THE COW-PIE CHRONICLES
by
James L. Butler
Illustrated by
Lonnie Millsap
Copyright 2013 by Publishing Syndicate LLC
Copyeditor: Dahlynn McKowen
Proofreader: Pat Nelson
Published by
Publishing Syndicate
PO Box 607
Orangevale California 95662
http://www.PublishingSyndicate.com
http://www.Facebook.com/PublishingSyndicate
Twitter: @PublishingSynd
Print Edition ISBN: 978-1-938778-32-2
EPUB Digital Edition ISBN: 978-1-938778-33-9
Library of Congress Control Number 2013945068
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher, except for brief quotations used for reviews.
To my mother
who gave her best to her children
no matter how hard life was.
NOTE: click on BOLD words
for direct link to the glossary
“Tim, get in here! I’m not going to tell you again.”
“It ends in five minutes, Mom. Please?” Tim Slinger said.
“Come right now! You can watch cartoons anytime!”
Tim walked slowly over to the television and turned it off. As he did, he looked down at the newspaper, which was spread out on the living room coffee table. The headline read: “Kennedy’s Mission to the Moon.” Tim thought the president’s announcement of sending a man to the moon was exciting. It was 1961, things in the world were changing so fast, and to Tim, anything was possible, even for him—a 10-year-old boy growing up on his family’s Indiana farm.
Mrs. Slinger’s voice now came booming from the kitchen. “If you expect to have a birthday of your own later this year, you better get in here—now!”
“Okay, okay,” Tim said. He drug his feet as he headed into his family’s small kitchen, with its simple wood and metal furniture, unpainted cabinets and a stove under one window. On the kitchen table were two brightly wrapped presents and a cake covered in white frosting. And on top of the cake were nine burning birthday candles.
“Sit down and wish your sister ‘happy birthday,’ ” Mom said.
Tim had a smirkon his face when he sat down across from his sister, Dana Slinger. “Happy birthday, Dee-Dee,” he said in a mean, brotherly tone.
“Poop Slinger!” Dana said back. She then grabbed a fork to stab her brother, but Mom snatched it from her.
“Stop it!” she said.
Dana crossed her arms in disgust. “He started it.”
“Calm down. It’s just a nickname. It’s your initials for ‘Dana Darlene.’ ”
“No, you’re wrong,” Dana said. She pointed angrily at her brother. “He told me it means ‘Devil Dana.’ ”
“Don’t be silly,” Mom said. She then turned her attention to Tim. “You don’t think your sister is a devil, do you, Tim?”
“Dana Darlene,” Tim said, choosing to go with the safest answer for now. He had called his sister “Devil Dana” before, but didn’t want to get in trouble and get a whooping. The two of them teased and picked on one another whenever they had a chance. Man, I’d love to send her to the moon, Tim thought to himself.
Dana glared at Tim and he stuck his tongue out at Devil Dana the second Mom turned away.
Deciding to ignore her brother—which she knew would make him even angrier—Dana asked her mom, “Where’s Dad?”
“Finishing the milking,” Mom replied. “He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
Tim studied the melting wax dripping down the sides of the birthday candles. “The candles won’t last that long.”
“You’re probably right. Okay, go ahead and make a wish, Dana.”
Dana glanced at her mom then pointed at her older brother. “He has to sing to me first.”
Tim crossed his arms and glared at Dana. “I’m not singing by myself.”
“Everybody will sing ‘happy birthday’ to you at your party Saturday at Grandma’s house,” Mom said.
Dana scowled at Tim then took a deep breath and blew out all the candles.
“Do you want to eat cake or open your presents first?” Mom asked.
“Presents!” Dana said. She quickly reached for the closest one.
“That one is from Tim. The other one is from Dad and me.”
Dana dropped Tim’s present and picked up the one from her parents. She pulled the wrapping paper off, opened the large box and gently took out a very pretty red-and-white checkered dress with a white shawl. “It’s beautiful!”
“I thought you would like something new to wear Saturday,” Mom said.
Tim pushed his present toward his sister. “Open mine now or I’m taking it back.”
“Probably something stupid,” Dana said. She removed the wrapping paper and slowly opened the box just enough to peek inside.
“Wow!” was Dana’s reaction when she realized what was in the box. She quickly tore the box open and pulled out a shiny toy six-shooter in a holster. “It’s a real cowgirl gun! I can’t believe it!”
“Tim picked it out himself. Now you don’t have to use a stick when you play cowboys together,” Mom said.
“Mine’s still more real,” Tim bragged.
Dana pulled the six-shooter from its holster and pointed it at Tim. “I dare you to say that again.”
Wanting to stop a make-believe shootout in the kitchen, Mom quickly asked, “Who wants cake?” Both kids instantly raised their hands, forgetting the words just exchanged between them. Getting sweets like cake and ice cream—which were their favorites—was a rare treat.
Mom cut pieces from the cake, slid them onto small plates and served her children. Tim and Dana ignored each other and dug into their cake, eating huge forkfuls. Curious as to all the excitement in the kitchen, the family’s black Cocker Spaniel—Skipper—trotted in.
“Want some cake, Skipper?” Dana asked.
Mom had other ideas. “Get out of here, Skipper,” Mom said, swatting at him. “We don’t feed cake to the dog, Dana!”
“But it’s my cake and my birthday,” Dana said.
Suddenly, everyone looked up as the back door slammed shut and Mr. Slinger walked in.
“I guess I’m just in time for the good part,” he said, realizing things were beginning to get a bit heated in the already very warm kitchen.
“Good. You can referee for a while,” Mom said. She quickly wiped her hands with a dishcloth and left the arguing in the kitchen to her husband.
“Happy birthday, darling,” Dad said, patting Dana on top of her head.
“Thanks, Dad. I love my new dress.” Dad smiled, happy that his daughter was happy.
Feeling a little bit jealous, Tim said, “What’s the big deal about turning nine? I’m going to be 11 in December and Dad’s going to teach me how to drive the tractor in the fields.”
Dad’s smile disappeared when Tim mentioned the fields. He turned his head to stare out the kitchen window. To Tim, his dad looked lost. “If we still have a tractor by then,” Dad said.
“Why wouldn’t we have a tractor?” Tim asked, confused.
“Never mind,” Dad said, turning back to his children.
“But you promised!” Tim said.
“Just finish your cake and get to the barn, understand?” Dad said. He helped himself to a piece of cake and wandered into the next room to talk with his wife.
“Yes, sir,” Tim said. After cleaning the last of the cake crumbs from his plate, Tim went to the back door, put on his rubber boots and headed for the barn.
It was a short walk along a dirt path to the huge wooden building. A barn was the center of life on every family dairy farm in the country in the 1960s, and this was true for Tim and his family.
The Slinger’s barn was as tall as a three-story house, as long as a football field and divided into three main sections. The center section was open clear to the roof and had huge sliding doors so tractors and other farm vehicles could bring in feed, bedding and supplies for the cattle. The upper levels of the two end sections of the barn were lofts—one loft was used to store bales of green hay to feed the cattle, and the other loft was used to store yellow straw for the cattle to sleep on during the winter. The lower section of the barn was the home to the milking parlor and pens for newborns calves. And outside the barn was a tall, round concrete structure called a silo. It was filled with chopped corn stalks used to feed the cattle during the summer months.
Tim entered the barn through the open middle section and walked down four stone steps into the milking parlor. Sliding metal bars kept the cows in place when they were milked by automatic milking machines, and behind the metal bars were gutters. Those gutters, which held piles of manureleft behind by the parlor’s twice-a-day bovineguests, had to be cleaned twice a day by Tim.
Tim grabbed a large shovel leaning against the wall and proceeded to push the stinky manure out of the barn and into a big pile in the barnyard. He then scraped the milking parlor’s floor and hosed it down until it was clean and ready for the next round of milking.
Once the milking parlor’s floor was clean, Tim went to the barnyard and scooped the pile of cow poop into the farm’s manure spreader. The manure spreader was a large machine with three rows of spinning metal spikes, blades and fork-like tines. The manure spreader chopped up the cow poop and spread it in the field as it was being pulled by the tractor.
The manure spreader was the one piece of equipment that Tim hated more than any other on the farm. It was partly because he had to fill it up every day, but mostly because of the job it did. The manure was fertilizer and when spread across a field, the poop helped grow tall, lush and green crops. But poop—especially cow poop—is very stinky. The horrible odor from the poop would stink up an entire field for a week. And anyone who came into contact with the manure—like Tim, who scooped it in the morning and evening—would smell like poop, too. But Tim was used to it, so it didn’t bother him too much.
Tim lifted the last scoop of smelly goop into the spreader then leaned on the handle of the shovel. He sighed. “Dee-Dee’s right. I really am a Poop Slinger.”
A few days later, two of Dana and Tim’s aunts, along with three of their cousins, walked into the farmhouse. No one in the Slinger family knew they were going to have company.
Having company was fun for both Dana and Tim. Besides giving the two of them a short break from doing chores, it also gave them a break from playing with each other.
But entertaining non-farm kids—like their cousins, who all lived in the city—often had consequences for the Slinger children. Whatever game or adventure Dana and Tim came up with to amuse the city kids many times turned out to be unpleasant or simply beyond the understanding of their guests.
“Go outside and play,” Mom said. She wanted to visit with her sisters in peace and quiet.
“Play what?” Tim asked.
“Whatever you want. Just go.”
Dana and Tim looked at one another, shrugged their shoulders and walked outside with their cousins—one girl, Roxie, and two boys, Harry and Tommy.
Whenever Tim and Dana went to visit their city cousins, there were always lots of toys to play with or wading pools to swim in or squirt guns to shoot. There was even a candy store to visit. But on the farm, Tim and Dana had only enough toys for the two of them to play with and that was it. Period. So they had to be inventive when it came to entertaining company.
Tim led the small group into the yard to a cherry tree. He then stopped and turned to face them. A thought crossed his mind. “Why did everybody come on the same day? You usually come by yourselves,” he said.
“Mom said we might not be able to come here anymore, so we all drove out together, in one car,” Tommy answered.
“Why won’t you be able to visit us anymore?” Dana asked.
Roxy glanced nervously at Tim before answering Dana’s question. “She said something about being too busy in school and stuff like that.”
“And they’re probably afraid we’ll get hurt again,” Harry said. City kids weren’t used to playing on a farm, so accidents happened a lot. “So, what are we going to do?” he asked.
“We could go play in the hay fort,” Tim suggested.
Harry held up his right arm, which was covered with fading red lines. “I got all scratched up the last time we did that.”
“How about we pick some pears?” Roxy asked.
Tim shook his head “Nope. They’re not ready yet.”
Frustrated, Tommy threw his hands up in the air. “Well, what do you guys do when we’re not here?”
“Play cowboys,” Dana said.
“Great! Let’s play cowboys,” both boy cousins said.
Dana reached down to pick up a small broken branch from the cherry tree. “You’ll have to use sticks. We only have two guns.”
“I hate cowboys,” Roxy said. “Can’t we throw a ball around?”
Tim worried that if he didn’t come up with a fun activity fast, his cousins would never come to visit again. Then an idea hit him. “Hey, we can have a tossing contest!”
“Me first!” Dana said, knowing exactly what her brother had in mind. She took off around the barn and ran to the closest pasture. They all followed her.
Dana climbed over the fence and headed for a section of the pasture where the cows had been grazing a few days earlier. It had been blazing hot all week, without a drop of rain, so Dana knew there would be a big supply of cow chips there.
Tim stopped the group at the edge of the pasture. “Wait here while we pick up enough for our cow-chip-tossing contest.”
