Historically Accurate Prologue
There was once a chicken who wrote scary stories for the entertainment of other chickens. This chicken's name was Edgar Allan Poultry. He wrote his stories on an old Underwood typewriter, using a typing technique known as hunt and peck.
Here is the only known portrait of Edgar Allan Poultry, or EAP, as the other chickens called him. (Chickens call everybody EAP, if you've noticed.)
Here is the only known portrait of Edgar Allan Poultry, or EAP, as the other chickens called him. (Chickens call everybody EAP, if you've noticed.)
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EAP's life was a monotonous one, but this did not prevent him from writing many fine and scary stories, the most famous of which was "The Premature Plucking." "The Premature Plucking" was first published in 1884. It is reproduced here with its original illustrations, as it appeared in the December issue of Hardened Arteries: A Journal of Limited Circulation. |
The Premature Plucking
by Edgar Allan Poultry
True! Nervous, very nervous, Lenore Jones had been,
So she vowed not to eat brandied cherries again!
So the two gallon jar she kept next to her bed,
She poured out on the ground of the barnyard instead.
But her geese quickly found them, and ate every bite!
(We know this is Kansas, 'cause it's in black and white.)
"They're dead!" cried Lenore. "They're deceased! They've reached closure!
"Just like my husband, when he ate my ambrosia!"
She plucked off their feathers, and she plucked off their down,
To wear, as a costume, when she danced in the town.
"My fan dance will astound 'em, in feathers like these!"
(Her previous costume, she had made from Swiss cheese.)
But the geese weren't dead! They were just in a coma!
And they chased poor Lenore clear 'cross Oklahoma!
She lost forty pounds and was no longer chunky,
And what the geese did, will be shown by this monkey...
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