This first appeared, unedited, in the "Story/Plot Ideas" section of 
Katie Smith's "Tracey Stories Archive," 2 November 2010.




                      CHICKEN TRACY

                            by

                         Joe Doe



Once upon a time, in the Antebellum South, the wealthy plantation 
owner, Judge Chambers, had developed a fierce hatred for the town's 
English schoolmarm, Tracy Smith, a beautiful and outspoken 
Abolitionist.  Infuriated by her righteous editorials and 
sanctimonious sermons about his "immoral" activities with his 
female slaves, he dubbed Tracy a "nosy little hen, always pecking 
her nose where it doesn't belong."

When he uncovered proof that she was running the underground 
railroad station that has been leading his wenches to freedom, 
he decided that jail was insufficient punishment for his 
"property loss" and decided to make an example of Tracy at 
the town picnic.

She was arrested in front of everyone and was booed lustily by the 
crowd.  Since Tracy helped one of Judge Chambers's slaves escape, 
he sentenced her to the punishment the nigra would have received 
if she had been recaptured.

In front of all her cheering neighbors, Tracy was stripped naked 
and hung by her ankles from an old live oak tree.  The Judge's 
crony and protégé, the Sheriff, strapped her bottom with gusto 
until she "confessed" to the bogus charge that she was running the 
underground railroad because her great-great-great grandmother had 
escaped from a plantation and then migrated to England.  Of course! 
Tracy was helping the slaves because she was in fact 1/32nd black.

The Judge signed the papers, and the Sheriff put the "unclaimed 
runaway" on the auction block.  Tracy was well-displayed to all 
her neighbors during a humiliating "Sheriff's sale" with the 
Sheriff himself acting as auctioneer.

Chambers bought Tracy, and declared that his "new white-breasted 
chicken" needed a lesson in humility before she could serve as a 
"proper bed wench, and a breeder hen."  Tracy is horrified to see 
her beautiful clothes thrown into the fire used to heat a gigantic 
tub of tar, but things got worse when Chambers ordered several of 
his laughing, harpy wenches to shave Tracy bald, on top and below, 
since "chickens have feathers, not hair."

She was covered in the stinking tar and was then sealed into a 
huge wine barrel filled with feathers.  The barrel was playfully 
rolled around in a "barrel race" at the town picnic.  Everyone 
was delighted when the dazed Tracy was finally removed from the 
barrel, since she did resemble a chicken, covered from head to 
toe with feathers.

She was brought back to the auction platform, where she was made to 
squawk and do a humiliating "chicken dance," flapping her arms and 
jumping about as the Sheriff played a lively tune on his fiddle, 
and the Judge "tenderized her bottom" with a hickory switch.

Next was the rail parade, where Tracy, her hands and feet bound, 
was made to straddle a log rail that the Judge jokingly referred 
to as "her chicken spit."  The men lifted the rail up onto their 
shoulders and paraded Tracy around the picnic.  They made the trip 
especially bouncy, since they knew that her weight was resting on 
her delicate "chicken pot pie" as the Judge put it.  The crowd 
heckled the "chicken abolitionist" and the "strange English bird" 
as she rode her rail in shame.

Tracy was forced to squawk and flap her arms on the long walk back 
to the plantation, but the Judge, following in his elegant 
carriage, didn't mind a bit.  Tracy, still feathered, was sent to 
work in the cotton fields, to toil until her hair grew back, and 
she could audition for a role as one of the Judge's frisky bed 
wenches.



Edited by C. Lakewood