Chickens & Charity

Rain or shine, fine or fogbound, Wednesday was the day Nana made her sick calls.

We packed the old Lincoln with a half dozen or so food baskets, cleaning supplies, a couple of boxes of books and magazines, some odds and ends and second hand clothing, and headed out to make the rounds. Sometimes Aunt Pearl or Aunt Vi or Miz Clara came with us, on rare occasions we picked up Uncle Len or John Sullivan to help with small repairs. If there were children on the list, we would try to include a used toy or game and even would bring one of the dogs. It was what Nana called, OUR CHRISTIAN DUTY.

“What goes around, comes around,” she assured me firmly, “Everyone needs a little charity now and then, whether they want it or not.”

I learned early that charity and pride don't always walk hand in hand and sometimes OUR CHRISTIAN DUTY was not as welcomed as we'd have liked. My grandmother was undeterred by the rare doors that were not thrown open for us and would just leave her care packages on the porches and move on.

“You can't take away folk's pride,” she told me with a smile and a shrug, “Sometimes it's all a body's got left.”

“Pride don't put food on the table or keep the lights burnin',” Miz Clara would observe sourly when her knock on the door wasn't answered but Nana ignored her and checked off another name on her list.

“Returned or not, Clara,” she chided her gently, “Ain't no harm in kindness.”

“Mebbe so,” Clara replied ruefully, “But it ain't no one way street neither.”

“I reckon we'd be done already if you two old hens would quit peckin' at each other,” John Sullivan remarked more loudly than necessary and both women glared at him briefly and then commenced to laugh.

“Wimmenfolk,” Long John muttered, “More trouble 'n chickens and christian duty put together.”