But, as time went by, the traffic slowly built up at an alarming rate.
The traffic was so heavy and so fast that his chickens were being run over at a rate of three to six a day. So one day he called the sheriff’s office and said,
“You’ve got to do something about all of these people driving so fast and killing all of my chickens.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked the sheriff.
“I don’t care, just do something about those drivers!”
So the next day he had the county workers go out and erect a sign that said:
SLOW: SCHOOL CROSSING
Three days later the farmer called the sheriff and said, “You’ve got to do something about these drivers. The school crossing sign seems to make them go faster.”
So, again, the sheriff sends out the county workers and they put up a new sign:
SLOW: CHILDREN AT PLAY And that really sped them up.
So the farmer called and called and called every day for three weeks.
Finally, he asked the sheriff,
“Your signs are doing no good. Is it all right for me to put up my own sign?”
The sheriff told him, “Sure thing, put up your own sign.”
He was going to let the farmer do just about anything in order to have him stop calling.
Well, the sheriff got no more calls from the farmer.
Three weeks after the farmer’s last call, the sheriff decided to call him.
“How’s the problem with those drivers. Did you put up your sign?”
“Oh, I sure did. And not one chicken has been killed since then. I’ve got to go. I m very busily.”
And he hung up the phone.
The sheriff was really curious now and he thought to himself,
“I’d better go out there and take a look at that sign… it might be something that WE could use to slow down drivers…”
So the sheriff drove out to Farmer John’s house, and his jaw dropped the moment he saw the sign. It was spray-painted on a sheet of wood: