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| Me n' Bill Carey |
Once upon a time in the long-long-ago, dearly beloved, there
occurred the Great Chicken Hypnotizing Experiment.
It wasn’t my idea.
I confess I went along with it quite willingly, but I can
legitimately blame that lapse on boredom. Not that I wouldn’t have tried it
anyway, but I am perfectly happy to blame it on Bill Carey. (Bill Carey was
called by both names in order to distinguish him from his father, who was
merely “Bill”)
Bill Carey was my friend and chief playmate in those
long-ago days on the Ogbomoso Baptist Mission station. He was about a year
older than I, but we were often the only kids of our age group around, so we
were stuck with each other. He was also smarter than I, and he read about
things that were far beyond my level of interest. He often tried – usually to
little avail – to explain those things to me. (I remember the time, for
example, when he tried to explain the binary system of numbers to me. With ten
perfectly good fingers, I saw no use for counting with 0 and 1.)
So it happened, on a hot, dusty, dry-season late-morning, as
we wandered past the Low/Wasson house in our typical condition of youthful
boredom, that Bill Carey told me of something he had read – something about
hypnotizing chickens by holding their beaks down on a chalk line on a sidewalk.
That bit of information might well have fallen, unused and unnoticed, into some
distant crevice of my memory, had not one particularly unfortunate chicken happened
right then to wander in front of us. Instantly, we were inspired to be
scientists, intent on proving out a hypothesis.
Nigerian chickens are not like the fat, ungainly fowls
common in the United States. They are slim, tough, agile sprinters with an
amazing will to live. They grow up dodging hawks, dogs and hungry cooks. Though
unlucky, that particular bird was certainly not going to allow himself to be
caught easily by mere boys.
The chicken seemed to know instinctively, as we changed
course toward him, that our intentions were not to his advantage. He turned with
a cackle, and the chase was on. Around and around the house – the water cistern
– the mango tree – the flower pots – we raced, with the chicken keeping barely
out of reach. Just as it seemed one of us would grab him, he would dodge, and
our hands came up holding air. For at least ten or fifteen minutes, we ran the
poor bird and ourselves ragged, before we finally trapped him by the cistern.
As Bill Carey and I took a moment to catch our breaths, the
chicken managed to wriggle free, and the chase was on again. This time, the
bird was tired, and we had become smarter, so the contest was much shorter. And
this time, we held on tighter.
On with the experiment! To the chalk line on the sidewalk!
Suddenly, we realized we had no chalk.
Then, it occurred to us that we also had no sidewalk.
But surely, a good experiment need not be interrupted by
such minor details? In best African fashion, we would substitute with available
resources.
Bill Carey and I discussed the matter, and we decided that,
if chalk and concrete would work, then a line scratched in the dirt would certainly
do just as well. It was the work of a moment to create such a line in the bare ground
under the mango tree.
Carefully, carefully … the now-firmly-held chicken was
placed on the ground, with his beak on the scribed line. A moment to hold him
there … then, a gentle release.…
The now-somewhat-rested chicken raced away with a raucous squawk. The
two frustrated behavioral scientists were right behind. We had, by this time, refined
our chicken-catching techniques, so the chase was not prolonged. We soon were
again tightly clutching the subject of our study.
In fine scientific manner, we thought through and analyzed our
experimental process to pinpoint the cause of its failure. Perhaps we needed to
smooth the ground more? Perhaps our line was not straight enough? We prepared
fresh ground for our second attempt. Since Bill Carey had held and placed the
chicken on the line in the first try, I would place him on the second.
I slowly and gently placed the chicken on the smoothed and
inscribed dirt. I thought he seemed more relaxed, but that may simply have been
that I was holding him so tightly that he couldn’t breathe. With remarkable
care and deliberation, I delicately bisected the line with the chicken’s beak,
lay the bird on the dirt, and held him motionless. After a few seconds, I
slowly withdrew my hands.
The chicken required only an instant to realize that his
restraint was removed. This time, when he ran, he did so with both a remarkable
athleticism and a previously unseen inspiration.
We just watched him go.
Bill Carey and I agreed that this particular chicken must
surely be too dumb to be a good subject for a scientific study such as ours.
