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Eggs for the Wendell grocery store In the 1940s, every country child had lots of chores to complete daily. Since I was the youngest girl in my family—following two older brothers with much larger, more rugged chores to complete—the lot fell to me to handle our chickens and their delicate eggs. This chore consisted of feeding and watering the chickens, and gathering the eggs daily. When my chore was complete, you could rest assured that each egg had been washed and dried with the gentlest of hands and utmost care and placed in my big egg basket for my mother’s inspection. My chicken eggs had to be beautiful because each Saturday we took them to sell at our local grocery store in Wendell. We were given a credit toward our weekly groceries in exchange for the eggs I had so carefully gathered. The manager of the store would always comment on our eggs each week. If we had lots of eggs, he would say, “Hens been workin’ overtime this week, eh, Mrs. Creech?” Or if we had very few eggs, he would say, “Well, Mrs. Creech, looks like your old hens been a bit lazy this week.” My mother, Sipsie, might have owned a lazy hen or two, but she sure did make many a good cake with those eggs! Beverly Creech Currin | Zebulon |
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