Tommy watched as his two farm cousins searched in the grass for something. “What’s a cow chip?” he asked.
Tim picked up a round, brownish cardboard-like object and handed it to him. “This.”
Tommy took it from Tim, not sure what it was or where it came from.
Dana grabbed the cow chip from Tommy. “You fling it like a Frisbee,” she said.
“I don’t get it,” Tommy said.
“Like this,” Dana said. She then flung the cow chip across the pasture.
“Wow, look how far it went! Hand me one. I wanna try,” Tommy said.
Dana and Tim ran around the pasture collecting perfectly formed cow chips and brought them back to their cousins. They found so many that they ended up with a large pile of cow chips for their contest. That’s when Tim announced the rules.
“Okay, the person who can throw the most cow chips all the way over the fence wins,” he said. Tim then tossed one that cleared the fence by a good three feet.
The kids spent the next hour flinging cow chips, trying to win the contest. Some chips made it over the fence and some crashed into the fence. All the kids were having fun, and Dana was in the lead.
All of a sudden, one of Harry’s cow chips broke apart in mid-flight.
“They’re not very strong,” Harry said. “What’re they made of? Dried mud and hay or something?”
Dana and Tim looked at each other then smiled.
“Something like that. Come on, I’ll show you,” Tim said. He led them to the section of pasture where the cows were grazing, telling his cousins to line up along the fence and watch the herd munch on an afternoon snack.
Roxy stared impatiently at one of the cows that was calmly chewing its food. “What are we doing here?”
“Just wait a minute. I’ll tell you when to look,” Tim said.
Roxy gazed across the pasture, which was full of black-and-white Holstein dairy cows. “Look for what?”
Tim pointed at a member of the herd standing closest to them. “There! See that cow raising her tail?” Everyone watched as the cow raised her tail and pooped out a stream of brown goop that piled up on the ground in the perfect shape of a steaming hot cow chip.
Roxy’s eyes became as big as the cow chips. “You made me throw cow poop all day! Mom!” She ran around the barn and to the house as fast as she could.
Tommy laughed so hard he fell to his knees. “That was great!”
Harry was laughing hard, too, and had to grab a fence post to hold himself up. When he caught his breath, he asked his farm cousins, “Okay, now tell us how you really make them.”
“Well, the pile of poop sits in the sun a few days until it dries out. As long as nothing steps in it or Dad doesn’t run over it with the tractor, it turns into a cow chip,” Tim said.
The two boys stopped laughing, looked at each other then glared at Tim. “You mean we really were throwing cow poop?”
“Well, duh,” Dana said.
“Yuck! I need to wash my hands!” both boys said at the same time. Dana and Tim stood motionless, staring as the boys quickly ran to the house.
“What’s wrong?” Dana asked her brother.
“I don’t know. Maybe they got a juicy one,” Tim said.
Tim and Dana headed in the direction of the house and when they turned the corner, they saw their company leaving, driving down the driveway. Their three cousins were in the back seat and they didn’t even wave good-bye.
Tim and Dana’s parents were waiting for them when they came through the back door.
“What did you do to them this time?” Mom asked.
“Nothing,” Tim said.
“They said you made them play with cow poop.”
“We had a cow-chip-tossing contest and I was winning,” Dana said. Dad burst out laughing.
“What’s wrong?” Tim asked.
Mom shook her head then sighed. “Look, I know you were playing, but when your cousins come for a visit, you have to remember some kids don’t fit in with the ‘cow-pie society.’ ”
Dana gave her mother a blank stare.
“What’s the ‘cow-pie society’?” Tim asked.
“The only society where tossing dried cow poop is considered good, clean fun,” Mom said.
Tim frowned as he tried to figure out what she meant, and then asked, “What do you call our cousins’ society?”
“Don’t worry about it. You’ll find out soon enough,” Mom said.
After their cousins left, Tim was back to shoveling cow poop, cleaning cow stalls and doing whatever Dad told him to do.
One Saturday morning. Dad went into the kitchen where Mom was standing at the sink, cleaning fresh vegetables from the garden.
“Where’s Tim?” Dad asked.
“Watching TV.”
His dad walked into the living room and stood quietly, watching both of his children lying on the floor in front of the TV. They were caught up in an exciting Western saloon brawl.
“What’re you watching?” Dad asked.
“Roy Rogers and Dale Evans,” Tim said, without turning around.
“If you’re going to watch Westerns all morning, why don’t you watch a real one?”
Dana stared at the TV, daydreaming of being saved by the show’s handsome hero. “This is a real one!” she said.
Dad sat down and together the three of them watched Roy Rogers knock down the last mean cowboy in the saloon. Then the famous TV cowboy raced out of the saloon to where the horses were waiting. With one mighty leap, he landed perfectly in the saddle of his faithful horse, Trigger.
“Go get the sheriff! I’m going to cut the rustlers off at the pass,” Roy shouted to his female partner, Dale Evans, who was standing near the horses. Nodding, Dale climbed onto her plain brown horse and galloped down the dusty street to the sheriff’s office.
“Real cowboys don’t wear fancy sequined shirts and white cowboy hats with no dirt on them,” Dad said, referring to the spotless outfits the two TV stars were wearing. “And they don’t ride fancy golden palomino show horses when chasing bad guys.”
“Dale Evans is a real cowgirl!” Dana said, refusing to let her dad ruin her fantasy.
“A real cowgirl doesn’t wear a neatly pressed skirt or a cotton blouse without food stains on it, and her hair doesn’t stay in perfect shape when she’s riding a horse 20 miles an hour on a dusty road,” Dad said. “Now Annie Oakley was a real cowgirl. You need to learn more about her. You’ll see what I mean.”
“But Dad, Dale has to dress nice so Roy will notice her,” Dana said.
The show ended as Dale Evans rode away to get the sheriff. The TV announcer said, “Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion of the Red River Gang Raid.”
“You want to see a real cowboy, watch a John Wayne movie,” Dad said, heading out the door.
Tim made a sour face, like he had bitten into a wormy apple. “His movies are boring. They spend too much time talking and kissing girls.”
Dana jumped up off the floor. “Come on, let’s go play cowboys! I’ll get my new gun.”
Tim thought his sister seemed way too eager to play cowboys. Her definition of shooting bad guys was much different from his—she shot him, and he wasn’t the bad guy! But Dana was his only option for playing “cowboys” instead of playing “cowboy.” It was no fun playing cowboy by yourself.
Dad returned and caught Tim in the hallway. He said, “Don’t forget to take care of Patsy this afternoon.”
“I won’t,” Tim replied.
* * *
A few minutes later, Tim and Dana met outside the back door, ready to play. They both took off running as Tim yelled, “Rustlers are trying to steal our cattle! To the barnyard!”
They headed for the barnyard on a dead run, not stopping until they reached the gate holding the cattle inside a fenced area. The cows stood peacefully munching while waiting to enter the milking parlor. They did not appear worried about the cattle rustlers.
This frustrated Tim. He was thinking about ways to stir up the cows and get them excited when Dana tapped him on his back with her gun.
“Who are you going to be?” she asked.
“I’m Roy Rogers and you’re Dale Evans, like always.”
“No, I don’t wanna be Dale Evans this time.”
“Dale Evans is the only girl cowboy,” Tim said, a little mad that Dana was trying to change their normal roles.
“But she never shoots anybody.”
“Sure she does. They just don’t let them show it on TV.”
Dana thought about it for a moment. “Wait, now that I think about it, she doesn’t even have a gun!”
Tim figured those cattle rustlers would have enough time to drive the whole herd to Chicago, butcher them and sit down to a nice steak dinner by the time he got this all straightened out with Dana.
“Well, you be Gene Autry then,” Tim said.
“Who’s he?”
“The singing cowboy. You know—in the movies.”
Dana considered the offer, wondering if her brother was trying to trick her. “Why does he sing?”
Tim grew more frustrated by the second. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s lonely.”
Dana thought about it again, convinced something was not right about Tim’s suggestion. “Well, I’m not lonely. So you be Gene Autry, and I’ll be Roy Rogers.”
“What? I’m always Roy Rogers!”
“Then you be Dale Evans.”
“Me? No way! I’m not pretending to be no girl!”
“Then I’m not playing.”
“Okay, I’ll be Gene Autry this one time,” Tim finally said, not wanting the entire day to be lost. They both agreed and resumed their make-believe cowboy game.
“They’re heading for the pass! We can ambush them from the hayloft,” Dana said. She ran into the barn, with Tim chasing after her. There they spent the rest of the afternoon, running from hiding place to hiding place, chasing after the pretend rustlers until they were so tired that they collapsed in the soft straw in the loft. Both Tim and Dana were sweaty and had scratches on their arms and legs from the hay bales. They were also covered with dirt, dust and hay chaff.
“You ever wonder what it would be like to live in town?” Dana asked.
The question was so out of the blue that it surprised Tim. “No,” he said. Living in town was the last thing Tim wanted to talk about—with Dana or anyone else.
“What would we do there?” Dana asked.
“Probably be bored to death.”
“Mom said I’d be able to play with girls my own age.”
Tim took off his cowboy hat and stared at Dana. “Why are you talking to Mom about living in town?”
“She asked me how I would feel about it if we moved.”
Tim sat quietly, trying to figure out what was going on with Dana and Mom. “Roy Rogers wouldn’t want to live in a town,” he finally said.
“What about Gene Autry?” Dana asked.
“No cowboy wants to live in town. They just go there to drink and gamble.”
Dana nodded her head in agreement. “Yeah, you’re right. When does Gene Autry sing?”
“Usually at the end of the movie, to some girl. Why?”
Dana gave Tim a curious look, sensing he was getting annoyed with all of her questions. “Is this the end of the movie?” she asked.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“So sing a song.”
Tim was stunned that his sister, of all people, would suggest such a thing. “There’s no girl!”
“I’m a girl.”
“You’re Roy Rogers, remember. Gene Autry never sings to boys.”
“I’ll be Dale Evans now.”
“You’re Dee-Dee!”
“You’re a Poop Slinger!”
Tim stuck his gun in his holster, put his hat back on, got up from where he sat and started climbing down from the loft. There was no way he was going to fulfill Devil Dana’s stupid request.
“Where are you going?” Dana asked.
“Time to feed Patsy.”
Worried her brother wouldn’t want to play cowboys ever again with her, Dana decided she had better be nice to him. “I’ll help,” Dana said.
They walked through the milking parlor, which now was full of cows munching on grain. Mr. Slinger tended to the milking. He would corral several cows into the sliding metal bar holders, hook each one up to a milking machine then turn the machines on. The machine would extract the milk from the cows, and then the milk would travel to a holding tank. Once all the cows in that group were done, Mr. Slinger would then let them loose and bring in another group to milk. It was a hard job and had to be done two times a day. There were never any days off or milking sessions skipped—if this happened, the cows would be too full and get upset. Over time, they would stop producing milk altogether.
Tim grabbed an empty two-gallon bucket sitting next to a wall. Sticking out of one side of the bucket was the soft plastic part of a baby bottle.
Tim carried the bucket to his dad, who was watching one of the milking machines gently pull milk from a cow.
“Patsy’s feeding time,” he said.
Dad pulled the milking machine from the cow’s udder and filled the bucket with warm milk. Tim carried it through the milking parlor to the calf pen on the other side. Dana tagged along.
When they reached the pen, a cute month-old black-and-white Holstein calf bounced over to the two of them. Tim lifted the bucket over the fence and hung it on a peg attached to a post. Patsy latched onto the baby bottle part and started sucking milk from the bucket.
Tim entered the pen. “Get me the brush,” he said to Dana. She went to a wooden shelf, picked up a large, stiff brush and passed it to Tim. Gripping the brush firmly, he stroked Patsy’s back with it.
