On a summer
day, Robert had gone with his father to crack corn for the cows. Joe stepped up
into the crib that was just inside the main door to the barn. He knelt down and
took an ear of corn from the mound that slanted downward from the back of the
crib to the front. Holding it just right, he banged it down on the edge of an
old wooden box, and the ear snapped in two. While his father was busy breaking
the ears, Robert pet Fuzz. “Lieutenant Fuzz,” Joe’s nickname for the cat that
was based on the Beetle Bailey cartoon strip, was not the only cat on the
place. A sleek black female cat had taken up residence. Robert called her
“Blackie.” She was crouched on a hay bale at the far end of the alley between
the stalls.
All of a
sudden, Fuzz leapt up and grabbed both sides of Robert’s leg with his claws.
Robert winced from the pain. Then Fuzz rolled and pitched, scratching Robert’s
other leg. Robert wanted to run but, each time he took a step, Fuzz grabbed
Robert’s leading leg, leaving long red marks. Robert began to scream. Joe came
to the door of the crib to see what could be the matter. Taking in the
situation in a glance, Joe lightly kicked Fuzz to one side and picked Robert
up. When they were outside the barn and away from the cat, Joe walked Robert to
the house.
Ida took
one look and exclaimed, “What happened to him?”
While Joe
told about Fuzz, Ida guided Robert toward the bathroom. She helped him take off
his shoes, shirt, and shorts while she ran water in the tub. Once Robert was
seated in the warm water, she poured rubbing alcohol in the bath.
“Ow! Oh,
ow!” Robert yelled, thrashing around. His legs were on fire.
“Sit
still!” his mother commanded.
After a
time, the agony of the cuts began to subside. Ida gently bathed Robert’s legs,
which were crisscrossed with bloody red lines.
Wiping the
tears from his eyes, Robert asked, “Why did Fuzz do that?”
Robert felt
betrayed by the cat that he considered his best friend.
“Well,” Ida
began, “Fuzz is in love with Blackie, and he was afraid that you would steal
her from him.”
Somehow,
that explanation made sense to Robert.
“You’ll
have to keep your distance for a while,” Ida advised.
Whenever
Robert saw Fuzz, he stayed far back. Lieutenant Fuzz never attacked again, but
Robert remained wary of him. Robert never could trust Fuzz after the scratching
incident.
One day,
Robert was preparing to scatter ground feed in the cows’ boxes along the north
side of the alleyway. As he climbed onto a hay bale to reach the central box,
he thought he heard tiny sounds coming from beneath the wooden box, which
rested on the edges of the manger. Hay was packed fairly solidly beneath the
box, but Robert detected a small tunnel. As the cows had not yet entered the
barn on that side, he jumped down, ran to the latched doorway, unhooked the
door, swung it open on its hinges, and stepped up into the stalls. He hurried
around the back of the barrier wall to enter the central stall. Now he could
easily reach beneath the box. Sticking his hand in the tunnel, he felt soft,
warm bodies hiding. Gently, he pulled one out. It was a black kitten with its
eyes shut. It mewed loudly. From somewhere in the barn, Blackie answered.
Robert knew enough about cats to know that Blackie would come running, so he
put the kitten back. Sure enough! Blackie jumped up on the edge of the manger
and let herself down to the hay before squeezing under the box.
Robert ran
to the house and told his mother about the kittens. She followed Robert back to
the barn to see how many there were. Ida pulled out four. There were two black
kittens and two cream-colored kittens.
“Blackie
will find a new place to hide them now,” Ida said to Robert.
“Why?”
“Because
she doesn’t want us to know where they are until she thinks they’re able to
fend for themselves.”
His mother
was right. The next day, when Robert stuck his hand under the box, he felt only
an empty hollow where the kittens had been.
By the time
he had celebrated his fifth birthday, Robert was scurrying up the ladder to the
haymow right behind his brother. There, they piled the new fifty-pound hay
bales to make forts: one on the north and one on the south of the mow. The old
bales, which weighed a hundred pounds each, were too heavy to move, but a
different baler had made all the difference. Each fort had secret passageways,
or tunnels, through which the boys could crawl, getting plenty of chaff down
their necks while they were at it. Both forts had parapets high up near the
ceiling. As the barn was small, the parapets were not widely separated. The
ammunition that the boys “fired” at one another consisted of the occasional
walnut along with corn cobs having the kernels shelled off, leaving only the
pink, lightweight cob. When either brother showed his head above the parapet,
the other rapidly threw cobs his way. It was great fun!
The mow had
the fragrance of dried flowers and spices. In those days before homes had air
conditioning, the mow was hot in the summer, but the boys took no notice of the
heat. For hours each day, they designed and built their forts.
Down below,
barn swallows sailed in and out of the open doors on the southeast and
northeast corners of the barn to gain access to their nests in the stalls. The
males had touches of bright orange above and below their bills. There markings
made it appear as though they were wearing a pale orange cowboy handkerchief
tied around their necks. Their undersides were almost white. The females were
similar, but the orange was not as brilliant. Both had backs and tails that
seemed black in the shadows of the barn but shimmered blue in the sunlight. The
tails were gracefully long and opened like scissors. The birds’ nests adhered
to the sides of the ceiling beams. They appeared to be made with tiny mud
bricks. Along a few of the beams were rows of nests. Every summer, Robert could
hardly wait to see the open beaks of the baby birds awaiting food from their
parents, aunts, and uncles. The adult swallows circled low above the meadows to
the east and south as they caught insects on the wing. They glided
effortlessly, now and then pumping their wings a few times so as to dart after
bugs.
One of
Robert’s favorite activities was to help his father to bring in the cows
whenever the Holsteins remained in the meadow at milking time. Often, they came
to the barn of their own volition, but, when they did not, Joe and the boys
took the path the cows had made: a dusty line curving through the timothy and
clover. Cabbage, alfalfa, and sulphur butterflies flitted and bobbed—especially
near any puddles left from a recent shower. Monarch butterflies and black
swallowtails sailed on updrafts. The pasture smelled like rich chamomile tea. Often,
the dozen or so Holsteins were to be found standing in the shade of an old elm
tree. The cows would be chewing their cud as they turned their deep blue eyes toward
Joe and the boys. Now and then, their tails swung to discourage flies.
At Joe’s
urging, the cows launched forward like swaying ships. Black-and-white spotted
flanks and rumps tilted to one side then the other. The cows were so tame that
they required almost no persuasion to come to the barn to be milked at feeding
time.
While farm
life could certainly be hectic—with work that never ceased—it also danced to
slower rhythms such as the strolling of cows on summer paths.
