“Oh my, oh my! I seem to have run out of corn kernels.” Esmerelda, the most beautifully feathered hen at the Johnston farm quickly realized her error as she looked behind her and couldn’t even see her hen house.
Her current problem was due to the fact that Esme had eaten her way out of hen house and home following a trail of spilled corn beyond the farmyard and out along the county dirt road.
One of the nine feed sacks containing corn that Mr. Johnston had bought at the General store, had a slight tear near the bottom which he had not noticed since he threw all of the forty pound bags of the feed into his ’53 Chevy pickup. The corn traced a perfect trail as he drove from the General store back to his farm on rutted and bumpy State road #18.
(Sort of a Hansel and Gretel situation for Esme if you are familiar with that story)
It was getting dark now and although Esme guessed that she could just follow the road back home there was a major problem. Well two actually!
There was a huge fork in the road (not a dinner fork) and she didn’t know which lane to take and YES…she took the wrong one.
What? Oh yes the other major problem…a hungry FOX!
Esme decided that she would have to spend the night roosting away from her happy hen house and spotted a nearby tree with low branches.
“I think I might just be able to flap hard enough to make that lower branch.” She was thinking out loud.
“Need some help gettin’ up there?” A rather highly pitched voice from directly behind her whispered into her ear.
When she turned to face the owner of the voice, her fear instincts sounded every alarm that Esmerelda was born with and she froze!
It was the fox. All red and toothy and smiling and hungry!
There was no escape. The fox was blocking any escape route that Esme could perceive and she just decided to look about for one last time then closed her eyes.
After a couple of minutes when nothing happened. No words, no pain, no change in her status of life, except for the rapid heart rate and fast breathing that is, Esme opened her eyes.
The fox was gone.
She looked around then suddenly she saw him dragging something that looked like a dead body toward the base of the tree where she was.
Then she noticed that it was actually a bunch of rough hewn tree limbs tied together to form a very basic ladder.
“Kids made this but it broke the first time that they tried to climb it, but you shouldn’t have any problem getting up to that branch using it!”
Esme was so surprised that she couldn’t even cluck a “thanks!”
And since she had a beak she couldn’t even smile, she just nodded and began to climb the rungs to the roosting limb.
“Ah…I’ll curl up here at the base of the tree and ward off any predators throughout the night and then in the morning I’ll escort you home. I know the correct fork to take to get to the hen house!”
Have you ever tried to sleep with one eye open? Well, Esme did that night but without success. At the crack of dawn Esme heard the far off crowing of Edgar the rooster at Mr. Johnston’s farm. After checking to make sure that Esme still had her wings and drumsticks she looked down to the base of her tree and the Fox was NOT there.
“He said he would stay there to protect me and he’s not even…wait!… A FOX was going to keep me safe? I should be glad that he’s gone!”
“Ah…you’re awake. I found some berries and nuts. It seems as though you ate all of the corn kernels on the road, but of course that’s how you got here! By the way, my name is Aloisius, but you can call me Al.”
Esme still couldn’t quite fight off all of those rampaging instincts of fear but she found herself beginning to respond to the fox’s kindness. But full “trust”, she wasn’t there yet.
“My name is Esmerelda but you can call me Esme.”
Esme climbed down the ladder and joined Al at breakfast, being thankful that she WASN’T breakfast!.
Pecking the berries and nuts she still kept one eye on Al, but he was eating and thoroughly enjoying the food too.
“You know Esme, I’m not like a regular Fox.”
“Oh really?” responded Esme.
While chomping on a Hickory nut Al confessed “Yeah, I’m trying to become a vegetarian!”
It was the word “trying” that got Esme’s attention and throughout the rest of breakfast she kept BOTH eyes on Al!
After filling up on nuts and berries Al was true to his word and guided Esme back to within sight of her home farm. Closer than that wasn’t needed once Esme took the correct road fork and Al wasn’t exactly going to find the “Welcome” mat out for him by farmer Johnston.
Esme was welcomed back to the hen house with opened wings by the other hens.
She was reluctant to recount her adventure with “the fox” because not only would the other hens be skeptical, Esme wouldn’t have believed the story if one of the others told it to her!
After a few days, Esmerelda surprised herself by actually beginning to wonder how Al was doing, especially with his vegetarian diet!
Hope springs eternal in the chicken breast! And Esme was rooting for Al and all chickens everywhere!
Esme started thinking about all of the animals, some enormous ones like elephants, manatees, buffalo and many others, that were staunch vegetarians.
Of course, Esme herself was omnivorous and enjoyed an occasional crunchy insect that she scratched from the ground. Those insects probably wished that Esme would adopt a vegetarian diet too! If insects could wish, that is!
Two weeks passed and farmer Johnston went to the feed store to replenish the corn for the chickens and Esme watched for him to return, hoping for another torn bag leaking onto the road.
But no luck! But as Esme was peering out toward the road she spotted a furry red figure sitting along the edge. Then the animal started to wave its paws and she recognized Al.
Esme scurried through the open gate before farmer Johnston parked the truck and came back to shut it.
They met at “their” tree and Al surprised her with a small sack full of dried corn.
“But…where did you…I mean I didn’t see any spillage this time…”
“I snuck into the barn near the henhouse last night and scooped up a bunch so that we could have a luncheon today!”
“Are you still…I mean have you…” Esme didn’t know how to phrase her question but Al knew what she was going to ask.
“Yeah! Still vegetarian…don’t worry!” he said proudly.
“Well, that’s good. But I must confess that I just couldn’t help helping myself to a few cicada yesterday.” Esme admitted.
“OK. Takes a while to turn habits around. But you’ll get there. Let’s eat!”
And they did.
Esme knew the way back and which fork to take and squeezed through the edge of the fence gate and post and although she lost a few feathers, “pretty feathers” Al called them, she managed to get back into the hen house with a full belly and relatively unnoticed!
Esme was intent on adopting a full vegetarian diet and passed up some very chubby bright green locusts and thought instead of having corn with Al.
The luncheons had become a ritual but Esme was increasingly concerned about Al being caught by farmer Johnston one night as her fox friend raided the corn crib that was so near the henhouse.
After all who would believe a vegetarian fox?
She did!
It was a Saturday in May that changed things for the fox and hen. Two separate events happened, coincidentally, on the same day that would change the future for both.
Edgar the rooster was given a not so early retirement by farmer Johnston and was replaced with a young, strong voiced and lushly feathered “Duley” whose morning call was clear and loud. Edgar’s cock-a-doodle-do had become a weak and scratchy cough lately.
Esmerelda welcomed Duley with a giggling cackle and fluttering eyes.
At the same time, out beyond the old fork in the county road, in his den, Aloisius Fox was entertaining Vicky the Vixen, new resident of the woods at a candlelight dinner which was, shall we say, non-vegetarian.
But don’t be sad for our country couple, the fox and the hen, because both were happy and were resuming a very normal life acting naturally in their own homes with their own species.
Al stayed away from the hen house and Esme never squeezed through the gate and pecked her way down the road again.
Yet, every time either one of them ate even a single kernel of corn, they kindly thought of each other.