Don Camillo had planned an epoch-making celebration of the New Year, based on the simple slogan: A Chicken in Every Poor Man's Pot.  He started, a fortnight in advance, to take up a collection, visiting every landowner and tenant farmer in his parish and receiving their unanimous approval.  Unfortunately, in many barnyards he was told there had been a round of diseases; in some all the production had been sold and those that were left after a penurious autumn were noticeably scrawny. In short, Don Camillo found himself on December 30th with only half a dozen chickens, the fattest among them looking like Smilzo in disguise.  Six chickens, when he needed at least thirty!  In his distress he went to the crucified Christ on the altar.

"Lord," he said, "is it possible for people to be so stingy?  What's one chicken, to a man that has a hundred?"

"It's one chicken, after all," Christ answered.

Don Camillo threw out his arms in protest.  "Lord," he went on indignantly, "how can people fail to make a small sacrifice which would yield them so much joy?"

"Don Camillo, too many people regard any sacrifice as a great one and are entirely wrapped up in seeking their own happiness.  To them happiness may mean not giving something they don't need."

"Lord," said Don Camillo impatiently, between clenched teeth, "if You know these people so well, why don't You treat them the way they deserve?  Why don't You send a frost to freeze the wheat in their fields?"

"Bread belongs to everyone, not merely to the man that sowed the wheat.  The land does not bear its fruits only for the benefits of those that own it.  It is blasphemy, Don Camillo, to ask the Lord to freeze the wheat in the ground.  Don't we all say: 'Give us this day our daily bread'?"

"Forgive me," said Don Camillo, bowing his head.  "I only meant that certain selfish people aren't fit to own land."

"If they had sown stones instead of wheat, then they wouldn't be entitled to any reward.  But if they raise what is proper for the land to bear, then they are entitled to own and run it their own way."

Don Camillo lost his patience altogether.  "Lord," he said, "You're on the side of the landowners!"

"No," said Christ with a smile.  "My interest is in the land itself.  Once upon a time there was an island, inhabited by very poor people.  There were two doctors on the island, one generous, the other grasping.  The first doctor asked very small fees, but unfortunately he was less skilled in his art than the other.  And all the sick flocked to the competent man.  Was this fair?"

Don Camillo shrugged his shoulders.  "It was only normal that they should go to a doctor who could cure them.  But I can't accept the fact that a good man should be in need, while a bad one should be making money.  That isn't just."

"It isn't just, Don Camillo, but it's human.  It's human that sick people should pay heavy fees to the abler of the two.  On the other hand, it's just that God should punish him for abusing his God-given talents."

"Lord," insisted Don Camillo, "I ... "

"If you lived on the island in question, would you ask God to destroy the competent doctor and preserve the inept one?"

"No," Don Camillo said.  "I'd ask him to teach the competent man to be generous and the generous man to improve his skill."

"Well, isn't a farmer a kind of doctor responsible for the health and prosperity of the land?"

"Lord," Don Camillo explained, "I understand now, and I beg God to forgive my foolish words.  But I can't help worrying about the fact that I need thirty chickens and have no more than six in hand."

"Eight," Christ corrected him.

