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Hatching a Plan
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: 2018/08 - August
How much money did the chicken get for crossing the road to make a guest appearance in this column? A
poultry sum.
The Hall Family has endowed Highlands’ history with a solid contribution, though they weren’t above playing a practical joke or two when the opportunity presented itself.
They ran a Dutch Colonial Manor officially named Meadow House, but affectionately called Hall House. The Halls were largely self-sufficient, providing pasture for cattle, which meant fresh meat for guests. They raised chickens and gardened. They cut blocks of ice from the lake in the winter for an icehouse that kept food cold well into summer.
When patriarch T.T. Hall passed on in 1918, his wife, Meta, converted several of Bug Hill’s cubicles (buildings that remained after the Sanatorium went up in flames) into guest cottages.
One night James Howard and Jack Hall raided the hen house. Chickens in tow, they climbed up into the rafters of a cottage and set a few hens and a rooster on the beams to finish out their roost, then vanished into the night.
Hattie Cole’s boyfriend was staying in that cottage. He’d been playing bridge into the wee hours. Exhausted, he stumbled into the cabin. Fumbling around in the dark, he collapsed onto the bed. Just as he dozed off, the rooster blasted a blood-curdling crow to announce the morning light. It startled the hens, which woke with a cacophony of squawks and promptly plummeted from the rafters, unaccustomed as they were to new quarters. They landed smack on top of Hattie’s beau, who suffered three coronaries and a chicken sheet storm.
All that can be said of rascally James and Jack is summed up in this chicken joke: What do you call two muddy chickens that cross the road? Dirty double-crossers.
