Random reminder

Press, 9 June 1980, Page 28

Random reminder

GETTING THE BIRD

Old Scruffy the rooster had reigned in the farmyard for many years, but the chickens he sired were a disgrace. They were free range fowls, and laid their eggs in inaccessible places and as often as not, ate them, while Scruffy strutted about crowing noisily, and lording it over his flock. The elderly Scottish lady who owned the farm decided that if she was going to keep hens, she was going to have good ones. The fowls soon went the way of all old birds, but Scruffy was too wily to be caught. “A pedigree rooster and a dozen pullets are arriving from Lincoln in a week’s time,” she told her two sons. “You must get rid of' Scruffy for me. He roosts high up in the old pine tree. Take a gun and shoot him.” This seemed a dreadful deed to her two sons, Peter and David. After all, Scruffy was almost a family institution. They put off the unpleasant task until one night when they returned from work, there in the farmyard were 12 beautiful hens. Guarding them jealously was a magnificent white rooster. Scruffy eyed them balefully from a branch of Hie pine tree.

"Get the gun, David,” said Peter, "Or Scruffy wilt kill that pedigree rooster, and we’ll never hear the end of. it” David went to get the run. The rooster shepherded his flock to a safe vantage spot, and came back to stand guard until Scruffy left his perch. Returning with the gun, David took careful aim. "Sorry Scruffy, old man,” he said; and fired.

He gazed at Peter in amazement. “I missed him.” he gasped. “No, you didn’t, David. You got him clean through th head.” At an angle behind David, the rooster from Lincoln lay dead. Peter and David had a problem. How to explain to their mother that they had fired at old Scruffy, and had shot the newcomer? They knew that she would never believe that a pine branch had caused the bullet to ricochet and to kill the wrong bird. They found it difficult to believe themselves. Scruffy cocked a beady eye at them, crowed triumphantly and swaggered over to the new hens.