Cleaning Chickens

     "Late again," the third-grade teacher said to little Jeffey. "It ain't my fault," Miss Crabtree. "You can blame this on my Daddy. The reason I'm three hours late is Daddy sleeps naked!" Now Miss Crabtree had taught grammar school for thirty-some-odd years. So she asked little Jeffrey what he meant by that, despite her mounting fears.
    Full of grins and mischief, and in the flower of his youth, little Jeffrey and trouble were old friends, but he always told the truth. "You see, Miss Crabtree, at the ranch we got this here lowdown coyote. The last few nights he done et six hens and killed Ma's best milk goat. And last night, when Daddy heard a noise out in the chicken pen, he grabbed his gun and said to Ma, "That coyote's back again, I'm a gonna git him!'" "Stay back, he yelled to all us kids!" He was naked as a jaybird, no boots, no pants, no shirt!
    To the hen house he crawled, just like an Injun on the snoop. Then he stuck that doublebarrel through the window of the coop. As he stared into the darkness, with coyotes on his mind, our old black Lab, Hudson, had done woke up and come a sneakin' up behind Daddy. Then we all looked on plumb helpless old Hudson stuck that cold nose in Daddy's crack! "Miss Crabtree, we been cleanin' chickens since three o'clock this morning!