| . |
HomePort  |
|
Chicken
Feathers
|
|
|
| . |
Chicken
Feathers
by Ian Scott
Living with my
Newfoundland grandparents while in elementary school gave me
occasion
to hear a few stories that tended to stick in my memory.
Possibly in an era before television,
stories of an earlier time painted pictures in my imagination. Sitting by the parlour fire
on a winter evening after supper, my
grandfather Walter White would slowly
begin . . .
In the early part of
the twentieth century he worked as a wholesaler in
Newfoundland. He travelled with samples and took
orders and was called a manufacturers' agent with a full
line of products ranging from mining supplies to casket hardware
(not that those two things were necessarily connected).
When I came to live there, the business was more established as
a Water Street wholesaler in St.
John's and carried a
wonderful line of office supplies including fountain pens,
Eversharp mechanical pencils and every
sort of stationary supplies a child's mind could imagine. As a
grandchild with a crow-like instincts for useful items it was
better than a candy store. Friday
afternoons I would visit his shop on the way home from school
and he would often
have a bright new pencil
or other treasure to add to my
brown school bag.
Long before, Walter began work as a young man in the hardware
department of the
biggest store in town - Bowring Brothers -
before deciding to start his own business. He had a rule that
kept him busy, he said that he could
always catch up on paper work at night, but he needed to make
sales contacts during the business day to grow his business. And
thus to get orders for
the various products he represented he visited customers
as much as he could during business hours. Before roads and
electronic communications, letters and train travel were the
basic means of doing business, so young
Walter would haul his sample
cases and trunks onto the train and head to the outports. He
often followed the same
routes around the coast and had regular places where he would
stay. Every community had
at least one place that travellers could find lodging. No fancy
names
over the door, like the Crosbie Hotel on Duckworth St. in St.
John's but a basic local
operation - a house that provided meals and a clean room to stay
in. More like a boarding house except they took travellers.
This particular day when Walter arrived at the station he had a
full
load of samples with to get from the station to the lodging
house. Usually there was someone with a horse and rig for hire
nearby
and sometimes if the distance wasn't too far he would just walk.
This particular day he arrived at the house and gave a quick
knock on
the door but didn't get a reply. Knowing that the
door was never locked, rather than knocking a second time he
turned the knob and headed
into the hall with his usual yell, "Anyone home?"
But this time there was not even an echo for a reply. He left
his bags in the hall and headed further into the house, towards
the kitchen at the back, where he could
usually find his host, a widow of stout constitution who was
known in
all the communities along the bay, for running a operation where
the travellers liked to stay - everyone said it was mainly
because of her famous cooking but most
especially she had a name for her baking. She always said it was
nothing special, just good ole Newfoundland cooking, and it was
washed down
with lots of tea. She had a ruddy smile and had raised a family
alone,
after her husband went to the seal hunt one year - the year of
the big
storm - and never came back.
Being both the son and the grandson of a sealing captain,
married to the
granddaughter of a sealing captain himself - Walter tended to know
the names of many families up and down the bays that dotted the
coast, and their stories - even
the sad ones they didn't talk about as he visited with folks
along the bay. It was business that brought him there but still
he liked to visit and knew that his host would be getting fewer
travellers now that the season was getting
late. Although he had been born a townie, there was something
about Newfoundland life as a bayman that felt natural to him,
and he took what opportunity he had to get out of town.
Looking into the kitchen he could smell the wood stove, and the
sound
of the kettle - just a soft whisper as she had it placed off to
the side of the big range so it
wouldn't
boil dry. He could smell some fresh tea biscuits but couldn't
quite see
where she had placed them to cool. He figured that she had
slipped
out the back door and would be back in a moment when he took off
his
boots and stretched back on the small kitchen couch for a moment
of rest
after his train trip. The warmth of the stove and the aroma of
the
baking were an atmosphere that he had always enjoyed and before
he knew
it, he was drifting off into an afternoon nap.