"Yes, eight," said Don Camillo, who had forgotten the fact that there were two capons in his own yard.

~~~

It's no easy job to find twenty-two chickens from one day to the next.  Don Camillo knew this perfectly well, because he had searched a fortnight for half a dozen.  But he had no intention of falling down on his slogan, A Chicken in Every Poor Man's Pot.

He was eating out his soul for an answer, when suddenly another question rose before him.

"Yes, a chicken's just a chicken.  But what is a pheasant?"

To be logical, a pheasant is a pheasant.  But is it necessary to be so precise?  Couldn't a pheasant be called a "flying chicken"?  He concluded that the celebration would be the same with the slogan of, A Pheasant in Every Poor Man's Frying Pan.  There were only two drawbacks to this variant.  First, the question of finding the twenty-two pheasants and second, the lack of time for them to season.  Don Camillo walked for miles up and down the rectory hall, debating these problems.  Finally, he resolved them by a further modification of the original slogan.  Now it was, A Pheasant in Every Poor Man's Shopping Bag.  All the essentials were there.

Don Camillo's dog, Thunder, agreed that the main thing was to find twenty-two pheasants to replace the missing chickens.  He found it quite natural that his master should don a pair of trousers, a corduroy jacket and a cyclist's cap.  It wasn't the first time that Don Camillo had gone hunting in places where a cassock would have been in the way.  What was unnatural was that Don Camillo should go out of the house without his shotgun over his shoulder.  The dog felt sure that it was a lapse of memory, and just as the priest was about to step through the garden he barked at him to return to the house.  When they were back in the dining room, Thunder looked up at the gun and cartridge belt and game bag that were hanging on the wall.

"Come on, Thunder," ordered Don Camillo.

"Take your gun and then I'll come," Thunder answered, without moving.  He said all this by barking, but it was perfectly understandable to Don Camillo.

"Stop that noise, and come along," the priest answered.  "The shotgun's staying here.  We can't possibly take such a noisy weapon."

Then, when Thunder remained obstinately still, Don Camillo dug into the left leg of his trousers and came up with a single-barreled gun.  Thunder looked at it in a puzzled fashion and compared it with the gun hanging on the wall.

"That isn't a shotgun," he said at last.  "The shotgun's up there."

Don Camillo knew that Thunder's pedigree lent him a certain dignity and entitled him to be treated with respect.

"This is a shotgun, too," he explained.  "A small, old-fashioned model, with the charger on the barrel.  It's not very powerful, of course, but if you shoot at a distance of two or three yards at a silly pheasant, it will bring him down.

He gave the demonstration of how to load it and then, opening the window over the garden, he aimed at a tin can which someone had mounted on the end of a pole.  The gun gave a faint click, and the can hit the dust.  Thunder ran downstairs to follow up the prey.  Soon he called back:

"Let's go hunting for tin cans, then, if you insist!"

~~~

The pheasants perched lethargically on the lowest branches of the trees.   For three years the Finetti family had lived abroad, and in all that time no one had fired a shot on their preserve.  The pheasants were so fat and self-confident that it was hardly necessary to shoot them; they could have just as easily been swept up in the crown of a hat.  Nevertheless, Don Camillo chose to use his gun.  Every time the gun clicked, a pheasant fell to the ground.  Although he had to waste considerable time searching for the bodies, Don Camillo bagged twenty-one pheasants without the least trouble.  But the twenty-second was appointed by fate to give him trouble.

Thunder was showing signs of restlessness, and this signified the presence of something other than pheasants and rabbits.  But Don Camillo was so intent on bagging the twenty-second "flying chicken" that he told the dog to be quiet and let him get on with the job.  Thunder unwillingly obeyed until, just as Don Camillo was shooting his intended victim, he really barked in alarm.  It was too late, because the game warden was already near.  Don Camillo threw his gun into the bushes and, picking up the bag that contained the twenty-one pheasants, he ran off on the double.  Evening was starting to fall and, a thick fog mercifully interposed itself between Don Camillo and his pursuer.  Thunder masterfully led the strategic withdrawal, and having found a hole in the high wire fence around the preserve he stood by it until Don Camillo had passed through.

Don Camillo was of elephantine proportions and the bagful of pheasants was quite bulky, but he dove into the fence with all the ardor of a goalkeeper in a soccer game.  The warden arrived only in time to see Don Camillo's hindquarters disappearing through the fence.  He shot at them, without much hope of hitting the mark.  A few minutes later Don Camillo emerged onto the road.  He couldn't cut across the fields because just across from the fence there was the eight-foot wide canal, swollen with water.  The road was the only way he could go, and here the warden would surely have found him, because it ran parallel to the fence for half a mile in either direction.