“Why do you brush her so much?” Dana asked.
“If I take really good care of Patsy, Dad says I can take her to the county fair with the 4-H Club next summer.” Entering a farm animal in the fair’s 4-H contest was a huge deal for a farm kid.
“What if we’re not here next summer?” Dana asked.
“Of course we’ll be here. Where else would we go?”
“To town,” Dana said.
“Don’t be stupid, Dee-Dee.”
“Poop Slinger!” Dana said, leaving Tim to finish taking care of Patsy on his own.
Dana talked about moving into town all week. Since he hadn’t heard his parents talking about it, Tim figured she was doing it to irritate him. Tim thought about asking his mom to tell Dana to stop, but was afraid to bring up the subject of moving to town—he didn’t want his mom to think he was interested in living anyplace but their farm. So he kept quiet and did his best to ignore his sister.
One morning while watching TV, Tim was fascinated as one of his cowboy heroes escaped from some bad guys by tossing a rope over a tree then lowering himself into a ravine. That gave him a great idea. Tim had a rope, he had an empty loft and he had a tag-a-long little sister he wanted to get away from.
Tim soon found himself standing in the feed loft and looking out the door at the dusty barnyard more than 10 feet below. Just like the TV hero, he tied the rope around his waist, tossed it over a rafter and pulled it tight. Then, on accident, one of his feet slipped past the edge of the door! He froze. That’s when he realized it was a very long way down! Maybe I’m not the hero type after all, he thought.
While Tim was having second thoughts about trying the rope trick, Dana came into the barn. She walked across the creaky wooden floor and looked up at him.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
What could Tim say? “I’m chickening out,” certainly wouldn’t do. Then he had an idea.
“Playing the elevator game,” Tim said. He pulled down on the rope until the end tied around his waist was tight. “The way you play is that you step out, lower yourself to the ground and then pull yourself back up using this here rope,” he explained. He didn’t tell her he hadn’t tried it yet.
“Sounds like fun! I wanna try!” Dana said, running upstairs to the loft.
“Well, I don’t know. Mom might get mad. Remember when we went swimming in the water trough and you told her about it?” Tim asked.
Standing next to Tim, Dana stared at him. “I won’t tell, I promise!” she said.
Tim decided to use her begging as an opportunity to take care of one more problem. “And if I let you try this, you promise to quit talking about moving to town?”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“Fine,” Dana said.
“Okay. I’m getting tired of pulling myself up and down anyway,” Tim said, fibbing.
Tim loosened the rope from around his waist and slipped it off. He then tied it tightly around Dana’s waist. He couldn’t have his little sister slipping out halfway down—that would cancel any “don’t-tell” promise for sure!
Tugging on the rope one more time to make sure everything was working, and grabbing tight to his end, he asked Dana, “Are you ready?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, now step off slowly,” Tim instructed, “and then you want to . . . N-o-o-o!”
To Tim’s complete surprise, Dana jumped out the loft door! Her sudden weight on the rope caused it to rip through Tim’s hands, badly burning his palms. He instantly let go, clenching his hands to stop the pain. Then he heard a loud thud in the barnyard below the open door. His heart stopped. Oh, crud!
Tim looked out the door, and then down. There was Dana, flat on her back. A billowing cloud of dust surrounded her as she lay motionless. A moment later, she came to life and shot up to her feet, screaming, “I can’t breathe! You killed me! You killed me!” She raced to the house with the rope trailing behind her. “Mom! Mom! He killed me! Mom!”
Tim was scared. His dad had swatted him hard on his butt for kicking Skipper. If he got in that much trouble for kicking the dog, he could only imagine what punishment he’d receive for killing his sister! Not wanting to find out, Tim decided to hide from his parents and Dana in his secret fort in the hayloft.
For hours, Tim sat inside that hot, dark little room built of fresh-cut bales of hay. When his growling stomach told him supper was fast approaching, he began to think about the elevator game differently. He reasoned that Dad was upset about him kicking the dog because the dog could hunt. But in this case, Dana couldn’t hunt. In fact, Tim couldn’t think of one useful thing she did on the farm. Maybe Dad won’t be too upset...
Tim wasn’t about to die of hunger worrying about a punishment. He climbed down from the hayloft and left the barn. Just then, Dad drove up on the tractor and spotted his son walking toward the house.
“Where’ve you been? Supper’s waiting,” Dad said, with a smile on his face. He didn’t seem upset at all.
Wow. He must really love that dog! Tim thought.
Tim ran to the house, opened the door, stepped into the kitchen and froze in his tracks. There sat Dana at the kitchen table, stuffing her mouth with food. She looked up at Tim and flashed him a devilish smile. Tim knew instantly that in order to keep his little sister quiet, he was doomed to grant her every wish for a month—at least!
The next morning, Tim decided it was best to avoid any outdoor activity with Dana for a while. After accidently dropping her out of the loft the day before, he figured her promise to stop talking about living in town was history. Because he didn’t want to hear about moving at all, that was even more of a reason to play by himself once his morning chores were done.
The problem was that besides his sister, Tim didn’t have many choices for playmates. He decided his best shot for any entertainment was to pay a visit to the neighbor’s bull.
A bull, which is a male cow, is one animal in farm life rarely associated with fun. Bulls tended to have well-earned reputations for being violent. Nevertheless, without getting trampled, gored or chased, Tim knew how to have fun with the neighbor’s beast.
The first rule in Tim’s game was to keep the farm’s high-powered electric fence between himself and the beast at all times. The electrical part of the fence consisted of two skinny, bare wires hanging loosely from white insulators attached to little metal poles. The lower wire was two feet above the ground and the second wire, two feet higher. While both wires looked harmless and the electricity running through them wasn’t strong enough to kill a human or large animal, the fence packed enough of a wallop to back off a snorting 1,000-pound bull stalking a rival bull on the other side.
Tim hated electric fences. But what he hated the most was when Dad told him to open one of the gates. The gate latches consisted of a sliding wooden handle over a spring—to open it, Tim had to push the spring until the wire was loose enough to unhook one end. And he had to remember to never touch the electric wire—ever. But poor Tim never got the hang of opening the gate and always got zapped. When this happened, Tim would drop the handle and run away. His dad either laughed or yelled at him as he climbed off the tractor to open the gate himself.
For some time, there had been a small feud going on between the Slingers and the owner of the bull. The bull loved the Slinger’s cornfield and would always reach over or through the fence to treat himself to a corn lunch. Mr. Slinger demanded the neighbor pay him $20 for crop damage done by the animal, but the neighbor said that was crazy and refused to pay. Instead, the neighbor added a $300 electric fence to the existing fence between his pasture and the Slinger’s cornfield. That didn’t make sense to Tim—paying $280 more just to make a point—but he realized that sometimes adults didn’t make much sense when pride was at stake.
Tim found the feud between his dad and the neighbor amusing and didn’t want to see a little thing like the addition of an electric fence end the war. So he walked along the fence line, trying to figure out a plan to help the bull enjoy another corn lunch. Maybe I can find a loose post and pull it out...
The beast saw Tim and approached him. Tim continued to walk and the bull walked with him, but on the other side of the electric fence, of course. Big and black with a ring in his nose, bloodshot eyes and drool running down from his mouth, the bull was so large that the ground shuddered with every step he took. Feeling the vibrations, Tim decided his original plan to pull out a fence post was a really bad one. So he tried thinking of something else.
The bull and Tim continued walking together, eyeing each other suspiciously across the fence, wondering what was on each other’s minds. Then the bull stopped—there was a stalk of corn bent over, right next to the fence. Very carefully, and avoiding the electric wires, the bull turned his head sideways, stuck it through the fence, bit down on the stalk and yanked it back to his side of the fence.
“Brilliant!” Tim said aloud. He wondered why he had not thought of that. With glee, Tim bent more stalks of Slinger corn toward the fence then stepped back to watch. The beast ate and ate and ate until he was full. Then he wandered away. This is gonna be good, Tim thought to himself as he hurried back to the farm to tell his dad the corn thief had struck again.
Upon hearing the news, Mr. Slinger immediately went to inspect the damage. Returning to the house later, he was angry. He jumped into his old pickup truck and tore down the road, gravel flying everywhere, on his way to the neighbor’s house.
Not wanting to miss anything, Tim ran back to the pasture. He found the two men standing at the scene of the crime.
“Look at this! There’s at least a bushel of corn gone,” Tim’s dad said to the neighbor.
“There’s no way my bull could reach those stalks!” the neighbor said.
As luck would have it, the beast wandered back to grab a little desert. Right in front of the two men and Tim, the bull stuck his head between the electric wires, not touching either one. He bit off another stalk of corn, pulled it back through and ate it.
Both men were surprised and shocked by the bull’s resourcefulness. Tim’s dad smiled because he was right and the neighbor was wrong. The neighbor frowned and without saying a word to either Mr. Slinger or Tim, stormed off across the pasture.
* * *
Later in the day, near dusk, Tim went to see if there were any new developments in the corn caper. The beast was standing near the same spot Tim had earlier served him a corn lunch. But something was different. The beast had a new accessory—a necklace made of a length of logging chain, with one strand hanging down almost to the ground. The bull looked at Tim then at the corn.
“Can you believe the adults think they’re so smart,” Tim said to the bull. “They try to ruin our fun with a piece of chain, huh? We’ll show them.” Tim bent a stalk of corn all the way over so it nearly touched the fence, and then stepped back. As he had done in the past, the beast moved forward, turned his head and stuck it through the fence to grab the corn.
For safety reasons, an electric fence turns on and off every few seconds, rather than having a steady current of electricity going through it at all times. The fence must have been in the off cycle when the bull stuck his head through, because nothing happened, even with the long chain touching the bottom wire.
Then the electricity came back on. The shock hit the bull, and it was a good one! The beast bellowed and his eyes bugged out. Trying to get away from the fence, the bull pulled his head up so fast that the chain wrapped around the bottom electric wire three times. The beast was trapped.
The shock hit the bull again, and he jumped back so hard that he yanked two of the metal posts right out of the ground. And the shocks kept coming, again and again! The bull jumped straight into the air and did a 180-degree turn. When he landed the bull took off on a dead run across his own pasture, dragging a large part of the fence behind him.
Dad can figure this one out by himself, Tim thought, as he tore off to his barn on a dead run, too. He was worried that the bull would turn and come after him, seeking revenge.
It was almost dark when a very scared Tim ran out of the cornfield and onto the dirt lane heading home. He chose a path around the barn silo to avoid the electric fence’s gate, a gate that kept the Slinger’s bull from escaping the barnyard.
A gate on an electric fence consists of a single strand of wire between two fence posts. It’s hard to see at dusk and impossible to see at night. Also, Tim’s dad sometimes changed the location of the gate, depending on where the cows were or where he needed to drive the tractor through safely.
Still on that dead run, Tim headed around the huge silo moving so fast that he was leaning inward to keep his balance in the turn. Suddenly, he felt a strange pressure on his forehead. It felt like a thin line or wire. Zap!
Tim had run right into the electric fence’s gate! The electric shock turned Tim’s legs into noodles and the spring on the gate caused the gate handle to smack him in the head. His feet flew out from under him and into the air. He landed flat on his back in the dirt.
Tim lay there, motionless. What happened? Was it the bull? Tim thought, trying to come back to reality. The dust cloud he made upon landing on the ground settled around him.
Dana watched the whole thing from the safety of the barn. She wandered over to see if Tim was okay. When Tim finally opened his eyes, he saw a blurred image of Dana floating above him.
“Are you dead?” she asked.