Meanwhile the mistress of the house was doing her chores and was
coming
from the woodshed with one arm full of kindling when she noticed
that her
prize rooster, a beautiful big reddish brown creature with the
posture
of an Arabian stallion, had managed to get himself in trouble.
Newfoundland gardens in the outports had tight fences to keep
horses
and sheep out, as animals would wonder the entire area in search
of
anything edible all summer long. It just made sense - rather
than fencing
animals in - you fence them out of the garden, it took less
fencing. Fencing material were free for the picking in
the woods so the typical style now known in Newfoundland as the
wriggle, sometime
called a riggle or riddle fence, was made of saplings going upright
fairly close
together. In this case anyone would tell you it was a nice tight
fence, except for the odd
spot at the top where a crotch or two was formed where the
crooked sticks refused to line up in military precision.
Roosters are roosters at the best of times - and this big boy
was a true character - flapping around he had managed
to get his head caught in exactly the spot where the crooked
sticks
made a tight V shape at the top of the fence. The more he
flapped the tighter
he got his massive neck into those two sticks and before long
the jugular artery was
pinched off - so there he was lifeless when she arrived back
from the woodshed. A bit disheartened with the sight of her
barnyard king dead -
she knew there was no time to waste that she would have to get
him plucked
while the body was still warm; straight away with the
feathers flying in handfuls the curious hens wondering what was
going on
with bits of their backyard chief flying in all directions on
the breeze. "No time for a wake around here," she grumbled at
them as they clucked away.
She finished up the old fella pronto, and since she still hadn't
finished her
outside chores, she opened the back door just enough to throw
the dead bird on
the top of the wood box behind the stove. She was expecting that
nice Mr. White from town to be arriving on the train, any time
now. She imagined he would
enjoy a meal of vegetables with the nicely roasted bird and the
resulting pot of soup during his stay.
Meanwhile - Walter White was enjoying his well earned nap on the
kitchen couch and the heat from the wood stove was both welcome
and
relaxing. He hardly stirred at all when the back door opened and
in an
instant was back into a sound sleep. But his deep relaxing sleep
was not to last.
The warmth of the stove which had relaxed Walter had also been
of
benefit to the old rooster, and once the circulation got back to
his
head he gradually got a new lease on life. Sure enough with the
warmth
and rest he was wide awake and anything but ready for the oven.
Of
course he was minus his regal plumage - as naked as can be - but
flapping those little bare wings like a harem master with a
hundred
hens to still keep in line. Around and around the kitchen he
starts squawking and flapping
- gone totally wild. Trapped as he was, he was determined to
get out of the house.
Now Grampy White gets a rude awakening and a real shock - he has
no idea what
sort of dream he is having - but when he opens his eyes - he
still can't
believe what is happening with a bare-naked bird squawking
loudly, running in
circles around and around the kitchen.
About this time the lady of the house, hears the noises coming
from inside so
she arrives in the back door just in time to find the bewildered
traveller from
the city, and the resurrected bird, about to bolt for the door.
She
wasn't too sure if she should grab the axe to finish to job or
let the
poor fellow have a second chance. Maybe it was her superstitious
nature
after seeing him survive death or maybe she took pity on the
poor
hens without their rooster to keep order, but in any case the
roasting
pan lost the battle that day and out the door went the skinny
pink rooster,
back to work among his unimpressed flock. And you know Grampy
went back
to stay there in the spring and that bird had grown a full set
of brand
new feathers - and was better looking than ever before. Not sure
how he
managed the colder days, but we kids always imagined that if she
was as handy with
knitting needles as she was with everything else, she likely
knit
him a nice winter sweater, to get him through til spring.
Seeing knit sweaters
for chickens being sold online this year was a reminder
that even chickens might welcome some warmth from the winter
winds at Christmas.
Do
you
have information
that would
be helpful in correcting or adding to the contents of HomePort
? We appreciate your comments, suggestions and
additions.