Three

            I had the chickens to feed and two pigs.  Father took care of the horses as one was kind of high spirited and done a lot of jumping around and sometimes kicked.  Mother helped to milk the cows then she’d go back to the house and get breakfast.  We had to put the milk in the milk house in cold water.  The milkman would come with his team and take it to the creamery.

            I sure would eat a good breakfast after doing that much work first every morning.  We ate breakfast around 6:30 am then I’d get ready for school.  I was in the second grade and had almost two miles to walk but I didn’t seem to mind it.  I just kept walking and running and looking at things along the road.  School was from nine to four, all eight grades in a one-room school.  One teacher had so much time for each grade.  The seats up front were empty and the teacher would call the grade she wanted and we would go up front.

            Father showed me how to set traps that was strong enough for ground hogs and I had four or five set at different places on the way to and from school.  One morning there was something in one trap and pulled down into the hole.  I thought I had a groundhog and pulled it right out.  It was a skunk in the trap and he sprayed me all over.  He got my eyes full too, boy my eyes burnt.  I had to go back home. Mother could smell me coming before she could see me. She wouldn’t let me come in the house.  She brought the washtub out.  There was no water heated so she scrubbed me up in cold water and left my clothes hang on the clothesline for about a week.  I could smell skunk on myself for a couple of weeks and nobody liked me in school for a while.

            Later on that summer I found a fence post along the road, the top was hollow and there was a little humming noise in it and dark.  I thought it was a bird nest so I climbed up on the fence, reached down in and felt some grass. I grabbed a handful and pulled it out and a bumble-bee nest.  What a big surprise I got!  My hand was stung all over.  I jumped down and ran but some followed me and I was stung some more.  Father and Mother asked me all summer if I found any more fence posts to reach in.  I sure learned something new that day.

            I used to set groundhog and rabbit traps on the farm.  Father showed me how to make a slingshot.  So one Sunday I guess I must of sat and waited for a couple of hours for a groundhog to stick his head out but he never did.  I learned that somehow they knew I was there so they just slept while I waited but I got pretty good with my slingshot on squirrels, birds, and rats in the barn.  Sometimes I’d hit the cat’s dish while he was eating.  Boy he used to jump and take off.

            I had already learned to ride the horse.  Father used to let me ride while he was cultivating the garden or corn in the field.  I used to like to see the horse shake his head when I’d reach up and tickle his ears.  Guess he thought it was a fly.  But, as always, one time I got the bright idea of going further. I leaned and stretched way forward and gave a big blow right into his ear.  Boy, he shook his head so hard and jumped and I found myself on the ground.  Father wanted to know what I did to the horse but I didn’t tell him till a long time afterwards.

            Father let me take care of a bull calf one summer so we could butcher it in the fall when it got strong enough.  I used to ride it out in the open field.  I got pretty good after a while.  Then I’d hang on to its tail. He sure took me for a run.  I couldn’t catch him but if I had a pail with a little grain in it he would always come to me.

            One day I decided to ride the big bull.  He was in a pen in the barn.  After a lot of trying I got him cornered and jumped on.  I know more than touched his back and I went flying. I found out I didn’t know anything about riding bulls.  So I went back to watching and riding the baby bull and left the Father bull alone.  My Father always told me never go in the pen with the pull and I guess that made me want to do it.  Anyways, I found out why.  I didn’t tell him or Mother that I did.  I could have been killed but didn’t think so at that time.