Tim wasn’t sure, and he couldn’t answer her. He felt like he was in one of those dreams where he’s falling endlessly and can’t wake up.
“I’ll get Mom,” Dana said.
Soon after Dana disappeared, another object drifted over Tim—it was large and black and drooling all over him. Suddenly, Tim realized it was the Slinger’s angry bull!
Even though Tim was still a little woozy from the fall, he jumped up and headed for the safe side of the electric fence faster than a frightened rabbit. But this time, he ducked when he went under.
Needing to get back to the house, Tim decided to take a favorite shortcut between two buildings next to the barn. When he spotted a pile of boards ahead of him—a pile he had run over the top of a dozen times before—he wasn’t concerned in the least.
Tim made a beeline right for the boards without noticing they were not the same boards he had run over before, but new ones added to the pile a few days earlier. He took two steps on top of them at full speed when suddenly . . . “Ye-oow!” he screamed.
What Tim didn’t realize was that one of the boards had a rusty nail sticking out of it. The nail rammed through Tim’s shoe and into his foot. It went in so deep that the board stayed attached, causing him to fall face-first into the dirt. When he hit the ground, the board popped off.
In horrible pain, Tim reached for his foot and saw blood coming from the hole the nail had made through his tennis shoe. “Crud!” was all he could say.
The blood quickly filled the inside of Tim’s shoe and the pain was so bad that it numbed his leg all the way to his waist. He knew he had to get to the house fast, and there was only one way to do it. He jumped up and began screaming for his mom as he made his way to the house.
Mom and Dana met him at the door. “What did you do?!” Mom asked the instant she saw his blood-soaked shoe.
“Nail . . . running . . . old board. It hurts!”
Mom picked up her son and carried him into the kitchen. She removed his shoe and looked at his foot. She then got a large dishpan, filled it with salt water and stuck his foot in it.
The dissolved salt, which was used many times on farms to clean wounds, made the pain in Tim’s foot even worse. It shot up Tim’s leg all the way to his hair. And the water instantly turned red from the blood.
Tim could see his mom was scared and that made him even more scared. And Dana was confused, because when she had left him, he was on his back. There was no injury to his foot. “Eeww, you’re gonna die for sure this time!” was all she said.
Tears of fear and pain filled Tim’s eyes. “Mom, am I gonna die?!”
“Don’t be stupid,” Mom said. She lifted his foot out of the water then tied a dishcloth around it as tightly as she could. “Now stand up and step on this to keep pressure on it—maybe it’ll stop bleeding.”
“Are you nuts?! That’ll hurt!”
“Fine, bleed to death if you want to. I need to call the clinic and tell them we’re coming in,” Mom said.
Did she say the clinic? Oh no! Now Tim was really scared. Farm kids only went to the clinic if something was cut off or if they were near death.
Dana raised her foot over Tim’s, ready to inflict more pain. “I’ll step on it.”
“You stay away!” Tim said, pushing her aside. He stood up and stepped down on the dishcloth, hard. The pain nearly made him pass out.
Mrs. Slinger called the clinic then scribbled a note to her husband, leaving it on the counter. She then carried Tim to the truck and Dana jumped in next to him. They took off for the clinic, with Mom making the seven-mile drive in record time. Tim thought they were all goners once or twice when Mom had the old truck sliding sideways down the gravel road.
The clinic’s attendants were at the door, waiting for the farm family to show up. When they received Mrs. Slinger’s call, the staff cleared out all the whining city kids with their bruises, skinned knees and stuffy noses, so the real injury could get through.
When the Slingers arrived, the staff took Tim and Mrs. Slinger right into a treatment room. A nurse pulled the dishcloth off Tim’s foot. “Get the doctor—now!” she said to the attendant.
“But he’s with another patient,” the attendant answered.
“Now!” the nurse said.
The doctor came in, took one look at Tim’s foot and shook his head. “Oh man, what happened?” the doctor asked.
The alarm in the doctor’s voice did not calm Tim’s fears in the least. “Stepped on a nail,” he said through tears.
Dana, who was waiting just outside the door, pushed her way in between the nurse and the doctor. “I wanna see!”
“Go to the waiting room,” Mom said to her.
An attendant took Dana away while the doctor inspected Tim’s foot and a nurse applied medicine to stop the bleeding.
“You sure it was a nail?” he asked.
“Pretty sure, but I didn’t look at the board,” Tim said, wishing the doctor would stop talking and do something to stop the pain.
“Why?” Mom asked. Tim shrugged—he didn’t want to admit he was running from Slinger’s bull.
“This isn’t a puncture wound. It looks like his foot was torn open by a hook. He’ll need stitches,” the doctor said to Mrs. Slinger.
“Stitches! First this and now a needle in my foot!” Tim said.
The doctor gave Tim several shots of painkiller, which made his entire leg numb. He began to relax as the doctor probed his foot.
“Wait a minute. There’s something inside,” the doctor said.
Tim leaned forward, now more curious than afraid since the pain was gone. “Inside my foot?” he asked the doctor.
Using a pair of large tweezers, the doctor pulled a long piece of Tim’s tennis shoe from his foot. At the same time, Tim’s dad rushed in, carrying the board his son had stepped on. It had a rusty, blood-covered nail poking out of it that was bent around like a fishhook. A piece of Tim’s skin was still on it.
“You stepped on that?” the doctor asked Tim.
“Well, I was kind of running—as fast as I could.”
The doctor shook his head then went to work, sewing Tim’s foot back together. When he was finished, the doctor wrapped his foot tightly in a large bandage.
* * *
While Tim was getting his foot looked at, Mrs. Slinger called her mother and her sisters to tell them what happened. When the doctor finished, Mr. Slinger headed back to the farm, but Mrs. Slinger took Tim and Dana to their grandma’s house. There five of their cousins were waiting to examine Tim’s hero wound and have ice cream.
Dana was ready to cause trouble when they entered the yard. “His foot is going to fall off pretty soon!”
“It is not!” Tim said.
Dana pointed at Tim’s foot and declared confidently, “Yes, it will—when they take the stitches out.”
“You have stitches? I wanna see!” cousin Roxy said.
Tim pulled his pant leg up a little so everyone could see his heavily bandaged foot. “I can’t take the bandage off for three days.”
“Then you can come see his foot fall off,” Dana said.
Aunt Linda broke up the group when she walked out of the house carrying a box of Dilly Bars. “I have ice cream for everyone!” The cousins and Tim and Dana helped themselves to a bar then sat down on the edge of the patio to eat.
Taking a bite of her treat, Roxy stared at Tim’s foot. Then she bent over for a closer look. “You really are going to kill yourself if you don’t move into town pretty soon.”
Tim lifted his foot up to show it off. “Well, it’s better than being bored to death.”
“You won’t be bored to death in town. You’ll see when you come to visit us in Chicago in a couple of months,” Roxy said.
Tim put his foot down as everyone stared at Roxy, who was now the center of attention.
“Chicago? Why would I visit you in Chicago?” Tim asked.
“Dad got a new job there. We’re moving next week. We’re going to live in a big apartment building with a lot of other kids. It’ll be a blast!”
Tim almost dropped his Dilly Bar. “You can’t move! You’re my best friend!”
“We’ll still be best friends. It’s only a four-hour drive to Chicago.”
“It might as well be a 100-hour drive,” Roxie’s brother, Tommy, said.
Roxy gave Tommy a shove with her shoulder, nearly knocking his ice cream out of his hand. “Hey, cut it out!” he said.
“Tommy’s right. Chicago’s not here and that’s all that matters,” Tim said.
Roxy flipped her hair back. “It doesn’t matter what Tommy says. Dad says times are changing and we have to keep up.”
“They’re not changing for me,” Tim said, clenching his fist in a defiant pose.
“They are. You’ll see,” Roxy said.
Because of his heavily bandaged foot, Tim got a break from doing his chores for a few days. But that left him with a lot more free time than he was used to, and he had fewer options for fun due to his injury.
After days of limping around the farm on his swollen foot, Tim worked out a plan to ride instead of hobble. He pulled a coil of rope out of the toolshed and carried it to the back of his dad’s pickup. He tied one end to the back of the pickup and the other end to the handle of his little red wagon. He placed the wagon really close to the back of the pickup so his dad wouldn’t see it. Mr. Slinger was usually in too big of a hurry to look around the back of the truck before driving away.
Tim knew Dad would be in a hurry that day since he had to get to the back forty to relieve Mom of plowing duty on the tractor. If he didn’t get there in time, she would get mad at him.
Once the wagon was hooked up, Tim jumped inside it and waited. He then heard his dad walk out of the house, climb into the pickup and fire up the engine. Tim gripped the sides of the wagon as his dad put the truck into gear, revved the engine and let out the clutch. The truck lurched forward, jerking the wagon so hard it flipped Tim right off the back.
Tim jumped up as quickly as he could with an injured foot, a little dazed but unhurt. And that’s when he spotted his wagon flipping over and over behind the old pickup as Dad headed around the barn to the rutted dirt lane that led to the back forty.
No point running after him, Tim thought. He couldn’t anyway, because of his foot. Plus, Tim knew his dad drove like a mad man. Heartbroken that his great idea didn’t work, Tim hobbled into the barn to find something else to do.
About 30 minutes later, the pickup reappeared, but with his mom driving it at a much tamer pace than his dad. She stopped in front of the house and went in to fix lunch. Tim made his way around to the back of the pickup and found the rope still attached to it. But there was nothing left on the other end but the handle from Tim’s wagon.
Tim untied the rope and slowly made his way down the dirt lane that went back to the fields. He had only gone a few yards when he spotted one wagon wheel lying in the grass at the edge of the lane. A few yards farther, Tim found the other wheel with the axle still attached. Another few yards and Tim found what was left of the main part of the wagon—bent and twisted beyond recognition—lying in the weeds next to a fence post.
He picked up the wagon pieces, which were now all junk, and headed back to the barn. He was sad and kept his head down. When a farm kid broke something like a toy, it wasn’t replaced. It was history.
Dana spotted Tim walking down the lane and met him as he entered the toolshed. She saw the destroyed wagon in his arms. “What happened to our wagon?”
“Dad ran over it with the truck.”
Dana scowled at her brother, upset at seeing one of their few nice playthings ruined. “Were you sitting in it?”
“No.”
“Too bad,” she said, flashing a devilish grin before leaving.
* * *
With great disappointment, Tim dropped the wagon pieces on a pile of other hunks of metal junk stacked in the back of the toolshed.
Tim then made his way to the barn, still dragging the piece of rope he had tied to the wagon. Stopping in the middle of the open section of the barn, he looked straight up at the main beam, which supported the barn’s roof. The beam was a good 20 feet above Tim’s head and right over the barn’s concrete floor. So what was the first thought that came to him? What a great place to put up a rope swing!
Tim headed back to the toolshed and dragged out the longest rope he could find. He then returned to the barn and thought out his next move.
The hay harvest had just taken place on the farm, so fresh hay bales were stacked high inside the barn, just within a few feet of the lower rafter beams, which also held up the roof. Tim decided he could climb up the hay bales to the lower rafter beams, and then climb up to the main beam and tie on the rope.
After shifting the hay bales around to make his climbing a little bit easier, Tim made his way up to the very top bale, high above the barn’s concrete floor. He then reached for the place where the lowest rafter joined one of the vertical support posts. Dana walked in right when Tim climbed up onto the support post.
“What’re you doing way up there?” she asked.
“Putting up a rope swing.”
“I’m telling Mom!”
“No! Wait! I’ll let you have the first ride when I’m done.”
Dana stared at Tim. He held his breath, worried she would bolt out of the barn and tell on him.
