Hens and Chickens

by Jennifer Wixson

  When people want to believe, miracles do happen.

  She tittered jubilantly, as the last of her resistance gave way. Her lovely face flushed with renewed hope and her beautiful hazel eyes sparkled like the city lights of Waterville seen at dusk from Goosepecker Ridge. I could understand why my young friend Mike Hobart was crazy about her!

  “Boy, you must really have SOME connections!” she said.

  “Oh, I’ve got connections, alright,” I replied. “Sometimes they even pay off!”

  Chapter 25

  A Surprise Visitor

  After her meeting with me at the Sovereign Union Church, Lila was able to steady herself and find equilibrium in her young life. If not outright cheerful at her chores, she was calm and somewhat contented over the next week or two, going about her daily life, caring for her hens and baby chicks, and collecting, cleaning, sorting and selling all those dozens and dozens of eggs. She had built up a steady stream of regular customers who came to the farm to purchase eggs each week, yet she was still able to stockpile the 30 dozen eggs Maude needed to bake those 100 fiddlehead quiches. So our next church fundraiser hauled in enough money to paint the foyer, but, I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to our little tale …

  Rebecca was amazed at the dramatic change in Lila when she returned from the church. “My goodness, that minister must be very gifted!” she said. “You seem almost … happy!”

  Lila offered up a rueful smile. “I can see why Ralph says she’s an ‘odd duck.’ She’s certainly NOT what I expected from a minister!”

  “What did she say to you?” asked Rebecca; however, the instant the words were out of her mouth, she regretted her probing. “Oh, don’t tell me, if you don’t want to talk about it!” she cried.

  Lila debated how much she wanted to share. “There isn’t much to tell,” she replied, finally. “The minister told me to go about my daily life –‘follow your heart,’ I think she actually said – and she told me if I did that, everything would be alright.”

  “That’s it?” said Rebecca, disappointed. She had expected the pastoral session would include assurances that God loved Lila and didn’t want to her suffer. Possibly the minister would also give Lila several books to read, Augustinian-type treatises upon the nature of good versus evil. “Follow your heart?!” Rebecca repeated.

  “Yep,” said Lila. “There was also the usual stuff about having patience and faith, but ‘follow your heart’ was the gist of it.”

  “Oh, my!”

  Rebecca felt slightly piqued. Had she been asked for advice, it would have been much more detailed than the succinct “follow your heart!” And yet apparently the minister had said what it was that Lila needed to hear!

  Over the weekend, disaster struck. A red fox had found a breach in the chicken wire of the outdoor pen in which the laying hens took the air and scratched for bugs. By the time the hole was discovered, the fox had carried off several of Lila’s beauties. Missing the few birds – one of which was her pet, the soulful-looking hen she’d named “Babette” – Lila discovered three freshly-cleaned chicken carcasses not far from the fox’s lair, which was situated in a copse of trees behind the barn. On the prior Wednesday, Gray had spied two fox kits jumping and tumbling with each other while mowing the yard and had tracked down the fox’s den. He had pointed the baby foxes out to Lila, who at the time pronounced them “totally cute.” Now, however, the entire fox family was denounced as “thieves and rodents!”

  Lila repaired the hole in the chicken wire, and immediately called a war council for The Egg Ladies. “What should we do?” she asked her little group of advisors. “We can’t have a family of foxes living right next to the hen pen!”

  “Wal, you know, you got thet hole in the fence fixed up and the rest of the fence is all good,” Wendell said, reassuringly. Our old friend and former chicken farmer had become a necessary part of the operation, and therefore netted a regular seat at the kitchen table with Lila and Rebecca. “You ain’t likely to lose many more hens to thet fox.”

  “But we can’t afford to lose ANY more hens,” said Lila. “My replacement chicks won’t come on line until this fall!”

  Any discussion of what The Egg Ladies could and couldn’t afford, necessarily worried Rebecca. “Oh, can’t you catch them all with your live trap, Wendell?!” she asked, anxiously.

