would find places to lay the eggs away from the nest that were provided. Sometimes they would go unfound until they were rotten, often times under the house. (No roosters were permitted to mature, so all the eggs were infertile.) Other times, snakes, coons, and foxes would get the eggs and worst of all "an egg sucking" dog from the neighbors would sometimes make his way into the hen house. To guard against these intruders, a clutch of guineas was bought. These wild birds from Africa are the best of sentinels and while chickens are "dumb as a stump" these birds have a wary eye on all that goes on around them. If they got upset, you could be sure that something was afoot, either creeping or crawling. They set up a sound that would keep the devil away and if they are in the field when they discover a snake or something else, here they would come a-flying. Since the guineas are essentially wild, they never gave up their egg and their hatchlings were big enough to fly to the branches in the backyard elm tree before they were discovered.
Maybe President Hoover was right after all, a chicken in every pot is gooood and about as American as you can get, but it's sure tough on the chickens.
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