Chapter Four: Naptime on the Prairie

The timing on this deal couldn’t have been better. Drover rushed over to Slim and started wig-wagging his tail. Slim pulled out the dipstick, squinted at it, and began looking around for a grease rag on which to wipe it.

Now do you see what’s coming? Tee hee. I didn’t wish to be cruel to the runt, but let’s face it. Most of the time it was MY ear that got used as a grease rag, and I didn’t figure it would hurt Drover to be pressed into service. He would get a dirty ear, but so what?

One of Drover’s problems is that he stays clean all the time. Show me a dog who never gets dirty and I’ll show you . . . something. A dog who has missed out on many of Life’s Richest Moments.

It was for his own good, see, and it also served him right for making a mockery of my Poetry Lesson.

The stage was set. Slim glanced around for something on which to wipe his dipstick, and there was little Drover at his feet—earnest, sincere, happy, cheerful, and dumb.

“Hank!” Slim called.

Huh?

“Come here!”

Me? There must have been some mistake. I mean, we had already made arrangements for Drover to do the job, right?

“Come here, pooch. I need a big floppy ear for this, and yours is about the size of a tortilla.”

A tortilla! Why, I had never been so insulted! And what did the size of my ear have to do with it anyway? I mean, any moron could clean a dipstick on . . .

“Hurry up, you’re burning daylight.”

I couldn’t believe it. He was serious about this; he wasn’t kidding. This was an outrage!

Okay, have we discussed the problem with Drover’s ears? Maybe not, but we should. See, he had a rinky-dink set of ears, not a big manly set like mine, and when our cowboys needed to borrow an ear for an important job, naturally they, uh, came to me. Drover’s ears flunked the test.

So when the call came for me to step forward and offer my ear in selfless service to the ranch, I was filled with pride. Slim had picked the right dog and made a wise decision. Holding my head at a proud angle, I marched forward, elbowed Mister Squeakbox out of the way, and offered my ear for the greater glory of the ranch.

Slim took my ear and folded it in half. “Heck, if a guy had some guacamole and cheese, he could build a pretty nice burrito.”

I tried to ignore him. Slim wants to be a comedian when he grows up, but some of us have doubts that he’ll ever grow up. And it’s no secret that his jokes are stale and corny.

A little humor there, did you catch it? Corny. Tortillas are made of corn, see? Ha ha. Okay, maybe it wasn’t so great, but it was better than Slim’s stale humor.

I didn’t mind lending my ear to The Cause, but I didn’t appreciate him saying that my ear was as big as a TORTILLA. It wasn’t. My ears have a very pleasant shape, and you don’t have to take my word on that. Ask any lady dog in Texas. They know great ears when they see them, and they’ve always gone nuts about mine.

Anyway, I did my loyal service to the ranch, ignored Slim’s childish jokes, and stood there whilst he pulled the dipstick through the fold of my ear. That done, he scrubbed his fingernails on the other ear and patted me on the chest so hard that it made me cough.

HARK!

“Thanks, pooch. You’re a true hero, I don’t care what everybody says.”

At that point, I turned to Drover, who was still hopping around like a cricket and wearing a loony grin. Oh, and he was squeaking, “Happy, cheerful, happy, cheerful!”

“You can shut it off, Drover. The show’s over.”

“How’d I do? Did I cheer him up? Boy, that was fun.”

My lips formed a snarl, and I found myself wondering . . . how does he always manage to weasel out of the dirty jobs? If it happened once or twice, you might not think anything about it, but this happens over and over.

Oh well.

The important thing is that Slim had managed to check the oil in the truck, and he was ready to move on to the next step. He climbed into the cab, pumped the gas pedal, pulled out the choke, and hit the starter. The motor cranked and groaned, and finally started, sending a plume of blue-and-white smoke through the cab.

See, it didn’t have a muffler or tailpipe, so all the exhaust smoke came straight out of the mani-flubber . . . whatever you call that thing . . . and it fumed up the cab so badly, Slim vanished inside a blue cloud. Now and then I caught sight of his hands flapping the smoke around, and I could hear him coughing.

He left the motor running and went into the machine shed for his hay chaps, hay hooks, water jug, and sack lunch. When he returned, he pitched me and Mister Happy up into the seat and pointed a bony finger at the paper sack.

“That’s my lunch. Don’t even think about getting into it.”

Me? Steal his lunch? Why, such a wicked thought had never . . . sniff sniff . . . by George, it did smell pretty good.

“Hank, get your nose out of my lunch!”