  Wendell hated to disappoint Rebecca, but he knew that the Mouse Motel routine wasn’t going to work this time. “ ‘Tain’t big enough. Plus thet fox ain’t like a mouse—she’s too shaap for us to catch. Course, you kin walk right up to them baby foxes and toss ‘em into a bag.”

  “Yeah, we could catch them, no problem,” said Lila, with a good deal of feeling. “But the one we need to get rid of is their mother. The vixen!”

  “Maybe Mike could scare the whole family away by shooting a gun off next to their den?” Rebecca suggested.

  A little jolt went through Lila at the mention of Mike Hobart. She took a deep breath, but said nothing.

  “Ayuh, a gun might discourage thet ole mother fox,” said Wendell, thoughtfully. “If she figgered ‘twarn’t healthy for her kits ‘round heah she might move out—lock, stock and barrel. Course, I don’t hunt. Nevah did. I ain’t nevah seen Mike hunt, but he looks like a fella who kin handle a weapon.”

  Lila, however, knowing Mike Hobart’s past hunting history and his present feeling about guns, finally spoke up. “I don’t think we should ask Mike,” she said. Since both Wendell and Rebecca immediately assumed that this was because of the current suspended state of their romantic relationship, Lila discovered with relief that she didn’t need to add any further explanation.

  “Wal, maybe we kin git young Grayden to do it,” Wendell said. “He’s been itchin’ to use thet new gun his Dad give him for Christmas.”

  After a few more minutes of conference, it was settled that – if it was OK with his grandparents – Gray Gilpin should be allowed to utilize his 16-gauge shotgun in service of The Egg Ladies. Wendell would set up a target for Gray to practice on in an area near the fox den, and from that vantage point he could keep an eye on the hen pen. If the mother fox and/or her kits were spotted in the area, he would be authorized to send a threatening volley into the air over the foxes’ heads.

  “Them foxes better watch out!” said Gray, when he was dropped off along with his gun after church on Sunday. “I told ya they was trouble!” he added, to Lila.

  “Oh, please don’t kill them!” Rebecca pleaded.

  “He ain’t gonna kill nuthin’!” his grandfather pronounced. “He’s jest here for some target practice and to git familiar with his gun afore deer huntin’ season; right, Grayden?”

  “Right, Grandpa,” the teenager replied, meekly.

  “I’ll keep an eye on him,” Wendell assured Ralph. He put a friendly hand on Gray’s shoulder. “Thet’s a pretty shaap lookin’ weapon you got there, young fella!”

  Mike Hobart, who was driving up the Russell Hill Road for a Sunday afternoon visit with Miss Hasting, spotted the little group and pulled into the dooryard. It was the first time he had seen Lila in a very l-o-n-g week, although he had received regular reports on his sweetheart from both Wendell and Miss Hastings. This first meeting would be necessarily awkward, but he was grateful for what appeared to be a natural opportunity to stop in and visit.

  Hobart hopped out of his truck and offered up a general greeting in response to all the others. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ralph give his wife a meaningful nudge, but most of his attention was directed at Lila, whose bare foot was toying with a pile of sweet-smelling grass clippings in front of her. There was no time to plan a specific course of action, so he simply walked up to her and, without exactly knowing how, shortly found himself holding both of her hands. He racked his brain for something appropriate to say. “Getting a lot of eggs?” he asked, finally.

  Lila looked shyly up into his bright blue eyes. “Eight dozen a day,” she replied, aware that all the others were breathlessly watching them. H
er first instinct when she had seen his baby blue truck pull in the driveway was to run into the house and hide, but the minister’s words kept floating through her head: “Follow your heart, and all that blather.” Well, her heart was right here in front of her, so why would she run away?

  Lila felt absurdly happy. “How’s your barn coming?” she asked, in return.

  Hobart was encouraged by the sparkle emanating from her pretty hazel eyes. He felt the ground slipping away beneath his feet. “Pretty good,” he said, lamely.

  “I’m soo happy for you, Mike! I can’t wait to see it.”

  He attempted to steady himself, but failed. “Getting a lot of eggs?” he repeated.

  “Mmmm.”

