Beech Tree News Network

Red packed a set of long, sharp spurs, and his head was a quarter-size of a backhoe bucket. But when it got right down to a head –bustin’-new-ground-tore-up-fight, Red wasn’t there- Red was a certified coward.
Red was a Rhode Island Red Rooster, and poison mean – a sneak. Had he lived in the old west he would have been known as a back-shooter. Like all cowards, Red couldn’t face you head on, but he was still plenty dangerous.
Red belonged to Miss Fannie and Mister Tom Stabuck, an older couple who lived about a cow-hand from us over on the next hill.
When our cow was dry, my mother sent me over there at times to get some of Miss Fannie’s home-made butter. The kind, on a hot biscuit, when sagged in sorghum molasses, was some kind of Heaven’s glory.
I’d seen Red lurking about at times on my butter-run. I sensed then he was a snake-in-the-grass. Turned out my guess was correct. I’d just had my Saturday bath, and had put on a right-new pair of jeans – Thurman Wright and the Saddle Busters were coming to play at my daddy’s store, as they did every Saturday night, following their afternoon broadcast at WHOP, Hopkinsville. Those jeans were the first pair I had that you wore with a belt – overalls before that. So I was feeling good, probably had let my guard down; just as I stepped off Miss Fannie’s porch Red jumped me. He slashed a good size hole in my new jeans and ripped a gash in my leg. Then he ran…like the low-life coward he was.
From then on when I went for butter I carried a tobacco stick. I would see Red peeping out from behind things- he knew what the stick was. He was a blaggard, but he wasn’t a fool. Once or twice I chased him and “mallered” his old head a time or two. Once I hemmed him up him in a fence Carmen, and was getting in some pretty good licks; the thug flew over the fence. My intention was to give Red an attitude adjustment he wouldn’t forget. Mister Tom beat me to it. I got in from school one afternoon and my daddy said Mister Tom had been in. he said I could rest easy about Red. They had him for dinner Sunday.
Some liberal philosopher once said, “Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am a part of mankind.”
I never felt that way about bad men…or bad roosters.
Kindest Regards.