My mama was a child from a “broken” home way back when those were few and far between. Her mom and dad separated, and her mom took Mama along with her three siblings and moved back to Holly Springs to live with their grandparents who had children of their own still living at home.
The family did not live in Holly Springs very long, but many tales were told about the short time the two families joined into one large family. One my mama told with great emotion was the story of Old Doddle Head, who she sometimes called Doddler.
Mama called her grandmother Grandma. Grandma raised chickens and sold their eggs. She had a lucrative business and a barnyard full of chickens.
One baby chick was kicked by a horse and miraculously survived even though his neck was quite broken so that his head doddled to one side. Mama immediately named him Doddler and assumed the role of Doddler’s caregiver.
Doddler must’ve been a real pet, coming when called, enjoying being stroked and picked up, all the while doddling around the yard. Mama was quite taken with him.
Then one day the threshers came to cut the grain.
Grandma was expected to fix dinner for the men. The hens were valuable because of their egg-laying abilities so they were not considered to be thresher food, and, let’s face it, Doddler had had a fairly long useless life by chicken standards when he and some of his cohorts suddenly found themselves transformed into delicious fried chicken. I guess he was easy to catch.
So, Mama’s story about Old Doddle Head ended in heartbreak. When she came home from school and learned of Doddler’s demise, she took to her bed, wailed over and over, “They’ve gone and killed Old Doddler,” cried copious amounts of tears, rolled her head from side to side on the pillow, stared at the ceiling, and mourned Doddler.
Many, many years later, when she told the story of Old Doddle Head, her eyes still grew misty. She’d laugh at herself about being so attached, and tell how she’d been teased by her uncles for crying about a rooster. They even called her Old Doddler for a while. I tell you farm kids had to be tough.
This story is in memory of Old Doddle Head, who probably knew he had it coming.