"Devil's Egg"

by Dot Smith

While the children could be seen most days during that summer outside playing, despite the heat and humidity, on Saturday afternoons they were invariably glued to the television screen absorbed in the daring escapades of their jungle action hero. That was the first summer the family had television; it was the year the children discovered Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle. It was also the year the children discovered that things were not always as they seemed that the proverbial book could not be judged by its cover. For the first time they were allowed to see that even their normally strict parents could on occasion display a healthy sense of humor. To their delight, they realized that every mishap did not automatically result in corporal punishment.

The twins, Rob and Ray, and Dot spent most of their time together. Dot was ten and her rambunctious twin brothers were eight. They played baseball, basketball, football, climbed trees mimicking Tarzan's jungle escapades, explored the neighborhood, shot marbles and, in general, did all the things that appealed to little boys. The fact that most of the activities that made up their daily routine was considered masculine pursuits did not disturb Dot in the least. She enjoyed the ball games and was considered a fairly decent athlete by the twins, particularly in light of the fact that she often won more games than she lost when pitting her athletic abilities against those of her younger brothers.

In addition to being the consummate tomboy, Dot showed a remarkable aptitude for the culinary arts, particularly baking. She assisted her mother in the preparation of the family's meals and helped with other household chores. While she had learned to bake desserts and bread from scratch, her mother had recently started purchasing boxed cake mixes, which made baking cakes an easy affair. In a matter of minutes, the family could enjoy a moist delicious cake for dessert even for a weekday meal. Such convenience was right up the children's alley, because like most children, Dot and the twins were especially fond of the dessert portion of their meals. They would have gleefully consumed cake everyday had their mother allowed them to do so. As things stood that summer, provided Ada did not object, the boys cajoled their sister into baking a cake as often as possible. Generally, all parties concerned understood that gaining Ada's consent was necessary before any baking could take place. Dot found her skills and willingness to bake a cake a great equalizer when it came to dealing with the twins.

The promise of a cake was certainly a terrific inducement to get the boys to cooperate with any plans Dot may have had. In fact, the threat of withholding the dessert was also an effective weapon in Dot's limited arsenal. Without it, she would rarely have been first at bat, allowed to be quarterback, or got to play Tarzan. Instead of playing the much coveted role of Tarzan, she would have been forever relegated to the roles of Jane and Cheetah, simply because she was a girl and outnumbered by the twins. As males, the twins believed the quarterback had to be one of them; for Dot, this was simply intolerable. Hence, she wielded the dessert like a swashbuckler wielding a sword.

The most memorable episode involving a cake and these delicate negotiations occurred during the final days of that summer. It was a Sunday in early August; the temperature had risen well into the nineties by mid-afternoon to almost one hundred degrees. It was hot and extremely humid; the kind of muggy day when all one wants to do is laze around doing as little as possible, preferably nothing. There was no air conditioning to offer a respite from the extreme heat; the family only had a couple of window fans that circulated the hot air. Window fans did little to actually cool the house when the air outside was so hot.

Dot and the rest of the family had attended Sunday school and church services on that day. It was Men's Day at the church. Fred and Ada had remained for the special service commemorating the day. Dot and the twins had come home immediately after the regular Sunday service. On the brief, but hot, walk from church, Dot and the twins stopped by Mr. Johnson's store and spent the remainder of their Sunday school money. Every Sunday morning their father would give them each ten cents to put in the church collection basket. The children never gave all their money in church, some was kept to spend on cookies, candy or other junk food that could be quickly consumed on the walk home after church.

As was her custom, Ada had prepared most of the family's Sunday dinner the night before and early that morning; all that remained was to heat up the vegetables and the roast and bake a skillet of corn bread. Dot was charged with the responsibility of heating up the meal and preparing the skillet of cornbread so that she and the boys could eat dinner. After spending all morning and the early part of the afternoon in church, the children were hungry and did not relish the idea of waiting for their parents to come home before eating. This way, they did not have to wait. By the time their folks returned home, they could be finished with dinner and well into playing.

Sunday dinner was generally the best meal of the week, and the entire family looked forward to enjoying Ada's considerable cooking skills. On this particular Sunday, however, the meal did not seem complete. There was no dessert on the menu. Realizing this, the twins immediately started begging Dot to prepare a cake. The young girl balked at the idea of spending more time than absolutely necessary in the hot kitchen. She was already charged with the responsibility of heating up the meal and cooking the corn bread. Being in a hot kitchen on an even hotter day was not Dot's ideal of fun. The twins, however, were not to be denied as they began their infamous pressure tactic. A maneuver involving considerable pleading and cajoling. Looking into the kitchen cabinet, they discovered a devil's-food cake mix. They knew that baking a cake with the mix really made it fast and easy. In fact, they were willing to forgo the usual icing, if Dot would prepare the mix.

