The Mangled Rooster

"This meeting will now come to order!" Arthur banged the hammer on the makeshift table. Clinton served as secretary, and Miles raised his hand to introduce the order of business.

"I move that we lay plans for the future of our younger brothers.""Second the motion," said Lloyd."What are you talking about?" inquired David.

"Well, it's like this," said Arthur. "We four older ones have already gotten a start on our careers, and are fairly successful. But, Lane, you're 24 years old, and still living at home. You've got a beautiful voice. You know, you really ought to consider becoming a singing evangelist. Lloyd is already helping Miles in that way, and YOU should consider your future also.""I would consider it a pleasure to work with the 'world's greatest orator'," replied Lane."What do you mean?" asked Miles."Why YOU, of course. You were predestined to become the most eloquent speaker in our family. I think you were BORN talking.""Yes," replied David "Clinton and Arthur will probably become conference Presidents, and I am going to be a church builder. ""Well, what about me?" asked Glenn."Oh, you'll probably be an evangelist, too," said Lester, "but what will I become?""YOU? Why, I would say that the way you are always trying to straighten me out, you will probably become a corrector of heretics!"The boys all had a good laugh Then one of them moved that they adopt this set of recommendations."Well, said Lester," after the meeting had broken up and the four oldest boys had gone back to their jobs, "If I am to be corrector of heretics, I might as well get started.""What do you mean?" asked Glenn."You'll find out. The next time Mom and Dad go to town, I'm going to start on that old red rooster. And YOU are going to help me!"

Correcting the Rooster

Charles and Emma Coon had 300 chickens divided into three flocks. On lived in the henhouse, another lived in the barn, and a third in the pigpen. Each flock was ruled by a rooster. The first two roosters stayed where they belonged, but the third rooster continually harassed the hens from the other two flocks.“That old rooster is a heretic,” said Lester one day as Ma and Pa pulled out of the driveway for a trip to town. “If I am going to correct him, this is as good a time as any.”Having said that, Lester grabbed the recalcitrant rooster, and thrust it into his brother’s hands. “Here, Glenn, you hold him while I correct him.” Whereupon, Lester began to twist the rooster’s head in much the same way that he had seen his father do, when preparing a chicken for cooking.The entire process must have taken longer than the two boys expected, for no sooner had he given the neck a few good twists, than they spied Ma and Pa returning to pick up something that they had forgotten.Not wishing to be caught red-handed, Lester quickly grabbed the rooster, from his brother, shoved him under the barn and attempted to look innocent.

Who was guilty?

"Charles, what’s wrong with rooster?“ asked Emma. The two boys had vanished, but the rooster had escaped, and was marching around the back yard when Mom and Dad stepped out of their car.Father took a quick look, and froze. The bird was walking around with his head on backwards! “Well, I’ll be!” he said, “that old fellow must have gotten into a fight.”“I don’t know,” replied Emma,” It might have been one of our boys. You know what rascals they can be.” "I know, Emma. However, of our eight boys, only four are still at home. Lane - 24, David = 19. Glenn & Lester - teenagers. But I just don’t think any of them would do such a thing. You know how that old bird is, always trying to rule all the flocks, and the other roosters resent him."Glenn and Lester, hiding behind the barn, breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps they were off the hook! And they were! To their dying day, Ma and Pa never found out who mutilated the rooster!Lester did not succeed too well in trying to correct the old rooster, but he very accurately fulfilled his brother’s prophecy as a ‘corrector of heretics.” For 30 years he lived near a College Community, and if there were any shenanigans being carried on, Lester was usually one of the first to know about it.