"Home, Thunder," he shouted to the dog, who set out immediately in the right direction, while he himself continued to run.  "He's not going to identify me, even if I have to throw myself into the canal," he muttered to himself.

At the curve of the Wayside Shrine Don Camillo saw a big truck coming down the road.  He stood upon the ridge along the canal and waved his cap.   Then, without waiting for the truck to stop, he jumped onto the running board.   The driver wore a concerned expressing as he jammed on his brakes.  Within a second Don Camillo had opened the door and installed himself in the cab.

"Keep going, man, for the love of God!" he shouted.

The driver let in the clutch and the truck regained speed as if someone had kicked it in the rear.  After half a mile or so, the driver mumbled:

"I took you for a gunman.  Why in heaven's name are you in such a hurry?"

"I've got to make the six twenty-two train."

"Oh, a wild fowl fancier, are you?"

"No, I sell detergents for washing black souls."

"I was a fool," said the driver.  "I should never have picked you up, and then the game warden would have seen your typically Vatican-agent face.  Well, I must admit that you've done things in a big way.  Are you expecting a lot of people to dinner?"

"Yes, thirty.  I had two chickens and people gave me six more.   After that, I had to find twenty-two birds of some other kind, in order that there should be one for every neighbor of ours that couldn't afford it.  I had just drawn on the twenty-second when the game warden saw me.  That's the whole story.  Do you need any more data to report to your Party?"

"All I need is some idea as to what is your moral code?"

"That of a good Christian and an honest citizen."

"Then, Mr. Priest, let's take a look at the past," said Peppone, slowing the truck down.  "Last month, when I suggested that we make common cause to procure firewood for the unemployed, you wouldn't hear of it; in fact you fought me all along the line.  Why was that?"

"Because I couldn't encourage people to break the law," said Don Camillo, lighting the butt of his cigar.

"What law?"

"The law for the protection of private property.  The poor have a right to firewood, there I agree.  But one can't say to them: 'Let's go take it from the rich landowners!'  'Thou shalt not steal' is the law of both God and man."

"'Thou shalt not steal,' is that it?" shouted Peppone.   "If workers can't touch the property of the rich, what right have the rich to rob the workers of a decent wage and thus make it impossible for them to go on living?"

"It's no use your haranguing me as if I were at a political rally," expostulated Don Camillo.  "I can't help anyone to break the law."

"Very well," said Peppone.  "Then let's look at the chapter you've just written.  The poor have a right to a good New Year's Day dinner, but the rich won't give it to them.  So what does the priest do?  He breaks the law of God and man by stealing pheasants from a private hunting preserve.  Do priests have a moral code all their own, or have they a right to violate the so-called public law with impunity?

"Comrade, I claim no such right.  I took off my priestly garb and disguised myself in order to break the law without attracting attention to my person.   But last month I couldn't parade through the streets, arm in arm with our comrade mayor, shouting: 'The law is unjust!  Down with the law!  We're taking the law into our own hands ... !'  If I am a soldier parading before a general, I have to salute him; if I don't want to do it, then I must get out of the parade.  The one thing I can't do is parade in front of him with my hands in my pockets, shouting: 'I'm not saluting any such no-good general as you ... !'  Yes, I did steal the pheasants.   But I didn't call out: 'Come on, comrades; the pheasants are ours!'"

Peppone shook his head and pounded with one fist on the steering wheel.

"You preach against stealing, and then you steal!" he objected.  "Your preaching is one thing, and  your practice another."

"According to your standards, Peppone, I preach what's wrong and practice what's right.  But I still maintain that the opposite is true.  If I tell people the right thing, then I am doing them good.  And if then I go and do something wrong, quite on my own hook, I'm wronging only myself.  Of course, I must answer for my wrongdoing and be punished for it.  I may elude human justice, but God's justice will catch up with me, sooner or later."

"That's a convenient way to look at it," sneered Peppone.   "You allow yourself to get away with practically anything in this world, saying that you'll pay for it in the next.  I say that you ought to pay up on the spot!"