After considerable negotiations, Dot relented as she often did. This time though, she had won a number of concessions from the twins; one of these was the opportunity to play the coveted role of Tarzan that afternoon and the next time they played Tarzan and Jane. Dot could not wait to climb into the large fig tree occupying one corner of the family's property, giving her Tarzan yell, ordering the boys around and jumping from the tree onto the pile of discarded automobile tires stacked below the highest branch of the tree. Already, she could feel the wind as it rushed against her damp skin as she soared from the tree to the pile of tires. In addition to being allowed to be Tarzan, she got to play quarterback in the very next touch football game they played.

With these considerable concessions under her belt, Dot graciously conceded to the twins wishes and agreed to remain in the kitchen a little longer than she had originally planned. After all, she had to have the oven on anyway to cook the corn bread; what difference could a few more minutes make? The children gave absolutely no thought to obtaining their parents permission before pressing full steam ahead. By the time their parents returned home, the cake would be a fait accompli. Since Ada rarely refused to allow Dot to bake a cake, Dot felt certain her doing so this time would not be a problem.

After agreeing to prepare the cake, Dot started to gather the necessary ingredients. The cake mix called for milk and eggs. She went to get those things from the refrigerator and discovered that there were only three eggs; one was needed for the cornbread she absolutely had to prepare. The cake mix called for three eggs. Between the three of them, the children did not have enough money to purchase a dozen eggs, not that they would have wanted to spend their meager resources on such mundane fare as eggs, especially when their funds could be used to buy other choice goodies. Baking the cake with one egg was out of the question. While Dot hoped her mother would not object to her preparing the mix, making a mess of the mixture and ruining it might just make her mother angry, particularly since she was making the cake without her mother's permission. They needed another egg. The question was where were they going to get an egg?

Someone suggested borrowing an egg from one of the neighbors. This idea was very quickly vetoed because Ada did not borrow foodstuff from the neighbors. She had commented on several occasions that she would rather do without than go to the neighbors with her hands out. Because Ada considered it a rude practice, borrowing an egg from the neighbors was out of the question. Briefly the children considered borrowing the egg and not revealing the transaction to their mother. After careful consideration and some debate, it was decided that there was no way to borrow an egg without Ada eventually finding out about it. Then, they would definitely be in serious trouble. In silence, the children pondered the dilemma and were on the verge of giving up when out of the blue there another possible source emerged. All was not lost; there was still hope of having cake for dessert.

A few years back during the spring, the children received baby chicks at Easter. Green, purple and blue, the multi-colored baby birds were soft and fuzzy, and much loved by the children until the novelty of owning a baby chicken wore off. In a matter of weeks, the baby chicks lost their artificial coloring. Returning to their normal yellow hue, the chicks also lost most of the attention that had been lavished on them by the children. There were originally six of the baby birds; three died during the loving attention phase of the children's ownership; the surviving three thrived and grew to adulthood thanks to the care Ada provided.

Unfortunately, from Ada's perspective, the remaining three birds were all roosters. As pets, the sex of the chickens hardly mattered to the children. Besides, the birds did not care to be treated as pets. For the most part, they kept to themselves and had very little to do with the children. In fact, whenever the children came near, the chickens ran away. To Ada, however, the chickens' sex was very important, because had they been hens, they could have provided eggs and eventually a meal of succulent roasted chicken. Those things, in part, would have partially defrayed the cost of caring and feeding the birds. Roosters were known to be tough birds for cooking and eating and they certainly did not lay eggs. When it was discovered that the birds were all roosters, Ada struck a bargain with one of her neighbors who owned a number of Bantam hens. In exchange for two of the undesirable roosters, Ada received three of the feisty little laying hens.

Immediately after the trade was affected, the family began gathering those smooth brown eggs produced by the little hens. Eggs laid by the hens did not eliminate the need to buy eggs from the store altogether, but they did help reduce the amount the family normally had to purchase. The eggs must be gathered daily to prevent hens from sitting on them, the process, which turned eggs into baby chickens. The family did not own a chicken coop, so straw had been placed beneath the back corner of the tool shed for the hens to use as nests. The hens though continually changed their nesting location; each time a nest of eggs was discovered, the hens would locate a new more esoteric place to lay their precious eggs.

Keeping track of where the hens were laying their eggs became a great game of hide-go-seek. The hens were apparently determined to sit on a nest of eggs, and Ada was just as determined that she did not want to increase her brood of chickens. A number of times, Ada had to shoo the disgruntled would be mother hens off their nests, and got pecked in the process. The hens became downright mean and vicious in their efforts to protect a nest of eggs. The children were originally charged with the responsibility of collecting the eggs daily. However, Ada more often than not performed the chore, especially when the hens started pecking hands reaching into their nests. The children were too timid about gathering eggs as long as they were likely to get pecked in the process.

After a year or so, the number of eggs laid diminished substantially. Often when Ada or the children when to collect eggs, none could be found. This decline in egg production continued for a while with Ada eventually assuming that the hens were older than she had at first imagined. She had assumed the hens would be producing for a number of years and had, in fact, planned to allow the hens to sit on some eggs in the future to increase the total number of chickens in the yard. Now, it seemed that this would not happen. As the eggs grew fewer and further in between, the daily egg-gathering chore ceased altogether. It was rare to find an egg in the nest. In fact, it had been months since anyone had thought to look in the hens nesting places for eggs. That is, until today.

