Summary

In Chapter 1, the unnamed narrator recalls her friend Helen coming to visit four years earlier, shortly after she and her husband acquired their chickens. Helen was wary of the chickens and when the narrator placed an egg in her hand, Helen asked, “What should I do now?” (2). The narrator notes that people often do not grasp that the eggs in the supermarket and an egg “fresh from a chicken” (3) are the same. Helen, who is a realtor, came by again with her boyfriend, but this time the chickens were not laying. The narrator's husband, Percy, boiled supermarket eggs and they pretended the eggs came from their chickens. Helen's boyfriend asked, “How do I grow a chicken from this egg?” (6).

In Chapter 2, the narrator explains that the heat lamp in the chicken coop is on a timer, and that chickens do not remember and...