  Behind him, Wendell coughed. Hobart realized that there were others in the world and that he was still holding Lila’s hands. Regretfully, he let her go and turned back to their friends. They were all seven standing in the driveway – Hobart, Lila, Ralph, Maude, Gray, Rebecca and Wendell – enjoying a “dooryard visit,” as it’s known in Maine. The warm May sun was shining, breathing encouraging life into man, beast, bird and insect alike. Two bluebird couples were battling over the same bird box and the apple and lilac trees were nearly bursting with buds waiting to bloom. Honeybees hovered over the bright dandelions blossoms, emitting a little bzzzing noise each time they picked up and moved to the next fuzzy yellow button. Hobart inhaled a deep breath of fresh spring air, and regained his equilibrium. “The trusses are coming next week,” he said, for the benefit of the group at large.

  “Lovely,” said Rebecca, who hadn’t the least idea what “trusses” were.

  “You haven’t forgotten our picnic next Sunday, have you, Sweetie?” said Maude. “I’m making a big batch of bread pudding, just for you!”

  “Oh, I haven’t forgotten the picnic!”

  “I seen you been down to the Millett Rock, Mike,” Wendell said. “Whatcha think?”

  Hobart nodded. He leaned back against the side of his truck and folded his arm. “I went in late Friday afternoon,” he replied. “She needs some work, like you said, Wendell, but I think we can get away with cutting out two or three of those big pines. And I’ve got a clearing saw that will take care of those small balsams in the woods road.”

  “You got time for all thet?”

  “I’m gonna take down the pines today, and I’ll quit work early a couple of days next week to get the path cleared and the brush cleaned up. By the way, I talked with my friend, and the four-wheeler is good to go!”

  “Awesome!” said Gray. “Can I drive it?”

  “NO!” said both of his grandparents at the same time.

  “Sorry, buddy,” said Hobart, winking at the teenager.

  “My daughter Amber is coming up on the bus Saturday just so that she can go on the picnic with us,” interjected Rebecca. “I’m so happy you Gilpins will finally have a chance to meet her!”

  “How old is she?” asked Gray, hopefully.

  “Twenty-one,” Rebecca replied, smiling kindly. “Sorry, Gray!” And the dooryard visit broke up with much good-natured laughter.

  Now that the first meeting with Mike Hobart was over, Lila found she could look forward to the picnic at the Millett Rock next Sunday with actual pleasure. Euphoric bouts of daydreaming attended her as she lingered through her daily chores, serving to heighten her anticipation. She thought again of what I had said to her about “following your heart,” and my stock in trade went up appreciably.

  Who knows where our paths will lead us when we follow our hearts? Sometimes the way tends straight across country, like the old Belfast and Moosehead railroad tracks that once carried the train from the Maine coast to the Sovereign depot (ferrying the Sears® kit house that Ralph Gilpin’s grandfather had purchased for his bride). But more often than not the path has more twists and turns than a cow path in a Maine meadow in August. However, if we truly follow our hearts, what does it matter which way the road goes or even what happens along the road not taken? For how is it possible to take a wrong turn when we are in pursuit of our heart’s desire?

  Rebecca also felt light-headed throughout the following week. In her own modest mind, she attributed this new intoxication to the fact that Amber would be joining them for the picnic. In addition, she was happily refitting three of the long gowns Lila had discovered in the attic for herself, Lila and her daughter to wear to the picnic. However, there was perhaps some additional kindling on her heart’s fire, which unconsciously aided in the stoking of Rebecca’s internal flame.

  By the following Saturday, the day before the big event, the anticipation in the household had built to such a fever pitch that when a knock was heard that afternoon on the front door – that rarely used entryway reserved for the dead – Lila’s heart skipped a beat. For a brief moment she wondered if her father had come back to life as the minister had promised, and was now standing on the cut granite door stoop waiting to tell her that everything was going to be OK!

  Trembling, Lila swung open the heavy wooden front door, and discovered—Ryan MacDonald, the Perkins & Gleeful corporate attorney, from Boston!

  “Ryan!” she exclaimed, clinging to the weather-beaten wooden door for support. She felt disappointed and yet relieved at the same time that the mystery visitor was NOT the ghost of her father, but her former boyfriend. “What are you doing here?”