With only one egg and two required, the children thought about the hens' nest. The twins ran out the back door and went to check the nest behind the tool shed. The nest was empty; so the boys started looking in all the other places the hens were known to lay eggs in the past. They looked in the kitchen garden at the end of the row where their mother had planted string beans, they checked behind the pile of discarded lumber stacked along the property's back fence, and they looked beneath the house. In this final place they were lucky. One of the hens was sitting on a makeshift nest in the relative shade provided by the house. The boys tried to shoo her off the nest. The hen immediately when on the offensive pecking at the little boys' hand as they tried to remove her from the nest. Working in tandem, one behind the other, one boy acted as a diversion allowing the hen to peck at his hands while the other checked the nest for eggs.

Luck was with them today. After chasing the angry little hen from her nest, the boys discovered a single solitary egg nestled snugly in the bit of straw that made up the makeshift nest. One of the boys excitedly grabbed the still warm egg. The hen loudly squawked and chased the pair from beneath the house. With the hen in close pursuit, the twins rushed back into the house with their prize.

"We got one, we got one!!" They shouted in unison proudly displaying the pretty brown egg.

Dot took the egg from the excited boy and carefully placed it on the table with the two from the refrigerator. She had already preheated the oven and the kitchen was sweltering. With sweat running down her back, she added shortening to the caste iron skillet and placed it on the middle shelf in the oven so that it could get hot. While the skillet was heating and the shortening melting, she mixed the self-rising corn bread mix, egg and milk to make the corn bread. After the mixture was stirred to a smooth consistency, she removed the hot skillet from the oven using a folded dishcloth. She poured the melted shortening into the corn bread mixture and placed the skillet on the stovetop. The corn bread batter was still sizzling from the hot shortening when she turned from the stove to stir the shortening into the mixture. Once this was done, she poured the mixture into the still hot skillet. She then placed the skillet back into the oven. With the cornbread taken care of, she turned her attention to preparing the cake batter.

Despite the nearly oppressive heat of the kitchen, the twins avidly watched their sister. Sitting quietly at the kitchen table, the boys watched as Dot tore the top off the cake mix and extracted the paper package of mix. Tearing the top off the package, she poured the dry mix into the large mixing bowl she had placed on the kitchen table for that purpose. In a measuring cup, she poured milk from the container sitting on the table. After pouring a cup of milk, she returned the carton to the refrigerator as she had been taught. In the hot kitchen, milk could easy spoil because germs thrived in warm weather. Using a large wooden spool, she mixed the dry cake batter with about half the cup of milk. She stirred the mixture until it was almost free of lumps. The remainder of the cup of milk was then poured into the batter and stirred until the batter was free of lumps. Finally came the eggs. As Dot cracked the eggs using the side of the bowl, the little Bantam hen could be heard squawking near the kitchen steps. The children were completely oblivious to her antics. First the white and creamy yellow yolk of the egg from the refrigerator went into the batter, the boys licked their lips in anticipation; they always got to lick the mixing bowl once the batter was poured into the cake pan. Then, the pretty brown egg the boys had found was cracked.

The second egg had neither the anticipated clear egg white nor was there a bright yellow yolk. The cloudy substance that spilled from the cracked egg was a greenish-gray in color, and the smell was defied description. Horrified, the children gasped in a deep breath accidentally inhaling the noxious fumes from the rotten egg. The putrid odor quickly filled the kitchen making breathing normally impossible. Momentarily stunned, the children stared in disgust at the ruined cake batter. Finally coming to life, Dot grabbed the bowl and rushed from the kitchen through the back door. She ran to the kitchen garden and dumped the bowl's contents. She then rinsed the bowl using the garden hose; the smell of rotten egg filled the hot summer air. But at least the mess was not in the house.

Slowly, Dot walked back to the house carrying the now empty mixing bowl. The boys had not made it much further than the back steps. One stood to the side of the kitchen door and the other one sat dejectedly on the lowest step. As Dot approached, both boys looked up. From the expressions on their faces, they clearly did not know what to do next and were sorely disappointed. It was also obvious that they expected her to know precisely what was to be done now that the cake mix had been ruined and the house smelled too foul to live in. Ignoring the hang dog expressions on their faces, Dot squared her shoulders, took a deep breath of relatively untainted air and re-entered the kitchen. She had no choice; the cornbread was still baking in the oven; it had to be removed when it was golden brown or one more thing would be ruined.

The rotten egg odor permeated the room hanging heavily like a dense fog clogging up the atmosphere and making breathing difficult. Dot choked on the scent, pinched her nostrils together and checked on the baking bread. Thank goodness it was almost ready to be removed from the oven. In the meantime, she knew something had to be done about the smell. Dot was afraid that the foul egg odor was not dissipating fast enough to be completely gone before her parents returned home.