The Road Home

(Chapter 15 and the Final Chapter of the book "The Chicken Who Didn't Know Where To Lay Her Eggs")

Even though Shellie hadn't had any idea of what to do on her first day as a mother, she had gradually gotten the hang of it. Within a couple of days, she had learned to tell the ducklings apart, despite their almost identical black-and-yellow markings. Over time, she had even learned to understand their little duck language.

She had taught them how to do the many things a farm bird needed to know to survive. She had taught them where to find chicken pellets and how to catch earthworms. She had taught them how to keep a close eye out for the cat and the fox, and where to run if they ever saw one.

Shellie had never realized that motherhood could be so time-consuming. She soon found herself spending almost all of her time with her babies and little time with Paula. Eight ducklings were a lot of babies to keep a close eye on. She had soon learned that she couldn't look away for even a short moment, because one or the other of the babies would roam off by itself. Keeping them all together was like herding butterflies.

Shellie often thought about the many good times they had had together. She particularly remembered the first day Paula had brought home a small, shallow plastic swimming pool, placed in the back yard and filled it up with water. Paula had made a little platform on the outside and inside of the pool using red house bricks. She had sprinkled corn in the water. The kernels had sunken quickly to the bottom of the pool.

Paula had then picked up the ducklings, only a few days old at the time, one by one and placed them in the pool.

At first, Shellie had been extremely alarmed. She thought Paula had lost her mind. Shellie was afraid her babies would drown.

But these babies didn't drown. They swam. As soon as they touched the water, they knew what to do. They floated like large, golden dandelions across the water. They started kicking their feet and sailing across the pool from one side to the other. It was at that point that Shellie had realized that her babies would never be quite like her. It was both a sad and a fascinating realization. She had suddenly felt they were hers but they would never belong to her.

The ducklings had only been in the water a few moments when they spotted the kernels of corn on the bottom. One after the other, they began to dive and fetch the corn. After each dive, they swam back to the surface, lifted their heads straight up in the air, and swallowed the corn. Then they dived for another kernel. It appeared to be the most natural thing in the world to them.

Over the next hour, the ducklings discovered the platform. They learned to get all the way out of the pool, run around in the yard, and the climb back up on the brick platform and jump back in the water. They did it again and again, sometimes one at a time, sometimes in groups.

After that day, they spent many hours in the pool each day. It was undeniably their favorite place in the entire farm yard. Shellie always stood at the edge. She had to admit that it looked like fun, but she knew that a pool of water was simply no place for a chicken. She reconciled herself to being a mother at the edge.


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Several months later, when the ducklings were almost fully grown, Shellie came into the kitchen. It was the first time in a long time that she had dared risked leaving the ducklings. But they were finally old enough to look after themselves.

Their baby down had turned into feathers, and they could now fly as well as they could swim. Their bills were fully developed into long flat tools that were perfect for catching things in the water. About once a week, Paula poured a bucket of minnows and other small fish into the pool. The ducks would immediately dive after and catch them, until not a single fish was left. Shellie would stand at the edge of the pool and marvel at their speed and agility.

Shellie found Paula sitting at the kitchen table, looking at the old photo album again. Shellie had only seen her look at the photo album one time before. Like the first time, Shellie noticed that Paula smiled at times and looked very sad at times.
Paula took a long, slow, deep breath. She looked at Shellie and said, "They went to a baseball game that evening...."

She turned back to the photo album. She placed the fingers of her right hand on one of the pictures and let them rest there for a very long minute.

Finally, she looked up and sighed. She slowly closed the album, took it over to the cabinet and put it back up on the shelf.

She turned to Shellie. "Come on, girl, let's all go fishing. It's time for us to let the future take us where it will."

Shellie's eyes lit up. She wasn't sure what Paula meant about the future, but she was more than ready to go fishing. She hadn't been in months, not since the ducklings had arrived. She had simply been too busy.

Paula and Shellie went out to the garage. Shellie saw that all of the ducklings were over in the pool. Now that they were almost grown, the pool was getting too small for them. Shellie thought that Paula should buy them a much larger one, maybe even build a permanent one for them in the middle of the yard and fill it with fish which they could catch whenever they wanted.

Paula got her fishing gear ready and called Dingo.

Dingo was out in the field looking for rabbits. When he heard Paula call him, he quickly came running toward the house. He, too, was ready for a fishing trip.

Shellie watched him running. She thought about what a good dog he had been with the ducklings. He had never tried to chase or catch them. Instead, he had always been highly protective of them. He never let Sigourney or any other cat get near them.
When he was a couple of hundred yards away, he suddenly stopped in his tracks. He let out a sharp yip.

Shellie looked in his direction.

There stood a large rooster. It was Crowster.

Crowster stood up as tall as he could, stretched his short neck in the air and crowed. It was an extremely loud and crackly crow. It was a crow that seemed to shatter the air like a wooden post would shatter a large glass door.

Dingo pulled his ears back flat against his neck. He turned and ran toward Paula, yipping over his shoulder all the way.