  MacDonald had not been sure of the reception he would receive – his calls and emails with Lila had dwindled to nearly nothing over the past few months – but he held his ground stolidly. “I’m here to see you,” he replied, a friendly expression in his unwavering brown eyes. “How are you, Lila? May I come in?”

  Lila moved back away from the door. Encouraged, MacDonald stepped into the foyer. He was a tall, slender man, looking every inch the polished 32-year-old corporate attorney that he was, from the top of his neatly clipped brown hair to the bottom of his highly polished leather shoes. Even though it was four o’clock in the afternoon, not a hint of facial hair shadowed his smooth cheeks. He was wearing “business casual” per usual for him on the weekends, and was handsome looking enough to have modeled for GQ magazine.

  “Quite a place you’ve got here,” MacDonald continued, glancing around the quaint entryway. “Must be a big change from Boston.” He said this as a statement of fact, not as a question.

  Lila tittered. “You have NO idea!”

  MacDonald peeked into the living room. “Rebecca here?”

  “No, she’s gone up to the bus station in Bangor to pick up her daughter,” Lila said. “I’m sorry; I’m being rude, Ryan; I … I wasn’t expecting YOU. Come in and sit down. Want some coffee?”

  MacDonald answered in the affirmative, and Lila turned and headed toward the kitchen. The attorney, however, made for an easy chair in the living room section of the great room. Lila stopped him. “Not here,” she said. “We sit in the kitchen. That’s where we do most of our planning and stuff.”

  Docilely he followed her through the living room and dining room, and into the country kitchen. MacDonald examined the rustic, eat-in kitchen with a raised eyebrow, but said nothing as he took a seat at the kitchen table. Lila drew some water from the tap into the 8-cup enamelware percolator coffee pot and set it onto the gas stove to perk. She dumped a generous amount of aromatic coffee grounds into the basket, placed it inside the pot and clinked the cover back on the percolator. Then she pulled up her customary seat at the head of the table.

  MacDonald, anxious to fulfill his legal obligations before Rebecca returned, opened the negotiations immediately. “Joe sent me up here,” he said. MacDonald’s place setting, which was in point of fact Wendell’s seat, contained the latest issue of GRIT magazine. He automatically moved the brightly-colored country magazine with a chicken on the cover to one side. “Joe has authorized me, as the company attorney, to make you an offer.”

  Lila blinked. Joe who? “What?” she said. She had moved so far beyond her old life in Boston that she didn’t have the faintest idea what Ryan
MacDonald was talking about.

  “Perkins & Gleeful will pay you double your old salary if you come back as Marketing Director,” MacDonald continued. “Plus stock options worth a lot of money. It’s a very good deal, if I do say so myself, Lila.”

  When his words finally sank in, Lila burst out laughing. “You mean – go back?! To THAT place!”

  MacDonald was disconcerted. “You can’t mean that you like it here?” The corporate attorney waved his manicured hand in the direction of the black soapstone sink. “This place is a relic from the 19th century! I don’t know what you’re doing here, but …”

  “Raising chickens,” Lila interrupted. “And selling eggs. Organic eggs.”

  “… but surely what Joe Kelly and Perkins & Gleeful have to offer is much more lucrative than this!”

  Lila’s hackles rose. “Lucrative, maybe, as far as the Almighty Dollar goes,” she retorted; “but some things are more important than getting rich in this world, Ryan! I’m happy here; happier than I’ve been since I was a kid! And there’s NOTHING you’ve got to say or NOTHING Joe Kelly has to offer that would ever make me give this up!”

  MacDonald quickly realized he was taking the wrong tack with her, and was aware that if he continued in this direction he would get nowhere fast. He was not a high-powered corporate attorney for nothing, and effortlessly shifted direction. “I’m sorry if I offended you, Lila,” he apologized, in a humble voice. “It’s just so much different here from how I’m used to seeing you that I’m surprised, is all.”

  MacDonald’s words were effective. Lila felt a rush of remorse. “I’m sorry, too,” she said. “It’s a long way for you to drive to have someone yell at you!”