“Hurry up,” she said. Tim wasn’t sure Dana agreed because she wanted to swing or because she wanted to see if he would fall and splatter himself all over the floor.
Tim continued climbing the vertical beam until he reached the main beam. Then he had to make a decision—how would he get the rope out far enough on the main beam to keep him and his sister from banging against the wall when they swung on it? There was only one option, and Tim knew what he had to do. He would have to crawl to the center of the main beam, 20 feet up in the air, with no safety net below.
Tim slowly crawled out onto the eight-inch by eight-inch beam, dragging just one end of the rope with him—the rope was too long and too heavy to carry the whole thing. When he was about five feet out on the beam, he looked below. Boy, that’s a long way down! Dana looks like an ant. He wasn’t afraid, but he was sure nervous.
When Tim decided he was far enough out, he carefully wrapped the end of the rope around the wood beam a couple of times before tying it off.
When he was done, he began to make his way back to the lower rafter. But trying to move backward along the beam was way harder than moving forward. Tim wasn’t sure he was going to make it.
“What’s taking so long?” Dana asked.
Tim looked down at her. She was sitting on the top step to the milking parlor, watching him intently, showing no concern for the danger he was in. “You wanna come up here and try it?” he asked his little sister.
“I’m not stupid—like you!”
“Shut up, Dee-Dee.”
“Poop Slinger!”
When Tim finally made it back to the safety of the hay bales, he grabbed the other end of the rope, which was coiled on bales, and tossed it down. The rope swung out and into position, and the end barely touched the floor. Perfect! Tim thought. It’s long enough to tie a knot to sit on!
Excited that his idea just might work, Tim hurried off the hay bales. Dana had already grabbed the rope and was swinging back and forth, but just a few feet.
“Here, let me help you.” Tim grabbed the end of the rope and pulled it back with his sister hanging onto it. He let it go and she swung out almost to the barn door. “Awesome!” he said.
Tim stopped her and tied a big knot in the end of the rope so they could take turns sitting on it. They spent the rest of the day and part of the evening happily swinging back and forth, in circles, even swinging together at the same time. They stayed so late that Mom and Dad went to the barn looking for them. Just as their parents walked in, Tim and Dana swung too wide and slammed into the side of the barn.
“Are you crazy?” Mom asked.
Dana and Tim jumped off the rope in a heartbeat, waiting for their dad to blow up. But he didn’t. His eyes, as well as Mom’s, followed the rope from the bottom up to where it was attached in the shadows of the main beam and rafters.
The kids’ mom looked at their dad and said, “You could’ve killed yourself putting that up there for the kids! What were you thinking?”
Mr. Slinger stared at his wife, his mouth agape. He then turned his attention to Tim, who was standing as stiff as a statue, amazed at this turn of events. Tim was trying to decide if his mom would figure out who really put the rope up there or if Dana was going to tell on him—again.
But Devil Dana surprised him. “It’s really fun, Dad! Thanks!” Dana said.
Mr. Slinger was speechless. It was the first and only time in his life Tim could remember his dad having nothing to say.
“You better take it down. It’s too dangerous swinging in here,” Mrs. Slinger said to her husband.
He looked up at the highest point in the rafters where the rope was connected to the main beam. “I’ll kill myself if I try to take it down,” he said.
His wife reached out, grabbed the rope and tugged on it.
“It’s safe,” Tim said.
“Nothing on this farm is safe with you two around,” Mom said.
“Is it safer to live in town?” Dana asked.
“I don’t know, but at least it will be a lot easier to keep an eye on you two,” Mom said.
Their parents walked out, leaving Tim and Dana standing silently next to the rope.
“What did Mom say?” Tim asked Dana.
“Something like ‘It’ll be a lot easier to keep an eye on us,’ I think,” Dana said.
“Why did she say ‘will be’?” Tim asked.
“I don’t know. But it’s time for supper,” Dana said, walking out of the barn.
Tim stayed in the barn for a few more minutes, standing next to the rope swing. A cow’s moo echoed through the barn and a pigeon flew into the rafters to roost for the night. It was as if time were standing still. But something told him it was not.
Over the next few weeks, Tim’s foot healed and was as good as new, although he still faked a limp as long as possible to keep from doing his chores.
Tim was still concerned and confused about what his mom had said in the barn the night of the rope-swing adventure, the comment about possibly moving into town. For this reason, he began listening much more closely to every word his parents said to one another. And while there was no more talk between his parents about a life-changing event in their family’s future, there was talk about safety—or the lack of it—in Tim’s daily activities.
One day, when his parents were discussing their son’s many mishaps, Tim heard his dad say there were plenty of equally dangerous activities for city kids. He didn’t mention what they were, but the next thing he said was that playing in organized sports would be good for Tim. This last comment caught Tim’s attention, because organized sports were something city kids did, not farm kids.
For all the athleticism required in working on a dairy farm, it wasn’t a very good place for practicing traditional sports, like baseball or soccer. However, there were sporting events special to farm life that filled the same competitive urges enjoyed by many city kids.
When most people think of farm sports, they think of rodeo events like calf roping or bull riding. If they do, they will be wrong. Rodeo events fall into the ranching category. Anyone who has ever watched a Western knows that a farm and a ranch are as different as a swamp and a desert. Farm sports are way different from rodeo sports, especially the ones Tim invented.
About a week after the rope swing was put up, Tim’s dad walked into the house at lunchtime and found his son sitting at the table, eating. “Come outside with me. I’ve got a surprise for you,” Dad said.
Tim finished his sandwich then followed his dad outside and down to the edge of their huge vegetable garden. There were two metal rods sticking up from the soft garden dirt, spaced 40 feet apart, with a short wooden wall set up behind each of the rods.
“What’re those for?” Tim asked.
“They’re horseshoe pits. I’m going to teach you to play horseshoes so you can compete with the other kids at the fair,” Dad said.
“Okay,” Tim said. He watched his dad pick up three rusty metal horseshoes. He held two of the heavy horseshoes in one hand and one in the other—this was the one he would throw first.
“The rules are simple,” Dad said as he held up the lone horseshoe between his thumb and two of his fingers. “We each throw three horseshoes at the metal rod over there. If the open end of the shoe lands around the rod, that’s called a ‘ringer.’ It gets you three points. If the shoe lands so part of it’s touching the rod, that’s called a ‘leaner.’ You get two points for that. If the shoe is within one shoe-width of the rod, you only get one point. I don’t know what that’s called. First one to 11 points wins.”
Sounded like an easy game to Tim. He picked up a horseshoe from a pile on the ground and looked it over. “This thing’s a lot heavier than a cow chip,” he said.
“Yeah, well you only have to toss it 40 feet. We’ll take a few practice throws before playing a game. Watch me,” Dad said.
Tim watched his dad throw three shoes at the metal rod. None of his throws were ringers, but one horseshoe was a leaner, touching the rod and one was very close to it.
“That totals three points. Close only counts in atom bombs, hand grenades and horseshoes,” Dad said, walking down to pick up the ones he had thrown.
“That’s stupid,” Tim said, teasing his dad.
“You try now.”
Tim stood next to one metal rod and focused his attention on the other metal rod. He wasn’t sure what 40 feet was supposed to look like, but was pretty certain the other rod was a lot farther away.
The horseshoe felt heavy in Tim’s hand and he worried that he would never be able to throw it hard enough to make it to the other side. Not wanting to let his dad down, Tim raised his hand, holding the horseshoe as far up behind him as he could, and then threw it with all his strength. To his amazement, the horseshoe went high into the air, twisting and turning as it sailed over the distant metal rod, across the driveway and through the back window of his dad’s pickup.
Crash!
Tim stood silently, waiting for the punishment he knew would be coming. But Mr. Slinger didn’t say a word. He calmly pulled the rods out of the ground, picked up the horseshoes and carried everything into the barn, where they stayed for good.
* * *
Tim knew his dad was disappointed, but he didn’t feel too badly about failing at horseshoes. There were other athletic activities on the farm he was very good at. The “dinner run” (also known as the “time-to-eat run”) from the back 40 tested his endurance and speed and the “survival sprint” came in handy after throwing a cow chip at Dana. Then there was the obstacle course used to escape angry parents who caught him doing something stupid. Tim was always running away from, or after, something. Mom called him “the dusty blur” because most of their farmland had knee-deep mud or dust and farm kids always ended up covered in it, especially Tim. In other words, it was a kid’s heaven!
Tim also had special skills when it came to a sport few urban dwellers had ever heard of—“cow skiing.” No, he didn’t put a cow on skis. Nor did it involve a cow sliding in any fashion or a cow even being harmed. Cow skiing is similar to water skiing. In this sport, the cow is the speedboat, her tail the tow rope, Tim’s shoes the skis and the knee-deep dust (or mud), the water.
The technique goes like this:
1. Drop a handful of hay in the barnyard so a cow will stand still for a minute to eat it.
2. Slowly walk up behind the cow and reach out for her tail without touching it.
3. Once you’re close, quickly grab that tail with both hands and scream, “Yee haw!”
4. Hang on for dear life as the cow bolts across the barnyard, mooing and bellowing in protest.
The first time Tim tried cow skiing was exciting. Thinking back, he remembered that day—the thrill, the speed, the dirt in the face, the danger, the rock pile straight ahead of him! Realizing he was in danger, Tim let go of the cow’s tail at the very last instant and tumbled against a big stone in that pile. The cow paid no attention to Tim and trotted back to eat the rest of her special treat.
Most adults didn’t like cow skiing very much. Tim’s father hated it, worried his son would get badly hurt, and told him so. Yeah, right. Like making a 10-year-old drive a 200-horsepower farm tractor wasn’t just as dangerous? Tim thought.
One day, Mr. Slinger spotted Tim cow skiing and chased after him. Tim saw him coming, let go of the cow’s tail and headed for his obstacle course, which included a small briar patch. Tim quickly crawled under the bushes, with his dad not far behind.
Tim knew his dad wouldn’t come though the briars after him, so it was the perfect escape route. When Tim made it safely through the patch to the other side, he looked back at his dad, who was now angrily shaking his finger at Tim. “If I ever see you doing that again, I’m gonna whoop you good!”
Tim loved cow skiing—it was his new favorite thing to do on the farm and no one was going to stop him. But before he tried it again, he had to make sure there was no way his dad could catch him.
The next day, Tim went inside the barn to see what his dad was up to—he was talking to Tim’s mom. “I need to finish spraying the cornfield today,” he said to her.
Now’s my chance! Tim thought. He followed his dad out of the barn and watched him climb onto the tractor and drive away, around the silo. But farm dads aren’t like city dads—they don’t go to work in the morning and come home in the evening. Farm dads can pop up anywhere, anytime, on any day.
Thinking his dad was in the cornfield working, Tim slipped into the barnyard, found an innocent, hungry cow, went through his four-step cow-skiing setup, and then took off flying. He had no idea his dad had stopped the tractor behind the silo.
Mr. Slinger’s timing was perfect. He walked around the silo just as Tim went skiing past. He grabbed Tim by the shirt collar with one hand—nearly strangling him—tossed him over his shoulder and headed for the barn for that promised punishment.
From that day on, Tim decided his dad was right. Cow skiing was too dangerous!
Tim’s butt was sore for a week. And Tim wasn’t happy.
Tim was upset because his dad told him that he got in trouble because, once again, Tim was putting himself at risk by doing something unsafe. The funny thing was that a few days later, Tim’s father did something that put the entire Slinger family in danger, something which, to Tim, was even worse than cow skiing.
Farmers rarely throw anything away because someday, there might be a use for it. Later, that item could become a used part that would save paying for a repair or buying something new. Plus, back then, there was no place to throw away farm junk if you wanted to.
