Best Friend

A Best Friend

by
B.D. Adams ©2015          

I have had many good friends through my life. There are a few that I still stay in touch with. However, the human factor aside, some of my furry or feathered, four-legged or two-winged ones, in my life, have been my best friends.

M

y brother and I were born in Ft. Worth, Texas. I was the elder by four years. In Ft. Worth, I had asked for a dog. However, my parents voted that down. Their reason was because I was too young to take on that responsibility, so they said.

            When I was 5 years-old, my father had finished his college and training in Physical Therapy. I learned later that he was very good at his chosen profession and began to go up his ladder of progress. We – my father, mother, me and baby brother -- moved to a town smaller than Ft. Worth in the middle of Texas. Gonzales TX – near San Antonio. This was 1955. The move, per se, didn’t upset me. When you are young, as I was, all I saw was a new adventure.
           In Gonzales, the house we moved into was not bad. Large enough for the four of us, but had a very, dinky backyard, if it could really be call a backyard. We could go out the backdoor, down a few steps, to the grassy, short depth that measured across the back of the house. There was a nice clothesline for laundry, which made my mother so happy. Wide enough for that stuff, but nowhere deep enough for a swing-set or for a dog. So again, a dog was out of the question. (Oh, the subject of a cat was never broached.)
          We had friends – my parents and me. My young brother was still in diapers. We went boating because we had a boat. Boating and fishing was my father’s passion. I just wanted a dog. A pet.
          I had captured a few Horned Toads to take care of, but I would let them go. I learned they did not make good pets and I didn’t want to be cruel to them. I had a few goldfish, but that definitely didn’t fill the bill. With them, you learn early about death. Their lifespan was always short.
           After a few years in Gonzales, a mysterious event took place. It was the summer of 1958. I was 8 years-old. I was playing in the carport attached to the house. After a while, I heard strange sounds coming from the port’s roof. I actually heard what I could call chicken clucks!
            I went more out on the driveway to look on the roof. Lo and behold, there was a big, white chicken on the carport’s roof. I was amazed! How did she get up there? How could I get her down?
 

On-Line Photo -- photographer Unknown

 

           Excitedly, I called to my mother. She came out to see what I was yammering about. When she saw the chicken, all she said was, “My Lord.” That’s when I believed the chicken was a gift from above. I looked to the sky and silently thanked the Lord.

            Our house was by a major thoroughfare where flatbed trucks stacked with cage on cage of chickens would go by. This escaped chicken must have flapped its way to our roof.
            Mother called Mr. Rucker ¹, a neighbor man, to come over. When he climbed to the roof, the white bird didn’t try to get away. Mr. Rucker brought her down gently and handed her to me, but I asked him to hold on to her for a moment. I knew my mother wouldn’t want her in the house, so I went inside to get a length of heavy twine we had in a kitchen drawer. I loosely tied the twine around the chicken’s leg. She didn’t seem to mind her tether. She just began to do chicken things – scratched and pecked – in the front yard.
            Mr. Rucker asked, “Are you going to have’er for supper?”
            I was appalled in my child-like way and informed, “No! She picked my roof. She’ll be my friend!” The man laughed and moseyed away.
            My mother left me with my new friend, however, she actually brought out a small, old bowl with water. The chicken was thirsty. I had been around chickens because my parents were good friends with Mr. & Mrs. Hammonds ², cattle ranchers near Gonzales. They had taught me a bit about farm animals, like chickens.
           With my father’s help that evening, after supper of pork chops, we went to the Hardware Store to buy chicken wire and other items. We built her a chicken coop in one corner of our very small backyard, away from my mother’s clothesline.
            I named her Henrietta. She seemed to like it. I thought that name was appropriate.
            I cleaned her coop and fed her lovingly. Sometimes, she would peck the grain out of my hand. Small brain-pan, but she seemed to like me. She didn’t lay eggs, but she would go for walks with me. What a silly sight that had to be – a little girl taking a chicken for walks!
            A few times, the kids I would play with teased me about Henrietta.
           One boy said to me, “It’s just a stupid chicken. Why’s it better than us?”
           “Because she was smart enough to choose my roof and not yours.” That shut him up.
            Well, a year later, my father got a better Physical Therapy position in a hospital in a different town. Actually, more like a small city in the southern, coastal area of Texas. Victoria, TX, population a little over 50,000, about 200 miles away. I couldn’t have Henrietta in the new city limits, so I gave her to the folks with the ranch and made them swear that they wouldn’t eat her.
            A few months later after the move, I got a letter from Mrs. Hammonds. The first part of her letter said she hoped I was getting along in my new school, hoped I was making new friends. Then, she told me about Henrietta. She said my hen was not very social with the other chickens and would not let the roosters get near to her. However, after a while, she warmed up to the others and seemed to fit right in. They had banded her leg so there would be no confusion that this hen was not for slaughter. I was so glad to know that piece of information.
            My dear friend, Henrietta, died a little more than a year later after that letter was received. To this day, I still think of Henrietta Hen.
            With the new home, there was a beautiful, large fenced-in backyard. More than enough to have a dog. A year after moving to Victoria, I finally got my dog.
            A new story for another time.

¹ Mr. Rucker – Fictitious name, real person

²  Mr. & Mrs. Hammonds – Fictitious name, real people