I clearly remember that the day before, my grandmother was carrying a big white fluffy chicken under her arm, with the legs tied together so it wouldn't flyaway. It was the plumpest a child could ever see. Its feathers were as white as snow. Its comb was bright red and felt rubbery to the touch. My grandmother placed the squawking, wiggly chicken in the fenced coup at the back of the house. I thought, like all the people living in the countryside who keep their chickens in a fenced coup, that it was to keep the chicken from going on other people's property.

I did not know it was our Sunday dinner. On that Sunday after church when I started to play with the chicken, I thought it was the family pet, and I would not get into trouble for playing with it. I thought it was my own little chicken pet.

Somehow I left the door open, and suddenly the chicken flew out of the coup and started to run down the gully. Being I was so little I started to call out to my grandmother saying, "mama mama the chicken is flying away." She said, "Wameck tha fowl fly if yu ne fait WI ie?" (That means the chicken would not fly if you did not touch it.) I started to cry as hard I could. She said, "What are you crying about?" She said that I should calm down and tell her what is the matter.

Everybody ran out of the house to find out what the commotion was all about. When my grandmother told the story to the family they were all mad with me mainly because they all knew that it was the only meat for dinner. And there was no more money to buy another one. Everything happened so fast and all the family members were running around trying to think what to do. They did try to find the big white chicken, but with no luck.