The Slinger’s 50-year-old barn had secret treasures hiding everywhere. There were old broken tools piled in the corner, tractor parts hanging on the walls and boxes jammed high on beams that supported the second-level flooring. There were also ropes, tarps and many other things in the barn that Tim couldn’t identify. He never found a human body, though it wouldn’t have surprised Tim if he had.
Dad was digging through all the junk in the lower level of the barn, looking for something to fix or replace the broken manure-spreader blade. Tim wasn’t being very helpful, because having a broken manure spreader meant he didn’t have to shovel a mountain of poop into the machine every day. That was fine with him!
“Pull that tarp down back there,” Dad said to Tim, pointing to a dark corner of the barn.
“Yeah, sure,” Tim said. He walked to the tattered piece of canvas and saw that one end of the tarp was hanging down from the beams holding up the second floor. He stared up at it for a moment, wondering why anyone would put manure-spreader parts under a tarp. What harm would it cause for a poop spreader to get dirty?
As Tim pulled the tarp down from the rafters, dust, dirt, mouse poop, bird droppings and rusty nails fell to the floor. With the tarp now on the ground, a wooden box, with large red letters painted on it warning about the contents, sat exposed.
“Oh, it’s just another dynamite box,” Tim said.
Finding a dynamite box in the rafters might seem a bit alarming to city folk, but old, discarded dynamite boxes were pretty common on farms. Because the boxes were strong, they were ideal for storing old bolts, screws, tools and other heavy things. Tim’s dad had several of them he used as storage bins in the toolshed. And Tim’s uncle had one full of marbles—his collection of cat’s-eye boulders was awesome!
Mr. Slinger walked over, looked up at the box and frowned. “Won’t be anything in it we can use to fix the broken blade, but we may as well find out what’s inside.” He got out an old metal box to stand on so he could reach above the beam easily, but the box wouldn’t move. Then Mr. Slinger tried to pull it out from between two beams. After a few attempts to retrieve the box, he was successful.
“It’s full of something heavy,” he said. Tim’s dad carefully stepped down off his perch and with a grunt set the box on the barn’s dirt floor. The top of the box was nailed shut. “That’s odd. I’ve never seen one of these with the top nailed on, unless it’s . . . uh oh,” Tim’s dad said, looking at him. “Go get me a pry bar from the toolshed—fast!”
Tim ran out and across the barnyard to the tool shed, grabbed a pry bar and ran back to the barn, handing it to his dad. His dad then carefully pried the top off the wooden box and jumped back, alarmed. “Crud! It’s full of dynamite!”
Tim leaned forward to look inside “Why is it wet?” he asked. The sticks were glistening, like they had just been sprayed with water.
“Get back! That isn’t water. When dynamite gets old, the nitro sweats out of it. You can toss a stone in there and the entire box will explode!” Dad said.
Tim quickly backed away. He had seen dynamite destroy an entire barn in the TV Westerns. “What’re we going to do with it?” he asked.
“I can think of a few things.”
Mr. Slinger was excited over this surprise gift. There were many projects on a farm a military-grade explosive could be used for. But he wanted to make sure he didn’t blow himself up, or anyone else, for that matter.
“Get out of here and make sure your sister stays away, too. I need to call someone who knows how to handle this stuff,” Dad said. Later that day, Tim’s Uncle Jack showed up. Uncle Jack had served in the Navy and was a World War II veteran who had been around his share of explosives.
The two men went into the barn, but Tim was not allowed to join them. About an hour later, they came out, with Uncle Jack carefully cradling the dynamite box in his arms.
“Come on!” Dad called to Tim.
Tim ran over to them and they all climbed onto the tractor. They drove to the old apple orchard on the backside of the barnyard.
Dad explained to Tim what they were going to do. “We’re going to get rid of these big stumps and add some acreage to the wheat field.” For years, Mr. Slinger had been slowly chopping the stumps out with an ax and dragging them away with the tractor. Today, the stump removal process was about to be raised to a whole new level.
Tim watched as the two adults used a hand drill to bore a hole beneath each side of the largest stump in the apple orchard. Uncle Jack carefully took two sticks of dynamite out of the box, attached a three-foot-long fuse to them, and then inserted the dynamite into one of the holes. He repeated the process for the other hole. In the meantime, Tim’s dad set the dynamite box safely behind one of the large tractor wheels and placed Tim next to it. “Stay here,” he said.
Tim crouched behind the huge tractor tire, feeling both excited and afraid. The dynamite explosions on TV were always as loud as fireworks on the Fourth of July, but more destructive. He wanted to see the stump blown to bits, but didn’t want any of it heading in his direction.
Tim peeked around the tire as his dad and Uncle Jack prepared to light the fuses with cigarette lighters. The dynamite had old-fashioned fuses, which proved challenging—both fuses had to be exactly the same length and lit at exactly at the same moment in order for the two sticks of dynamite to blow up together.
“Now!” Uncle Jack said to Mr. Slinger.
Uncle Jack flicked his lighter and held it next to the fuse on his side of the stump. It took two flicks of Mr. Slinger’s lighter before he could draw a flame to light his fuse. With both fuses lit, the men quickly joined Tim behind the tractor wheel. A few seconds later, there was a loud wumph, like the sound fireworks make when they come out of the launch tubes. But there wasn’t a big explosion.
“That’s it?” Tim asked. They all stood up to look.
“Oh, no!” Uncle Jack said, pointing up in the air at the smoking stump arching high across the sky, burning embers and bits of wood trailing it.
“It’s gonna hit the barn!” Dad said.
“No, it’s going all the way over the barn, no problem,” Uncle Jack said.
“What about the house?” Tim asked.
“Crud!” Dad said.
Tim’s dad and uncle took off running across the barnyard toward the lane to the house, with Tim chasing after them. When they spotted the house, they all skidded to a stop. Tim’s mom was standing in the front yard, holding Dana’s hand, and the two were staring at the stump sitting right in the middle of the front porch, still smoldering.
Dana spotted her brother and pointed at him. “I told you he wants to kill me,” she said.
There are times when no words come to mind. This was one of them. Tim, his dad and Uncle Jack turned around and slowly walked back to the tractor with the complete understanding that their stump-blowing operation was officially finished.
Things were pretty quiet around the farm for the next few days. The crops weren’t ready to harvest. Tim’s dad and uncle repaired the front porch after the dynamited tree stump destroyed part of it, and Tim helped his dad fix the broken manure spreader, much to Tim’s dislike. Dana was busy in the garden with Mom, and Patsy was eating hay and grain now, so Tim didn’t have to give her milk in a bucket anymore.
But something didn’t feel right to Tim about his parents’ behavior. He was a little suspicious when, before bedtime, Mom asked him and Dana to come out of their rooms to talk with her in the kitchen.
The two sat down at the kitchen table and Mom got them ice cream. Being served ice cream when they didn’t have any visitors was never a good sign of things to come.
Mom sat down across the table from her children and watched them eat. Then she said, “You two are going to have to grow up a little now.”
Dana and Tim looked at each other then at their mom.
“I will when she does,” Tim said.
“You first,” Dana said.
“Both of you will quit fighting all the time and grow up right now!”
Dana and Tim put their spoons down and waited quietly for whatever lecture was coming.
“You two are going to have a new baby brother or sister in a few months,” Mom said.
Dana and Tim stared at her. They didn’t know what to say. And Mom didn’t say anything for an uncomfortably long time. Finally, she asked, “Well, what do you think about that?”
“Is it going to be a brother or a sister?” Dana asked.
“We don’t know yet.”
“Tell me when you find out, and then I will tell you how I feel about it,” Dana said. “I’m going to bed.” She got up and walked out of the room.
Mom watched her, frowned, and then looked at Tim. “Well, what about you?”
“Do you want another baby because Dana and I fight too much?” Tim asked.
“What? How could you think that?” She stood up, looked at her son then turned away. “Never mind. We’ll talk about this again when it gets a little closer.”
Mom walked out the back door, clearly upset with Tim and Dana’s reaction to her news.
Dana came back into the kitchen and sat down at the table across from her brother. “What are you going to do about this?” she asked him.
“Do about what?”
“Having a baby in the house.”
Tim couldn’t figure out why he would have to do anything about it. “Are you worried about not being the baby in the family anymore or something?” Tim asked her.
“No, not me. But who has to take care of every baby born on this farm?”
Dana was right. Most of Tim’s chores involved feeding or cleaning up after the newborn calves.
“I don’t think Mom is going to ask me to take care of her baby,” Tim said.
“Somebody has to while she’s working in the fields.”
“Maybe that’s why Dad said he would teach me to drive the tractor, so I can work in the fields and Mom can stay home,” Tim said, nodding his head as if he had everything figured out.
“You? Operating a tractor? The poor cows will starve to death!” Dana said. The Slingers fed their cows hay, grain and corn from their fields.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Tim said. He didn’t appreciate Dana making that comment—it wasn’t very nice. That’s why I call her “Devil Dana,” he fumed to himself as he got up and headed up to his room.
Tim wasn’t sure how he felt about having a new baby in the house. He didn’t really remember Dana as a baby, but he was already helping baby-sit some of his younger cousins. Sometimes it was fun. Other times, it was filled with crying, spilling food, poking eyes and just a lot of work.
But babysitting his cousins lasted only a couple of hours. Having a baby living with them all the time meant no escape. Still, if Tim had the opportunity to learn to drive the tractor and help in the fields instead of being a Poop Slinger all the time—including a Poop Slinger for a little baby brother or sister—it would be worth it.
As Tim climbed into bed, another thought came to him. He wondered if this baby news was somehow linked to Mom asking Dana about moving to town. Everything was starting to come together, everything was beginning to make sense. Tim felt very uneasy as he closed his eyes to sleep.
* * *
The new baby topic didn’t come up again. Then one morning, the Slingers popped another surprise on their children—they walked into the kitchen, Dad carrying a large cardboard box.
“What’s in there?” Dana asked.
Dad placed the box on top of the table. “Take a look,” he said.
Dana and Tim pulled the flaps back slowly and spotted a shiny little black nose between two bright eyes. “A puppy!” they both said.
“Her name is Bell. She’s only six weeks old,” Mom said. She lifted the little ball of black-and-brown fur from the box and placed it on the table.
Dana ran her hand across Bell’s back. “She’s so cute!” Dana said.
Tim smiled as he reached out and touched Bell’s little nose. It was soft, wet and cool.
“She looks healthy, too. Why did you get a puppy?” Tim asked, knowing everything on the farm, no matter how cute, had to have a purpose. There were no free rides allowed.
“She’s a hunting dog. She’ll be worth a lot to us when she grows up,” Dad said.
“But for now, you and Dana are going to take care of Bell together. Both of you have responsibility for her,” Mom said to Tim.
“I told you,” Dana said.
“But we don’t know how to take care of a puppy,” Tim said.
“You’ll learn. It’ll be easier than taking care of Patsy,” Dad said.
Dana noticed Bell walking in circles and sniffing the table. “I think she wants to pee.”
“Then take her outside,” Mom said.
Tim picked up Bell and went outside with Dana. He set the puppy down and she ran around sniffing the ground then squatted. When Bell was done, she ran over, bit Tim’s shoelace, pulled on it, jumped back and barked.
“She likes you,” Dana said.
“Maybe this will be fun,” Tim said.
He lifted his foot up to dangle the shoelace in front of Bell and Dana sat down in the grass. Both kids played in the yard all day with their new pet. Close to suppertime, Bell crawled into Tim’s lap and instantly fell asleep. He put his hand on the warm ball of fur and felt the tiny heart beating inside.