"Don't worry, I'll pay soon enough, because my conscience will prick me.  As a good Christian and an honest citizen, I'm aware of having violated the law of both God and man."

"Hmmm ... " said Peppone.  "I'll tell you where that Christian and civic conscience of yours is--it's at the ... base of your spine!"

"Very well, Peppone," said Don Camillo with a sigh.   "Granted that my conscience is where you say, does that have any effect on what I have just told you?"

"What are you driving at now, Father?" asked Peppone disgustedly.

"Nothing so very deep.  I'd just like to know, comrade, whether you've ever had a bullet in the base of your spine?"

Don Camillo's voice seemed to come from very far away, and when Peppone switched on the light on the dashboard he saw that the priest was deathly pale.

"Rev ... !" he gasped.

"Put out that light, and don't worry," said Don Camillo.   "It's just a little prick of my conscience, and I'll get over it.  Take me to the old doctor at Torricella; he'll take the lead out of my pants without asking any questions."

Peppone drove as if he were jet propelled over the bumpy road and put Don Camillo down at the doctor's door.  While he was waiting for him to come out he wiped the blood off the seat.  Then he hid the bag of pheasants below it and went for a stroll in the course of which he had ample time for meditation.  An hour later Don Camillo emerged from the doctor's house.

"How goes it?" asked Peppone.

"Well, my conscience is at rest, in a manner of speaking, but for spiny or spinal reasons I must admit that I'm better off in a standing than in a sitting position.  If you don't object, I'll stand in the rear of the truck, and mind you, don't go too fast!"

Fortunately the rear of the truck had a canvas cover, so that Don Camillo did not suffer too much from the wind.  The fog was thicker than ever and so he was able to slip into the rectory unnoticed followed by Peppone carrying the bag of birds, which he deposited in the cellar.  When Peppone came upstairs he found Don Camillo back in his priestly uniform.  The black cassock made his face look all the whiter.

"Father," he muttered, "if there's anything I can do for you, don't hesitate to call on me."

"I'm quite all right," said Don Camillo, "but I'm worried about Thunder.  See if you can find him."

There came a whimper from under the table, which was Thunder's way of answering "Present!" to the mention of his name.  Peppone bent over to look at him more closely.

"It seems as if his ... conscience were bothering him, too," said Peppone.  "Shall I take him to the same discreet doctor?"

"No," said Don Camillo.  "This is strictly a family affair.  Carry him up to my bedroom and I'll operate on him myself."

Thunder allowed Peppone to carry him up to the second floor.  When Peppone came down he stood at the door, with one finger pointing to heaven, and looked severely at Don Camillo.

"The sins of the priests are visited on the innocent dogs," he observed sententiously.

"No fair!" retorted Don Camillo.  "the priest in question is half-dead!"  He was still standing on his two feet and still looking very pale.

When Peppone had gone he barred the front door and went down to the cellar to look at the twenty-one "flying chickens."  There turned out to be twenty-two of them, because while he was waiting for Don Camillo to come out of the doctor's Peppone had bought a magnificent capon.  Before Don Camillo went to throw himself (face down) on his bed, he went to kneel before the crucified Christ on the altar.

"Lord," he said, "I can't thank You for having protected me, because I was doing a dishonest deed and one that deserved to be punished.   Perhaps the game warden's shotgun ought to have dispatched me to the next world."

"Even the worst of priests is worth more than twenty-two pheasants," answered Christ severely.

"Twenty-one, to be exact," whispered Don Camillo, "I'm not responsible for the twenty-second."

"You meant to shoot him down, however."

"Lord, my heart is very sore, because I know that I have done wrong."

"You're lying, Don Camillo.  Your heart is full of joy, because you're thinking of the happiness coming to thirty needy families tomorrow."

Don Camillo rose, stepped back, and sat heavily down in the first pew.  Perspiration trickled down his increasingly pale face.

"Rise!" said the crucified Christ.  "Ego te absolvo.  Your sins are forgiven."