Little Britches (8 page)

BY THE beginning of May, school had pretty well petered out. Nobody sent boys to school when they were needed at home to help with the plowing or planting, so when it got down to where only four girls and I were left, school closed for the summer.

The day after it closed, Mrs. Corcoran came to see Mother about getting me to work for them. They had about thirty milch cows, and used to take cream to Fort Logan every day. In the summer they pastured the cows on the quarter section south of us. Because there weren't any fences, somebody had to herd them to keep them from getting into Aultland's and Carl Henry's grain fields. She said she would pay me twenty-five cents a day, and I would only have to work from seven in the morning till six at night. I guess Mother thought they herded cows on foot in Colorado, as they did in New England, so she said I could do it.

I didn't have any such ideas at all and was all excited about being a cowboy. My biggest worry was that I didn't have a ten-gallon felt hat, instead of a straw one from the grocery store at Fort Logan. I spent the rest of the afternoon out behind the barn, twisting myself a pair of spurs out of pieces of baling wire. It seemed best to sort of take it for granted that I was going to ride Fanny, so I was up and dressed in time to help Father feed the horses before breakfast. I shoveled manure to beat the band while he was bringing in the hay, and said, "Which bridle had I better put on Fanny for herding cows?"

Father grinned at me and rumpled up my hair—I had combed it that morning with plenty of water and had made a hook in the front lock so it hung down over my forehead like Hi's did. He said, "Sorry, Son, but I guess you'll have to take it on your feet today. Carl's going to let me use his drill to plant the alfalfa, and I'll have to use Fanny."

I nearly hopped up and down. I tried to keep my face straight, but I was laughing all over inside. I was sure from the way Father said it that he was going to let me ride Fanny, now that he knew I could do it. It didn't make any difference if I had to wait a day or two. After breakfast I got my spurs from where I had hidden them under the hay, and poked them in the front of my blouse. I thought I'd be at least part cowboy if I had spurs, even if I did have to walk.

Mr. Corcoran was a milk-cow man and not a horseman. He didn't have any nice horses like Fred Aultland's bays, or Carl Henry's chestnuts. They were mostly horses about like our Bill and Nig. There was an old black plug in the corral with the cows. He had faded out to a brownish color. Mr. Corcoran brought out an old work-harness bridle with blinders and put it on the horse. Then he boosted me on and gave me a switch. "Old Ned ain't too spry, but you give him a cut with that switch and he'll get a move on. Now don't let none of them cows get into Fred's or Carl's grain or they'll skin you alive. And don't run none of the cows—some's with calf and they're all milkers."

I wasn't too happy with Ned, but at least he was a horse. I had driven the herd nearly as far as the wagon road when Mr. Corcoran bellowed after me, "Be careful not to let 'em get no green alfalfa, it would bloat 'em and kill 'em."

Everything went fine till I got past Aultland's house. Fred's field, from the house to the section corner, was unfenced and half a mile long—and it was in alfalfa about six inches high. My cows spied it from a hundred yards away, and some of them started running for it. I kicked Ned with my heels, but he wasn't at all nervous, and didn't even hurry his walk. Then I clipped him a little with the switch and he took half a dozen trotting steps before he went back into a walk. His feet were as big as footballs, and every time he trotted, I bounced a foot high and came down with a thud. He was a lot wider in the withers than Fanny, so I couldn't get a good knee clamp on him, and I wasn't a bit sure I wasn't going to bounce clear off his back.

Some of my cows had already reached the alfalfa, and I expected to see them start falling over in great, bloated corpses. I swung my switch high and started cutting it down over Ned's rump—my spurs, which I had twisted onto my bare feet as soon as we reached the road, had crumpled at my first kick. At the second cut, Ned got the idea I wanted him to hurry and trotted a dozen or so more steps. I was so busy staying on that I couldn't think to swat him again and lift him into a canter. Now all the cows were in the alfalfa, and I knew my career as a cowboy was blowing up right in my face. I didn't care about falling off any longer. They had to be gotten out of there some way. After a couple more hard licks the switch broke in my hand. There was only one thing left to do, so I piled off Ned and took after the cows afoot, yelling at the top of my lungs. The only stick I could find was too heavy for me to handle with one hand, so I waded into the herd swinging it like a baseball bat. Instead of driving them back into the road, I only drove them farther into the alfalfa field.

I was so busy swinging and yelling that I didn't see Fred until his tall bay horse was almost on top of me. Fred had a long blacksnake whip and snaked those cows out of there in about a minute and a half. Ned was making the most of his chance. He hadn't moved a foot from where I slid off, and had his nose buried in the alfalfa halfway to his eyes. Fred told me to go get him while he kept the cows moving. I couldn't much more than reach Ned's belly, there was nothing to climb up on, and I had no idea how I'd get aboard him. Fred yelled, "Hang over his neck and kick; he'll hist you up."

He did, and I went up with my club in my hand. Ned had a lot more respect for it than he did for the switch, and I caught up to Fred in a hurry. The things he said about Mr. Corcoran were good to listen to. They were just the things I would have said myself if I hadn't been afraid of the damage it might do that character of mine—I wished Father had never told me about it.

Fred helped me till we got the cows over onto the piece of prairie where I was supposed to pasture them, then he gave me his blacksnake and told me not to be afraid to lay it on if I had to. I had forgotten all about my spurs, but Fred saw them and laughed. He said that baling wire was the only thing that had held the State of Colorado together, but he'd bet I was the first one who ever made spurs out of it. Before he left he showed me how to swing the blacksnake so as to make the cracker pop right behind a cow, and said to let Ned have the handle across the rump if he wouldn't go. Then he told me to try to keep the cows bunched pretty well in the middle of the quarter section, and that he'd have one of his men come to help me take them home at night.