The ducklings heard him, too. They jumped out of the pool, and waddled as fast as they could over to Shellie.

Crowster began strutting toward the house just like the first day Shellie had seen him months ago at April's house.

Shellie wondered how he had found their house and why he had suddenly showed up. The last time she had seen him, he had been in April's yard.

He still filled her with fear, and he did the same to Dingo and the ducklings.

Shellie, the ducklings, and Dingo crowded together behind Paula's legs.

In a gentle tone, Paula said, "All of you quit acting so silly. It's just Crowster. He's not going to do anything to any of you. He just looks scary."

Crowster walked directly over to Paula. He stopped about a yard in front of her and just stood there as if to say, "OK. I'm finally here."

"Crowster," Paula said, "why don't you come with us?"

Shellie and Dingo looked up at her in disbelief. The ducklings quacked nervously and pushed and shoved each other to get as close to Paula as possible. They kept glancing at the strange new creature just a few feet from them.

Paula looked at them all crowded together and smiled. "All of you need to relax. Crowster doesn't have a mean bone in his body. He's just trying to find a place that feels like home," she said in a soothing voice.

She took a few steps to pick up the last of her fishing tackle. Shellie, Dingo and the ducklings stayed right at her heels.

Crowster stood there in a kingly manner on his long legs. He cast a sharp, observing eye on them all, as if the farm yard and everyone in it belonged to him.

Shellie wondered how someone who had just showed up at a place for the first time could be so confident. Every time she went to a new place, it took her a long time to learn her way around and feel comfortable.

Paula turned to them all and asked, "Ready?"

She set off by foot down the road to the pond behind the house, figuring it was best since it had no gators.

Shellie and Dingo ran along directly at Paula's heels. The eight ducklings followed in a cluster behind Shellie and Dingo, and Crowster brought up the rear.

The walk to the pond took about half an hour. Along the way, Shellie, Dingo and the ducklings kept glancing over their shoulders to keep a close eye on Crowster. He simply held his position, as if it were his job to keep them all together. He took long, marching strides with his head held high.

When they got to the pond, Paula didn't get in the boat like she usually did. Instead, she took her fishing chair out of the boat and placed it on the dam of pond, right near the water. Shellie, the ducklings and Dingo all gathered around her. Crowster stood a close distance away and watched. All of this was still very new to him. He had never been fishing before.

Paula sat down, got her fishing rod ready, and opened the can of worms. She took out a long, fat worm.

Shellie looked at Paula eagerly, expecting her to offer her worm like she had always done in the past.

But she didn't. Instead, she dangled the worm a couple of feet over the ducklings heads. The ducklings instantly spotted it and started jumping upward, trying to grab it as well as they could with their short legs. At that moment, Shellie realized that chickens were much better at jumping than ducklings were. She cast a look at Crowster's long legs and bet that he would not have had any trouble jumping high enough to get the worm.

Shellie had no idea what Paula was doing. This was very unusual behavior on her part. Suddenly, Paula tossed the worm toward the water. It flew several feet out, hit the surface with a small splash, and sank.

Before Shellie knew what was happening, all the ducklings jumped into the water. They frantically started searching for the worm. When they couldn't find it on the surface, they started diving.

Shellie watched them with fascination. They seemed to know exactly what they were doing. They kept diving deeper and deeper, sometimes so deep that Shellie couldn't see them anymore. The ducklings seemed to have no fear of the pond water. They seemed to be perfectly at home there.

Paula then threw the whole can of worms, except one, out into the water as far as she could. The ducklings started diving and chasing after the worms. Before long, the ducklings were way out in the middle of the pond. By that time, they were finding other things to eat in the water besides just worms. Some even caught little fish like they had done in the little pool in the yard.

They kept diving and swimming in ever bigger circles.

Paula turned to Shellie and said, "They have a new home now, Shellie. Your job is done. You've been a good mother."

Paula offered Shellie the one last worm she had saved. Shellie looked at it. Somehow, it looked different from all the other worms she had ever eaten. She pecked at it twice, but realized she didn't have an appetite for worms right now.

Paula picked up the worm and tossed it out into the water toward the ducklings. To Shellie, that also seemed the right thing to do.

Paula sat there in silence for a few moments. Then she began packing up her fishing gear and said, "Time for us to go. We need to let the ducks get used to a real pond."
The four of them walked off the dam and got on the road back home. Paula took the lead, with Dingo and Shellie walking side-by-side behind her. Crowster walked behind them all. He seemed proud to be part of the group.

It suddenly struck Shellie that he was a rooster with very good manners. He was quite unlike her own father, who was always picking fights with other chickens in the farm yard. Crowster seemed to know his place and to respect the place of others.
When they were about 500 yards down the path, Shellie stopped and looked back.

She saw the ducklings swimming and diving. They weren't even aware that Shellie was gone. She saw them chase each other across the water, sometimes flapping their wings and skimming across the surface. They kept diving in the deep water and reappearing on the surface with a fish in their bill.

Shellie knew they were at home.