Rufus, the One-Eyed Rooster
We woke up on summer mornings to the soft, sweet music of the Mountain Grove countryside. We slept till our bodies said it was time to get up or until the sounds that filtered through the open windows gradually brought us from peaceful dreams to magic mornings. Birds nested under the eaves of the house, and their hungry babies peeped to their mothers asking for bits of bugs and worms. Sometimes the road grader came by at dawn, slowing humming down the road like a lazy giant. Occasionally, it was the contented clucking of Grandma’s hens foraging under the window for green grass, wild seeds, and insects, and sometimes it was Rufus, her beloved one-eyed rooster, crowing proudly to the morning sun.
We never knew how Rufus lost his eye. We only knew that he was the meanest, most dangerous creature to inhabit the farm, outside of Kersey Benefield’s big, bad bull who sometimes grazed in the pasture right next to the house and yard. However, there was a fence between us and the bull, and we were never foolish enough to try and make friends with the bull, well almost never, but that is another chapter in itself.
Unfortunately, Rufus had free run of the yard. It was his domain where he strutted and crowed and dared anyone to come near his harem of hens, everyone except Grandma. Rufus was her pet rooster. She loved that old bird, and he loved her. Rufus could do no wrong. No one else could get within twenty feet of Rufus without sustaining severe injuries to ankles and legs, but he followed Grandma around like a lovesick puppy. Rufus had a very sharp, pointed beak and brutal spurs on his legs. He was quick as lightning and twice as dangerous. We always gave him a wide berth. After breakfast each morning we headed out the door to Grandma’s admonitions. “Don’t you kids be pestering Rufus. Leave that poor old rooster alone. Don’t be tormenting my rooster.” It wasn’t as if any of us wanted to torment Rufus. It was definitely the other way around.
In the spring Grandma went to the farm store in Alma and bought about fifteen to twenty baby chickens. Rufus was permanent, but the new hens were temporary. They were raised to be fried for Sunday dinners. If they lived long enough to lay eggs, they were living on borrowed time. By the time fall faded into winter, Rufus was the only chicken left standing. I don’t know how he survived the winter, most likely somewhere in the barn, but Rufus survived for several years.
One summer day, however, Rufus made a fatal mistake. He pecked poor, unsuspecting Linda, who was just a toddler, when she was helping Grandma look for eggs in the hen house. It was a terrible lapse of judgement on Rufus’s part. The next Sunday we all noticed that the fried chicken has some unusually large pieces. They were also unusually tough. It was a few days before we realized Rufus was missing and put two and two together. We had eaten Rufus for Sunday dinner.