It was a terrible day. The quarter section wasn't flat like our place, but was all roily hills. And those cows knew more tricks than Hi's blue roan. As soon as Fred was out of sight, they started spreading out in all directions. I beat the tar out of Ned, trying to make him go fast enough so that I could keep them rounded up, but the most I could get out of him was that clumping trot. While I was driving back a few stragglers on one side, others would head for Carl Henry's oat field on the run. When I came back with the first bunch that tried it, I found that I only had nineteen cows left in the herd—the rest had got away over one of the hills.

I beat on Ned's rump and went to hunt them. His trot was pounding the dickens out of my behind and it was getting awful tender. I had worn off a piece of skin the size of a silver dollar. Ned had started to sweat a little right where I was trying to sit, and the salt in the sweat made it sting like blazes. When I got over the hill, I saw my strays a quarter of a mile away, headed for the oat field. They were in it before I could catch up to them.

Father must have been watching me from where he was sowing alfalfa. I had left Ned and was wading around in the oats, trying to drive the cows out with the blacksnake. I couldn't handle it very well when I was on horseback, but it was almost useless in the oat field. I didn't have strength enough to keep it in the air through the back swing, and the cracker got tangled in the oats. I guess my yells were getting sort of warbly, and I was about ready to cry when Father showed up on Fanny.

He got them out of there in no time, helped me to collect the rest of the herd, and bunched them way over at the east end of the quarter. Four more times he had to come to my rescue before six o'clock, and then he helped me get them back to Corcoran's. After we had the cows in their corral, Mrs. Corcoran came out from the house and tried to give Father my quarter. He nodded his head over toward me and said, "Give it to the boy, he certainly earned it."

I don't think Mrs. Corcoran liked what Father said, because her face got a little red. She passed the quarter up to me and said, "Now don't go and lose it the first thing you do." Then she said to Father, "Too much money ain't good for children. These young ones nowadays haven't no idea of the worth of a dollar. I don't know what things are coming to."

Father only said, "Better slide off him, Son. Mother'll be waiting supper for us."

I slid off and put Ned in the corral with the cows. All the time it took me to climb on the gate to get his bridle off, Mrs. Corcoran kept talking. First she said, "Little boy, you didn't let my cows get into nobody's crops, did you?"

I kept looking right at the cheek strap buckle, but I knew I had to tell her, so I said, "Well, sometimes I couldn't make Ned run fast enough to—"

That's as far as I got. She sounded mad as could be. "My land sakes alive! You ain't been running my milch cows all over creation, have you?" I tried to tell her I hadn't, but she didn't even stop to breathe. "Good gracious!" she said. "I'll wager I don't get more'n half a milking tonight. How a body's going to eke out a living from half milkings, I just don't know. Well, hmmmf, I suppose some allowance has to be made on account of him being city-raised. City-raised young ones ain't been learned to do things when they was young. They don't have the gumption of them that's raised in the country."

Father reached his hand down and pulled me up back of him on Fanny. As he swung me up, he said, "We better be getting along, Son."

I knew I was fired and got an ache in my throat. It had been a tough job, and I hadn't done very well, but I had been counting all day on the time Father would let me ride Fanny. I was sure I could manage all right with her, and now that I was fired from my first cowboy job, I was afraid Father would never let me ride her.

We were pretty near out to the road when Mrs. Corcoran yelled after us, "You be sure you ain't late in the morning—right sharp on seven o'clock." Raspy as her voice was, it sounded good to me.

Fanny could canter right along with Father and me on her. Sitting way back where I was, I couldn't get a knee hold, so I had to put my fingers under Father's belt. I held as easy as I could, so he wouldn't notice and think I was afraid of falling off. We were about halfway home when he said, "It's a pretty big job for a city-raised fellow; want to take another crack at it, or have you had enough cows?"

I said, "I could do it all right if I only had Fanny."

"Well, I guess I could spare her tomorrow," Father said—that was all.

I don't think Father ever told Mother what Mrs. Corcoran said about city-raised young ones, because they kept right on being friends. When we got home, she let me put my quarter up in the new cupboard, in her Wedgwood sugar bowl. She knew about Father having to come over and help me, so when he came in from feeding the horses, she said, "Charlie, don't you think that is a job for a man, not for a boy of Ralph's age?"

Father grinned, "They're certainly a breachy lot, but I have an idea he can make out. There's one old heifer up there that I don't think he could handle, but he won't have to ride herd on her."

I couldn't figure out which one he meant, but I guess Mother knew, because she looked at Father out of the corner of her eye, and said, "Charlie, now you behave."

Maybe my day's work didn't please Mrs. Corcoran very much, but it made me quite a hero with the other youngsters at home. That quarter was the first money any of us had earned, and it looked as big to them as it did to me. After the supper dishes were done—I didn't have to help with them now I was a working man—Grace got a pad of paper and a pencil. First she asked Father how much a cow would cost, and then she wanted to know how much it would take for a pony and a cart. She put them all down and added them up, then she divided the total by twenty-five cents. When she had the answer, she went for a calendar, but before she could do any more we had to find out if Mother would let me work on Sundays. We knew that would be a ticklish job, but Grace figured out the way to do it.

She said, "Mother, is it sinful to cook on Sunday?"

Mother was busy sewing a thick pad into the seat of my new flour-sack underpants. Father had told her about my getting the skin worn off on old Ned. She looked up, and said, "Why no, of course not. God made us so that our bodies need food on Sunday the same as any other day. Since He has just loaned us these bodies for the time we are here on earth, it is our responsibility to take the best care we can of them, so there is nothing sinful about preparing food for ourselves on Sunday. But what put any such question into your mind?"

"Oh, I was just thinking. Mother, did God lend cows their bodies, too?"