“You know why Mom did this, right?” Tim asked.
“So we can practice taking care of a baby,” Dana said.
“Yeah, but I don’t get it. I don’t think we’ll be taking Mom’s baby out in the yard to pee.” Both laughed out loud at Tim’s silly joke.
“Better take her back inside.” Dana said.
Dana followed Tim as he carried Bell back into the house. They found Mom sitting at the kitchen table.
“Where should we put her?” Dana asked.
“Her food, water dish and bed are next to the stove,” Mom said. She pointed to a small wicker basket with a blanket in it.
“Why is Dad’s old alarm clock in her bed?” Tim asked.
“When you put the clock under the blanket, the ticking sounds like her mother’s heartbeat. It makes her feel safe,” Mom said.
“Did you put a clock in my bed when I was a baby?” Dana asked.
“No, but when you were crying, your father would lay you on his chest so you could hear his heartbeat and you would stop crying almost instantly.”
“What about me?” Tim asked.
“You slept like a rock from day one, except when you were hungry,” Mom said.
Tim laid Bell in her bed then tucked the clock under the blanket. It was one of those big, yellow wind-up clocks with two bells on the top. Tim could hear it ticking all the way from the living room. He figured his mom was right because Bell was still sleeping peacefully when they all went to bed.
But there was one flaw in the alarm clock plan. That alarm clock was an old one Dad had used to wake him up at 4:30 every morning to go milk the cows. When Tim set it in the basket, he must have accidently set the alarm button, because, when 4:30 came, the bells went off like a fire alarm and Bell jumped right out of the basket. Howling loudly, Bell was so scared she took off running, not stopping until she was upstairs on Tim’s bed. She tunneled underneath the covers and wouldn’t come out.
“Where is she?” Dana asked when she came into Tim’s room. The surprise alarm had woken her up, too.
Tim pulled back his bed covers until Bell’s head was sticking out. She was still shivering with fear.
Dana reached out to pet Bell on the head. “Poor baby.”
Mom came in. “Sorry,” she said.
“Will your baby sleep with the clock?” Tim asked.
“No. Trust me, our baby will wake up in the middle of the night without a clock. And so you both know, there will be extra chores when the new baby comes, too,” Mom said.
“Okay, we’ll help. Tell Dad I’m going to work real hard on learning to drive the tractor,” Tim said.
Dad entered Tim’s room, holding a hot cup of coffee. “What about the tractor?” he asked.
“I need to learn to drive it pretty soon so Mom can take care of her baby.”
“You don’t need to worry about the tractor right now,” Dad said.
“Go back to sleep,” Mom said.
Tim’s parents headed downstairs, but Dana stayed behind long enough to get one more dig in on Tim. “Told ya,” she said.
“Get out of my room,” Tim ordered.
And she did, leaving Tim alone with the puppy curled up next to him. He reached down and pulled Bell out, placing her on top of the covers next to him. Bell sat up and stared at him, panting, with her little pink tongue sticking out of her mouth.
“What’s happening to us, Bell?” Tim asked.
Bell yawned, lay down and closed her eyes. Tim tried to go back to sleep, but it was hopeless. Bell never slept in the kitchen again, but in Tim’s bed every night. And Bell wouldn’t eat at all until her food dish was moved to the other side of the kitchen.
Dana and Tim worked out an acceptable plan for puppy duties. But deep down inside, Tim was worried about the future, as Dad had canceled his tractor-driving lessons until further notice.
Tim and Dana were allowed to sleep in that morning, which was unusual on a farm, since most chores couldn’t wait. But the alarm-clock incident had woken them up so early, their parents decided it best that they get some extra rest.
Mom had a late breakfast ready when they got up. “Guess what?” she said when she saw them come into the kitchen.
“I can’t handle any more surprises right now,” Tim said.
“So you don’t want to go to Chicago to visit Roxy?”
“I wanna go!” Dana said.
“They moved already?” Tim asked.
“Yes. Aunt Linda wants us to come see their new apartment. She says Roxy misses you both a lot.”
“When are we going?” Dana asked.
“Friday. We need to go while I can still travel comfortably. Uncle Jack is going to take care of the farm for a few days.”
On the day of their road trip to Chicago, Dana and Tim were excited. But that excitement lasted for only the first hour. They still had three more hours of driving to go. All Tim wanted to do was escape from the family’s hot, bumpy, noisy vehicle. He missed being outside.
Then the city of Chicago came into view. Tim thought their barn was huge, but the skyscrapers made their barn look like a Tinker Toy.
“How many kids did you say live in Roxy’s apartment building?” Tim asked.
“I don’t know about kids, but there are hundreds of families living there. More than in our whole town,” Mom said.
“Where do they hunt?” Tim asked.
“You can’t hunt in Chicago,” Dad said.
Tim frowned as the scenery turned into office buildings, factories and parking lots. “Where do they build hay forts?” he asked.
“No hay in Chicago,” Dad answered.
Dana leaned forward to get a better view of a large school with a concrete playground next to the highway. “What do they feed the cows?” she asked.
“No cows,” Mom said.
Tim tried to spot one thing that looked familiar as they passed a few more buildings, but it was hopeless. “What do they have?” he asked.
“People. Lots and lots of people,” Mom said.
“Little girls, too?” Dana asked.
“Yes, lots of little girls, too,” Mom said.
Tim stared out the window as the highway became more and more crowded with cars. “Poor Roxy must hate it here,” he said.
Dad turned the family car onto a narrow road that wove between row after row of huge apartment buildings. “Almost there,” he said. Tim could see groups of kids on the grassy lawns between the buildings and saw a playground with mostly little kids playing on swings and monkey bars. None of them looked very excited, but they sure had nice clothes.
Tim’s dad finally pulled the car up in front of one of the apartment buildings and stopped. Aunt Linda and Roxy came out of the entrance of the building, waving and smiling.
“I missed you so much,” Roxy said, giving Tim a big hug. “We’re going to have a lot of fun.”
“Doing what?” Tim asked.
“Meeting my friends,” she said.
She took Tim’s hand and pulled him into her apartment. The first order of business was giving the visitors food and drink. Then Tim went with Roxy to her room and they listened to some of her growing record collection—it was filled with music from the hottest rock-and-roll bands. One of bands was called “The Beatles” and they were from England. Tim didn’t know beetles could sing and play guitar.
“Want to dance?” Roxy asked.
“Dance?” Tim asked.
The scared look on Tim’s face must have given Roxy a clue that her cousin was drifting alone in an alien world, very much in need of help. “Never mind,” she said, realizing Tim felt out of place. “Hey! I need you to help me with something. Come on.”
Roxy grabbed Tim’s hand again and pulled him out of the apartment and into the courtyard. Tim was very uncomfortable with Roxy’s actions, as he was always the one in charge whenever Roxy came to visit him on the farm.
“See those three boys over there?” she asked, pointing.
“Yeah.”
“The tall one is always picking on me. Can you make him stop?”
Tim instantly felt better knowing that Roxy needed him. “No problem,” he said.
* * *
Roxy had complete faith in Tim’s ability to defend her—he had protected her from 1,000-pound cattle, stray dogs, collapsing hay forts and electric fences. Tim had also been defending himself from bigger kids on the bus ride home from school almost daily for years. He could wrestle with the best of them. Farm kids didn’t fight with their fists, because they needed to keep their hands healthy to do chores. Trying to grip a shovel to move manure with banged-up knuckles was no fun at all. So they wrestled instead. That was the unspoken rule when farm boys fought.
As Tim approached the group, he thought about what he was going to say to the tall boy. It’ll be okay. How tough could city kids be, anyway? He also thought about how to take him down with his favorite wrestling move.
But Roxy was not one to leave things to chance. She sprinted past Tim and went up to the tall boy, punched him, and then took off running again. The stunned boy went after Roxy, but stopped when Tim stepped in front of him. “Leave her alone!” Tim said.
Pow! Tim was flat on his back, nose bleeding, dazed, wondering what had hit him. Then the tall boy jumped on top of him, clenching his fist for another blow. Tim was too stunned to do anything, but Roxy was not about to leave Tim defenseless. She ran up behind the stooped-over boy and planted a vicious kick to his private area. The boy flew over Tim’s head, landing on the ground with a thud. He was screaming in pain.
“Hey! What’s going on down there?” Aunt Linda yelled from a second-story window. Seeing Tim and the tall boy lying on the ground, she yelled, “Don’t move! We’re coming right down!”
Not wanting to get into a confrontation with the adult, the tall boy’s two friends quickly helped their buddy up and hauled him away. Tim did as he was told, which was okay with him. He was still confused as to what had just happened and was trying to figure things out.
When Mrs. Slinger made it outside, she saw Tim was still on the ground. She helped her son to his feet then stuffed a hanky into his nose. They headed back to the apartment, with Aunt Linda and Roxy trailing behind.
Tim sat down in the kitchen. Aunt Linda pulled out the bloody hanky and dabbed his blood-covered nose with a clean cloth. “Why did you mess with him?” she asked Tim. “He’s on the boxing team.”
Tim turned and stared at Roxy.
“Sorry, I thought you could beat him,” Roxy said. “I know you’re stronger.”
“Are you going to be okay, Tim?” Mom asked.
“Yeah. At least I won,” Tim said.
“How do you figure that?” Aunt Linda asked.
“I got beat up by a professional boxer. He got beat up by a little girl,” he said, pointing at Roxy. “So I win.”
Roxy and Mrs. Slinger laughed, but Aunt Linda didn’t. She continued wiping the blood from Tim’s face. “You’ve got a lot to learn about city life,” Aunt Linda said to him.
Tim watched as his aunt gave his mother a questioning look. “But we’re only staying a few days,” he told his aunt.
“That’s right. And not every place is like Chicago,” Tim’s mom said.
Dana and Roxy’s brother—Tommy—walked into the kitchen. They pushed their way in front of Aunt Linda and stared at Tim’s swollen nose. “Whoa, I like Chicago!” Dana exclaimed.
Tim slumped in his chair then let out a sigh. “I wanna go home.”
“Can I come?” Roxy asked.
Aunt Linda stared at Roxy. “Why?” she asked.
“You said we have to go back and get the rest of our things before school starts. I’ll go with Tim now and come back with you later.”
“You mean stay with Grandma?” Mrs. Slinger asked.
“No, stay on the farm with you.”
“Really?” Tim asked.
Aunt Linda gave Tim’s mom another questioning look.
“She can stay in the spare room,” Mrs. Slinger said. “We can take her to Grandma’s if she changes her mind.”
Tim and Roxy gave each other a high-five. “Yes!” they said together.
The long ride home was much more enjoyable with Roxy in the car. She chattered endlessly, and the three kids played travel games and exchanged stories about summer adventures. But Tim was a little concerned about her spending an entire week on the farm.
Roxy wasn’t used to farm life. Usually, his cousin visited for a few hours during the day, but she had never spent the night. And Tim knew Roxy had an especially difficult time with certain animals.
“Are you going to go out into the fields with us?” Tim asked Roxy.
Roxy gave him an arrogant little smirk. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Ah, no reason. But if you do, we need to talk about animal safety first,” Tim said.
“Good idea,” Mom said from the front seat.
“Give me a break. I’m not going to hurt any of your animals,” Roxy said.
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Tim said.
Roxy stared at Tim, who now wore a serious look on his face. “You mean they might hurt me?”
“Maybe. We have all kinds of animals around our farm. Some are pretty friendly, some are ugly and most are harmless. But there are a few we stay as far away from as we can,” Tim said.
“Like stray dogs,” Dana said.
“And skunks,” Tim said.
