“Best friends, that’s what we are”, thought Gracie as she looked at her very large,

chocolate brown-feathered friend Enola.

Gracie and Enola were sitting in Gracie’s pretty, green, well-tended house for tea. Sitting in the

middle of the table was a heaping plate of Enola’s favorite: orange and yellow mums!

Gracie loved keeping house and having her best friend over to visit. Gracie remembers the first

time she saw the house and thought to herself, “What a beautiful place! It is so much bigger

and better than the box and black crate I spent my time in when I was tiny! I am going to make

this my own.” And indeed she did.

Enola glanced at Gracie and remembered that time many months ago when they had first met.

They were two of 24 tiny baby chicks, placed in a small box as soon as they were out of their

eggshell of a home! It was cold and scary at first, and they all huddled together unsure of

where they were going. Then they were flown in that box to a place called The Post Office, then

thankfully their owners – the “kind, gentle hands with soft voices” came to get them all and

take them to their new home. What tiny babies they all were, huddled under the warmer with

feathers – their temporary “mommy” during the cold months in the garage. They wanted

warmth, food, water, and a clean bed of pine shavings. They looked forward to running and

perching on the gentle hands with voices above that fed and watered them.

During that time, Enola noticed one of the creme-legged chicks was quite a bit smaller

than the rest of the chicks like her, and certainly much smaller than Enola and her siblings.

At that time, Enola did not know the chick’s name. Even when all the chicks began to grow like

weeds every week, this chick remained much smaller than the rest.  Unbelievably, she liked to

sleep standing up in the middle of everyone playing and running, or fall asleep at the food

bowl, and quite often ran and hid under the “feathered mommy” warmer or even one of the

larger chicks!

“Could she be sickly, or is she afraid of something?” thought Enola. The kind hands seemed

concerned about this and would take tiny Gracie inside the house to keep her extra warm and

give her extra water. Gracie seemed to love this and Enola could hear her chirping with content

inside the house.

Enola worried about Gracie. She was such a sweet and tiny chick. So she decided to

introduce herself.

“Hello, I’m Enola, I’m a Wyandotte. Who are you?”

The tiny chick answered, “I’m Gracie and I’m a Creme Legbar.”

“Why are you so small?” asked Enola.

“I don’t know” replied Gracie, “but I’m sure I’ll catch up” she said with a smile.

“You sleep a lot” said Enola. “I noticed you napping while standing at the food bowl, and all the

other chicks are playing jump frog over you! Sometimes they even accidentally knock you

over!”

“I love to sleep”, said Gracie. “Maybe it will help me grow and become big and beautiful like

you.”

Now Enola did not consider herself beautiful as she knew she looked more like an eagle with a

strong pointed beak, but she decided then and there she would look after Gracie.

So Enola said to Gracie, “When you need a nap come and tuck yourself under me and I will

protect you from being knocked over by the other chicks. I’m sure they don’t mean it, but they

are trying out their wings and when they see something to peck, they run very fast to get it,

thinking it is a bug or food.”

Gracie smiled in appreciation and said, “Oh, thank you every so much!  You are not only

beautiful on the outside, but you have a beautiful heart! It would be wonderful to take a long

nap without being pushed about.”

And so, the friendship of Enola and Gracie began: Gracie would tuck herself under Enola’s soft,

chocolate-brown tuft of front feathers to enjoy a long, warm nap. They ate together, slept under

the warm “feathered mommy” together, played together, and as time passed and the weather

warmed, roosted together.

One day, the gentle hands (which the chicks later realized were full size people!) drove them in

groups to a beautiful farm. There were other chickens there, several turkeys, pheasants,

horses, and a very curious big yellow dog. There were other new babies there too: a baby

horse and 6 other baby chicks!

Enola was a little worried about Gracie because she was so small in their big new cage which

was now home, but there was a beautiful green house for them to stay in if they wanted. There

were also new, wonderful roosting bars, and this soft green carpet called “grass”. It was

wonderful! Enola noticed Gracie ran to the green steps of the beautiful green house in

amazement and exclaimed, “What a beautiful green house! I am going to live here, sweep it

clean, and even sleep here on this top green step! I love this house!”

So Gracie spent much of her time in that green house, but would always come to visit Enola

and the other chicks to play and catch a few bugs as a snack.  And all of a sudden one day,

Enola noticed Gracie was bigger! She was growing and growing, and she was no longer the

little chick that could tuck herself under Enola any longer! She would not fit! “What a glorious

miracle”, thought Enola.

Gracie had become strong and independent, keeping house for all the other chicks and having

Enola over for a special tea to talk about farm yard happenings of the day.

And today, here they were, Enola and Gracie, sitting in Gracie’s pretty green house: best

friends forever.