Growing Paines - Excerpts
By
Graybeard Paine
Note: These are tales of growing up on the South Dakota prairie as I recall them after more than a half century. My sister, Lynda, has added comments where indicated. These stories are part of a work in progress, with a working title of “Growing Paines”. I plan to publish different stories here from time to time.
FIRST MEMORY
The very first event I can recall is playing in the yard and climbing a fence to pick up some pretty little pieces of glass. I remember huge teeth biting at my clothes, a terrible grunting sound and how I was tossed violently from side to side.
I mentioned this to Mom one time and she told me that I got into the pig pen when I was about two and a half years old. I was wearing a snow suit and one of the pigs bit into the front of it. Fortunately, mom heard me screaming and rescued me before I became hog food. (Paul, c. 1940)
RAT KILLINGS
Rats were a problem on the farm and we always had a number of "barn cats" to help keep them under control. But, it was almost impossible to control rats under the granary or in the corn cribs. A rat killer would visit the farm several times a year and for a small fee would turn his ferret loose. Every so often, the rat killer would whistle and the ferret would come back, sometimes covered with blood. After several hours, the rat killer would call his ferret, collect his fee and be on his way. For awhile, I thought I would get a ferret and be a rat killer myself. It sounded like a great business to a six year old. (Paul, 1940's)
RAM ATTACK
When I was five and Paul eight, were attacked by a male sheep in the barn yard. There was an old car body in that yard with no doors, windows or wheels. We tried to hide in it, but the ram came in after us. Paul kept trying to boost me up on top of the car, but never could quite make it before the sheep would knock us down again.
Our old collie "Boy" kept after the sheep to protect us, but the sheep butted him back too. Mama rushed in, but the sheep got her too. She had to escape from the barnyard, phone my dad a mile away in Ree Heights to come rescue us. He arrived, grabbed a club and when the ram charged, Daddy laid him out with a blow between the eyes. I never saw that sheep again and after that we didn't raise sheep on the farm. (Lynda, c. 1947)
I remember the event pretty much as Lynda tells it, except that Mom actually did manage to get us out of the barnyard. Dad, in a display of his well known temper, took an oak singletree to the pasture to "kill that son of a bitch". The ram attacked and knocked him down a number of times, before he managed to put the ram down with a massive blow to the head.
To expand on Lynda's memory: When the ram first attacked, we started screaming and tried to escape into the car body. Boy heard our screams and ran to protect us. Mom had been peeling potatoes with a butcher knife and came running when she heard the commotion. The ram attacked Mom and kept knocking her down; she repeatedly stabbed the sheep in the face trying to get it to stop. The dog continually attacked the ram to keep him away from us and was severely injured in the process. The ram's horns tore both of Lynda's ears loose near the ear lobes and she was bleeding badly. We were all badly battered and bruised. Boy never did fully recover from his wounds and never walked right after that. Boy definitely saved our lives that day - perhaps our reward for taking him in and feeding him as a stray. He died sometime after and was buried with many tears on the east side of our grove. (I admit to a few tears as I write this.) (Paul, c. 1947)
SKINNY DIPPING
Skinny dipping in the stock dam was nothing special to my folks or some of the neighbors. After working in the fields all day, they would stop at the stock dam to cool down and clean some of the dust off. Generally, the men would get undressed first and dive in; then the women would get undressed and yell to the men to close their eyes until they got in the water. Everyone was quite modest about it and thought nothing of it.
Mom was not always so modest. A couple of years before she died, Mom told me about the time she was skinny dipping in the water tower at Ree Heights and couldn't get out. She had to be rescued by the man who took care of the water system and the auditorium.
I assumed from the way she described it, that Mom was swimming in the big water tower (drinking water supply) where I have also been swimming. I mentioned the story to my uncle and he said she was probably referring to the old railroad water tower which was torn down when I was quite young. He claimed that it was a well known and often used recreational facility. (Paul)
COW PIES AND " SHEEP SHOWER"
Our cows were a pretty good lot and generally came in on their own when it was time for milking. Some of them would even come when called. And for awhile, we had a dog (our collie named Boy) who would go fetch them. But, from time to time I would have to walk out into the pasture to fetch them home.
In the springtime, it would sometimes be quite cold and my bare feet would start hurting. The solution was to step in a fresh laid cow pie, still steaming hot. The warmth was one of those lesser delights that we tend to forget.
Incidentally, fresh laid cow pies were also known to be the proper cure for those times when your bare foot landed on a cactus or a rusty nail. Must have worked okay, I never got lock-jaw and I still have both my feet.
Older cow pies - those well dried and firm - were properly called cow chips and had other uses. You could make a fire out of them (I have cooked hamburgers, hot dogs and even marshmallows over cow chips). We used to gather cow chips in bushel baskets and burned them in our furnace. At times they were our only source of heat.
Cow chips had uses in athletic events - they were thrown like the discus - scoring was based upon distance, accuracy and "style". They could also be hand launched as weapons during games of war or when you wanted your little sister to go play somewhere else. When I was a little older, I also found out that they can be used something in the manner of clay pigeons when practicing with my shotgun.
The best cow pies are those that have almost completely reverted back to nature, because in the springtime they are host to a tiny blue flowering plant (Sorrel) which we called "sheep shower" or "sheep sour". Whenever you find them, you grab the flower and pull; you will get a thin, white stem that tastes absolutely delicious. It is very tart and a real treat after a winter without fresh vegetables. (Paul, 1940's-50's)
MARY'S DROWNING
I'll never forget Aunt Jane coming to me after school and saying I should get right home because my little sister had drowned in the stock tank and Mama needed me. I was so scared it seems like I ran the entire mile. No one told me Mama had done artificial respiration and brought her back. I was weak with relief when I saw Mary lying in that crib alive and not dead as I'd thought she was. (Lynda, c. 1952)
Mary's drowning happened in mid winter. It had been extremely cold and our stock tank had eight to ten inches of ice on it. Every day we had to break a hole in the ice so the livestock could get water. Around the tank were large snowdrifts.
Mary was playing outside with our brother, Robert. Somehow she got near the stock tank, slid into the hole in the ice and got underneath the thick sheet of ice. Bob, who was about five years old, ran to the house to get Mom.
Mom had to enlarge the hole in the ice on the stock tank, crawl through the hole, and go under the sheet of ice to rescue Mary. She finally managed to get a hold on Mary, scooped her up and ran to the house. Mom gave a big long crank on our hand cranked telephone to get attention of the operator and other people on the line. She yelled into the phone, "my baby has drowned - I need help. Mom started artificial respiration. At that time, Mary had been under water over a half hour and had an extremely low body temperature; she was not breathing and had no detectable heartbeat.
When help arrived, they got the temperature in the house up and Mom continued the artificial respiration. Mary eventually came around and by the time the doctor got there she was in good shape. Mom got her miracle and we have a sister. I still choke up and get teary-eyed when I think of this event. (Paul, c. 1952)
PAUL'S PARACHUTE
Paul made a homemade parachute out of an old umbrella, strings and such. I should have suspected something was wrong because its probably the only time he ever let me go first. Needless to say, when I jumped out of the barn, it didn't work. Luckily, Daddy always left the cow manure pile up till it was at least a foot deep or I might have been killed. (Lynda, c. 1948)
The parachute was actually made of a bed sheet with a rope tied to each corner and securely fastened around her waist. Lynda jumped from a height of not more than twenty feet. And the parachute worked, as evidenced by the fact that she survived the fall. If she would attribute her survival to deep manure, rather than her brother's genius, well ------. (Paul)