“And rats,” Mr. Slinger, who was driving, said.
Roxy’s eyes opened wide as she leaned forward in her seat to talk with her uncle. “Rats! You have rats on your farm?” she asked Mr. Slinger. All he could do was smile and nod his head “yes.”
“Don’t worry, Roxy. Dad says we have rats, but I’ve never seen one. Just field mice,” Tim said.
“The rats hide under the barn,” Dad said, continuing his warning. “They don’t come out during the day. They prefer to come out at night.” Mom gave her husband a little swat on the arm for teasing his niece.
Roxy shook her head then took a deep breath as she sat back in her seat. “Rats, stray dogs, skunks—anything else I should watch for? Like vampires? Maybe they come out at night with the rats,” Roxy said.
“There are bats. Is that close enough to vampires?” Dana asked. Roxy made a face at her.
“Just keep it simple. If Tim says ‘run,’ you run. And fast. No questions asked,” Mr. Slinger said.
“Great. I’m spending a week in Wild Kingdom!” Roxy said.
Tim figured he should stop talking before Roxy changed her mind about staying with them. But there was one more animal he had to bring up. “So, how do you feel about snakes, Roxy?” he asked.
“Oh, my God!” Roxy said. She then closed her eyes and slid down into her seat.
Tim decided that it wasn’t a good time to warn Roxy about the blue racer. While most people have never heard of the snake, it can be one of the scariest animals on a farm. Found in the upper Midwest, the snake is black, not blue. It isn’t poisonous, but it does have sharp teeth and will bite. And if it’s a really big blue racer—some can grow as long as five feet—its bite can put a child in the hospital.
The snake is an especially intimidating creature to run across in the wild. It normally cruises through pastures with its head sticking up above the grass like a periscope. But despite its racy name, a blue racer is easy to outrun, considering it doesn’t care to chase anything that is too big to eat.
Like many reptiles, blue racers hang around rock piles at night through the early morning to absorb the heat stored in the piles. Farms always have rock piles and usually more than one. The main rock pile on the Slinger’s farm was located near a huge pear tree at the back of the hay field.
The morning after Roxy arrived, it was made clear to Tim that he wasn’t going to be able to skip chores for a week just because he had company. His mom walked into the kitchen and set a large wooden basket on the table.
“We need some fresh fruit,” she said to the three kids.
“Let’s get some pears,” Dana said.
“I meant apples for a pie,” Mom said.
Roxy frowned as she picked up the basket. “I love pears.”
“They’re perfect right now,” Tim said to his mom.
“Okay, pick some pears first then get the apples,” Mom said.
Roxy, Tim and Dana strolled through the knee-high alfalfa field toward the pear tree. They took their time, swatting at bugs and stopping to look at butterflies. When they reached the tree, they could see the green lumps of fruit hanging from the branches—most of the pears were out of their reach.
“Pears are supposed to be yellow,” Roxy said.
Tim studied the branches looking for the best ones. “They’re better green.” Actually, Tim didn’t know if yellow pears tasted better because he had never eaten one. Fruit rarely survived long enough on the farm to become ripe.
Because the bigger pears were so high up in the tree, they decided that one of them would climb up onto the rock pile to reach the fruit.
“I’ll go. You hold the basket and be the lookout,” Tim said to Dana. Since she wasn’t tall enough to reach anything, Dana agreed. But Roxy followed Tim up the rock pile without giving a second thought as to why they needed a lookout.
Just as Tim reached up for the first pear, Dana yelled, “Blue racer!” She took off running. Tim scrambled off the rock pile and quickly caught up to her, leaving Roxy standing on the rock pile, alone and confused. Suddenly realizing she might also be in danger, Roxy took off after them.
“Where are you going?!” Roxy called, trying to catch up to her cousins.
“Blue racer!” Dana yelled again.
Dana and Tim stopped, figuring they were far enough away from the rock pile to be safe. They knew a blue racer wouldn’t chase them unless it thought they were attacking it.
Roxy finally reached them and was out of breath. “What . . . kind of game . . . is ‘blue racer’?” she asked between gasps.
“It’s not a game. It’s a thing,” Tim said.
“What . . . thing?” she asked.
Dana pointed toward a black head with beady eyes moving swiftly through the grass in front of the rock pile. “That thing! Run!”
Roxy screamed and took off running for the barn faster than Tim had ever seen her run. The snake must have been startled by Roxy’s scream because it took off in the opposite direction.
“Where’s she going?” Dana asked.
“To tell Mom she saw a blue racer, I guess.”
“What’s so special about that?” Dana asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe she never saw one before. Looks like it’s gone now. Want a pear?”
“Yeah!” Dana said. Tim and Dana walked back to the tree to fill the basket with the biggest pears they could reach.
By the time Tim and Dana got back to the house with the pears, Roxy was in the kitchen, emptying a basket of red apples into a large pan.
“Where’s Mom?” Tim asked.
“I don’t know. She wasn’t around, so I went out in the backyard and picked the apples she wanted,” Roxy said.
Tim set the basket of pears on the table next to the pan full of apples. He was a little concerned that Roxy was being too quiet. “Are you okay?” he asked.
Roxy set the empty apple basket on the floor, stood up, brushed her hair back with one hand and looked at Tim. “Yes. Now we’re even.”
Tim stared at her for a moment, a little confused. “What’d you mean?”
“I got you beat up. You left me alone with a killer snake,” Roxy said.
Wanting to apologize, Tim picked out the biggest pear he could find in the basket and held it out to Roxy. “Want this one?”
Roxy took it then smiled. “Sure. I never tried a green one before.”
Just then, Mr. Slinger stuck his head inside the back door. “Milking time,” he said.
“Want to help me with my chores in the barn?” Tim asked Roxy.
“Doing what?” Roxy asked.
“He’s a Poop Slinger,” Dana said.
“Shut up, Dee-Dee.”
“I think I’ll pass. I’ve had enough excitement for one day,” Roxy said.
Roxy stuck it out on the Slinger farm for the entire week, even helping by doing her own chores—some which Mrs. Slinger had assigned her—much to Tim’s surprise.
Tim was sad to see Roxy go back to Chicago, but didn’t have time to become too lonely. It was September and school was starting in a few days. Plus, it was the busiest time of the year on the farm since harvest season was in full swing. For the next month, Tim would be getting up early to help with the milking, going to school, coming home, changing clothes and either helping unload wagons of hay or cleaning up after the evening milking. Harvest made for a long day, and chores lasted nearly until bedtime. Then Tim would have to get up early and begin the same routine all over again until the harvest ended.
Believe it or not, starting school each year was always exciting for Tim. Christmas and the start of school were the only two times of the year Tim got brand new clothes. Plus, starting school meant he would see his school friends for the first time since May—if he survived the 30-minute bus ride.
“Bus is here!” Tim heard his mom call on Monday morning, the first day of school.
Tim dropped his spoon into his empty cereal bowl and ran out the back door. There sat the large, dusty, yellow vehicle in his driveway. Dana was already in her assigned seat.
“Good morning, Mr. Horner,” Tim said to the bus driver as he boarded.
“Hi, Tim. Are you going to be late every morning this year?” Mr. Horner asked.
Everyone in the bus laughed as Tim made his way down the aisle. The Slinger farm was the last pickup on the route, which made finding a “friendly seat” a challenge. The bus was full of farm kids, ranging in age from kindergarteners to high school seniors. The youngest kids, those in kindergarten through fourth grade, had to sit in the first five rows. After that, it was every kid for himself. Since Tim was entering fifth grade, this was his first year to pick out his own seat.
Tim walked past Dana and she stuck her tongue out at him. He spotted an empty seat in the sixth row, right next to an older girl. He sat down.
“Hey, Slinger, who said you could sit next to my girl?” one of the high school boys in the row behind him said.
Tim stared straight ahead, ignoring the teenager. The next thing Tim knew, he was lifted out of his seat and passed row to row to the back of the bus. Of course, everyone burst out laughing again. They finally put him down in the last row, right next to one of his classmates.
“The same thing just happened to me,” Rick said.
“Ugh! I think they left that seat open to trick us,” Tim said.
“Yeah. It’s going to be a long year.”
“Maybe not. Did I ever tell you about breaking my nose on the barn steps when I was four?” Tim asked his friend.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Rick asked.
“The least little bump now and it’ll bleed like crazy. Watch.” Tim slapped the side of his nose with the palm of his hand and a stream of blood instantly appeared, running down his lips and chin. He quickly rubbed it around then took his hand away revealing his blood-smeared face. Tim shouted to the bus driver, “Help me! He hit me!”
Several girls screamed and Mr. Horner slammed on the brakes, got out of his seat and headed to the back of the bus to see what was going on.
“I didn’t touch him!” the biggest boy said, but Mr. Horner ignored him. He was more concerned about Tim. He studied Tim’s nose for a moment then pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and started wiping the blood away.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, just a nosebleed. I need a tissue.”
“Come up front.”
Tim glanced at his friend and winked. “I want Rick to come with me,” he said to Mr. Horner.
“Fine. Mary, come back here,” Mr. Horner said to the girl in row six, the one the teenagers had used as bait for their prank.
“Little brat,” Mary said to Tim as she slipped past him.
Mr. Horner retrieved the first aid kit and gave Tim a tissue for his nose. Then he asked Tim in a hushed voice, “How many times do you think that trick is going to work before somebody catches on?”
“This time is the only one I care about,” Tim said.
“Good luck,” Mr. Horner said, returning to his driver’s seat.
Finding a seat was not a problem for Tim and Rick for the rest of that week, as row six was mysteriously left open for them every day.
* * *
Going to school was a nice break from chores. But the harvest made up for any rest school provided. Harvesting the crops was hard work. Fortunately, the harvest was ahead of schedule and life was good, until Thursday afternoon.
“Tim, please go to the principal’s office after school,” his teacher said.
“What’d I do wrong?”
“Nothing. Your grandmother is picking you up after school.”
Tim was excited at first, but his excitement soon gave way to reality. There had to be something seriously wrong at home if he wasn’t going there during the harvest season. He stared at the clock on the wall—the 30 minutes left in the school day passed like molasses.
Finally, the bell rang and Tim headed out the door. Dana was already in the office with their grandmother when he got there—her eyes were red and puffy like she had been crying. “Mom’s in the hospital,” she told Tim.
Tim’s heart raced as he feared the worst. “What’s wrong? An accident?”
“No, she was out on the tractor baling hay and had severe pains in her tummy. They were afraid something was wrong with the baby, so they took her to the hospital,” Grandma said.
“Is she going to be okay?” Dana asked.
“Yes, thank heavens. She has some torn muscles around her tummy, but everything will be fine as long as she rests and takes it easy until the baby is born.”
Tim let out the breath he was holding in. “You mean she can’t work in the fields anymore,” he said.
“She can’t work on that farm anymore, period. Now, bring your things out to the car. You’re spending the night with me.”
It was a short ride to Grandma’s house. Tim looked at Dana, who was sitting in the back seat next to him and quietly staring straight ahead.
“How will we get the harvest done and the milking, too?” Tim asked his grandma. “Dad can’t do it all.”
“Uncle Jack is going to help on weekends until the harvest is done. Your mom and dad will talk to you about the rest of it.”
Dana looked at Tim. She had tears in her eyes.
“When will Mom be home? When can we see her?” Dana asked.
“Tomorrow, after school. I’ll take you to school in the morning then you can ride the bus home, like you usually do,” Grandma said.
Their grandma turned into her driveway and parked the car next to the side door. “Go put your things upstairs and get ready for supper,” she said.
Tim headed for the staircase without saying another word. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen when they got home, but he was pretty sure things would never be normal again.