Grandma never left anything hurt me.   I was her "Precious".   One day however, she was washing down the floor in the hatchery.   It had doors on each end and she was mopping the whole length of the hatchery with a broom and a pail of hot water and disinfectant.

I ran in one door, across the floor and out the other door.   I must have made muddy foot tracks because Grandma said, "Precious, don't do that again.   You made the floor all muddy and I just cleaned it."

Well, I didn't even listen to her and just did it, again and again.

On my last trip through the hatchery, just as I got to the door where she was trying to finish up, she swatted my bottom with the broom.

I couldn't believe what had happened!   My Grandma had swatted me. !   I sat outside on the grass and cried and cried.   I felt so bad that I had made my Grandma mad at me.

Grandma came out of the hatchery and picked me up and took me into the house and held me on her lap and kissed me a lot and made me a butter and sugar slice of bread and then I was all right.

I loved butter and sugar bread!   Grandma would spread a slice of bread with lots of butter and then sprinkle white sugar on the top.   She folded it over and it was so good I always ate two.   Grandma also let me eat dill pickles that she had canned.   I liked to dunk them in milk.   She thought it would make my tummy hurt, but it never did and they tasted so good that way.

Grandma had a big vegetable garden down the lane by the hen houses.   She let me go with her to work in the garden.   We had to leave a sign up by the house that said, "Honk, I'm in the garden."   That was in case someone came to buy baby chicks, they could honk their car horn and we would hear them and hurry up the lane to the house.

It was hard for Grandma to bend over and pick vegetables because she had high blood pressure.   When she bent over, it made her head get dizzy and hurt.

"I can help you Grandma," I said.

So she sat down on the grass and I started picking the vegetables that were ripe and put them in a basket.

It was so hot and sunny that pretty soon I got dizzy and so Grandma made me lie down in the shade of an apple tree and she picked the vegetables herself.

To get to the garden, we had to walk down the lane through the chicken and turkey yard.   Grandma only had two turkeys and they didn't bother us, but she had a few roosters that liked to chase me and try and peck my ankles.

One time, a rooster kept trying to get at me as I ran around Grandma and tried to hide.   He pecked my ankle and I let out a yell.   Grandma reached down and grabbed that rooster by the neck and strangled it.

We had him for supper that night--guess that showed him who was the boss!