The Hen house
©28.June.2003
By Shalagh Knight
There are a lot of places to come from that can be just glorious. Butte, Montana was not such a place. It was my mothers one wish that my father, who was in the air force, did not get stationed there. He was stationed there even so. It was a devastating blow to my mother. The best thing about butt (as she so lovingly called it) Montana was it would make such a good place to move from. We packed up all we had and set off for this certain misery named Butte.
We managed to rent a little mobile home out on 80 acres, down a gravel road with no name. It was a small, run down mobile with a chicken coop and large barn. It was right beside the Butte Airport. The airport was a fancy get up with only two gates and a grass runway. I cannot count the number of times the airport had to call us to get our horses off the runway because they had a plane circling and would be quite happy to land. Our fences were very bad, so the animals were always getting out, which did get us girls plenty of exercise by chasing horses and cows around Butte. We seemed to do a lot of chasing of things in Montana. Horses, chickens, goats and on several occasions, the boys that lived next door.
Our small farm was old but it had rustic charm, my father would say. My mother described it quite differently, but I am not allowed to use those words, even now. Our neighbors had a nice place. With a large barn in good shape, good fences and a fancy hen house. The differences between a hen house and a chicken coop are glaring one’s. Chicken coops are crumbling huts with as much baling twine holding it together as nails. Hen houses are sturdy, well built structures with good roofs. Chicken coops have plywood and tarps. Hen houses have windows with sills. Coops had straw thrown on the floor for the chickens to lay on. Hen houses have neat roosting boxes. Coop hens were haggard beasts, with feathers missing and limps. Hen houses hens have beautiful fat chickens, refined and classy. Hen house chickens used proper language and big words. Coop chickens swore and smoked roll your owns. What we had was the coop, what the neighbors had was a Hen house.
One summer, we girls became restless and had already chased our share of horses, chickens and each other, so we turned our energy toward the neighbor boys. The boys names were Robert and Roy. Robert was fourteen and I was eight. I was totally in love with him. Not surprisingly, I chased him. He was very kind and never ran to fast for me. He led me around the barn, then a few laps around the house and finally he led me right into the chicken house. I stopped dead in my tracks. This place was a palace! Robert was very proud of his animals and began to show me around, even telling me the names of his chickens.
Right about then my sister Michele snuck up on us and shut and locked the door to the hen house. What happened next amazes me even to this day. Robert apparently was claustrophobic and the hen house-although quite large for a chicken-was just too small for him. He got this wild look in his eyes and started to twitch. He broke out in a cold sweat and very quickly we were in grave danger of drowning in it. I had the good idea of just untying the baling twine, then the walls would fall over and we could get out. I will not repeat the things said to me at that point, but let me tell you this, it was mean and cruel and directed right at my person as well as my sister, and even some of the chickens.
Robert put on a performance in that hen house that was dazzling and brilliant. He started this with a good imitation of a mad man. His hair turned white in front of my very eyes, and he began to babble and curse. He started to pound on the door and claw at the walls. He ran, he bounced, he screamed, he ricocheted and he pounded. But the door would not give in. I suppressed my giggles and I just tried to stay out of his way. This was quite a show, and me, without any popcorn. Still, I was enjoying the act immensely. Finally he just gave in and shook nervously while standing and staring out the window.
I will tell you that my sister is not a cruel person. She is just exceptionally smart, and exceptionally smart people can become very distracted by shiny things. The shiny thing that distracted my sister, was the site of our dad’s car coming home from work. Her plan had been to do a lap around the house, and come let us out. No sooner had she got just out of sight, that she saw dad and forgot all about us.
Imagine her embarrassment when, hours later, it was time to come in for supper and no amount of calling me could make me appear. A search party was formed and led by-and I kid you not-Michele. Imagine the horror she had when she found us and realized what she had done. She quickly made several promises and tried various other bribes, but I was not to be denied my telling on her. Which I did and she got a good tanning if I remember correctly. I really feel bad about that part though, because secretly, I would have gave her my allowance for a month if she would have locked Robert and I just one more time in some other small space. She never did make that mistake again though. And no one was more disappointed then I.