Sure, fine. I was just . . . boy, friendship sure doesn’t count for much on this outfit, not when there’s a scrap of food involved.

He threw the truck into first gear, and we were off to the hay field. Over the roar of the motor, Slim yelled, “She’s kind of loud, ain’t she?”

Yes, loud and smoky. Cough.

We drove north to the county road, turned right, and followed it east for a mile to the alfalfa patch. There, we left the main road and drove out into the field, whose surface was lined with row after row of hay bales. Eight hundred of them.

Slim stopped the truck and gazed out at the field. “You know, when a guy’s driving down the road and sees a bunch of hay on the ground, it looks kind of pretty. But it changes things when he knows he has to load and stack every stinking bale.”

We all climbed out of the truck. Slim strapped on his hay chaps to protect his legs from the scratchy hay, pulled on a pair of leather gloves, and seized a hay hook in each hand. Then he went to work.

Have we gone over the procedures for loading and hauling hay? Maybe not, so let’s take a quick review. When one man is doing the job, he parks the truck beside one of the lines of bales and loads up the ones that are within easy walking distance, usually five or six bales.

With a hay hook in each hand, he stabs the hooks into the ends of a bale and lifts it up to his thighs. Holding the bale against his legs, he carries it to the truck and throws it up onto the flatbed. After he has loaded five or six bales, he climbs up onto the bed of the truck and stacks the bales, two across and one longways. Then he drives the truck forward and repeats the process.

After he’s done this about ten times, he’s got a load on the back of the truck, three or four bales high. He drives the truck back to headquarters, throws the bales off on the ground in the stack lot, and starts building a big haystack that will remain in the lot until we feed it to the cattle over the winter.

Then it’s back to the field for another load. Over and over, all day. Whew! Just talking about it makes me hot and thirsty. See, what you have to remember is that there’s no shade in a hay field, and by noon, the temperature might be up in the high nineties or even over a hundred degrees.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that while Slim was loading and stacking the hay, we dogs had our own work to do. Every time he picked up a bale, we had to be cocked and ready to dive on any mice or rats that had taken up residence beneath the bale, so don’t get the idea that Slim was the only one working his tail off.

Mousing is a very demanding job, and it requires a specialized kind of tail-work that most dogs don’t even know about. See, before Slim picks up a bale, we have to be in the Lock-and-Load Position, whipping our tails back and forth to let him know that we’re ready to pounce on whatever dangerous beasts might be lurking under there.

Sometimes it’s just crickets or beetle bugs, but sometimes it’s a field mouse or even a huge pack rat. Pack rats are a special challenge, don’t you see, because they not only can run, hide, and dive into holes, but if you happen to grab one, he’ll whip around and bite your lip off.

For that reason, we . . . uh . . . sometimes find it convenient to let the pack rats escape. I mean, who wants to go through life without lips? Those lips are pretty important. Without lips, you can’t whistle, smile, pout, or deliver flaming kisses to lady dogs, and who needs that? So, yes, we had developed a special set of procedures for dealing with pack rats.

We pretty muchly left ’em alone, if you want to know the truth.

Anyhow, that’s today’s lesson on loading, stacking, and hauling hay. It’s pretty impressive that a dog would know so much about the hay business, isn’t it?

You bet.

Now, where were we? Oh, yes, in the cool of morning we hauled four loads of alfalfa to the stack lot, and by then the heat had moved over the hay field like a heavy blanket. A white ball of sun blazed down on us from a cloudless sky, and there wasn’t a breath of wind. Slim had dripped enough sweat to fill a fair-sized bucket, and he was looking a little wilted.

He poured some water down the back of his shirt and fanned his face with his hat. “If Loper was here, he’d crack the whip and we’d keep a-going, but you know what?” He grinned down at us dogs. “He ain’t here. I finally got him off the ranch, and now I’m going to take me a big old juicy nap.” He frowned. “Wait, hold everything. Have I sung you dogs my special deluxe nap-taking song?”

Drover and I exchanged looks of dread. Oh no, another of his ridiculous songs! Could we stand another one? It was too late for us to run and hide, so we put on our bravest faces and prepared to listen to the tiresome thing. Here’s what he sang.

Naptime on the Prairie

There’s many a story ’bout old-timey cowboys

That tell of both famine and feast.

They drove herds of cattle to Dodge City, Kansas,

And put ’em on trains to the East.

They crossed ’em through mountains and valleys and deserts,

And drove ’em through blizzards and sleet.

From daylight to darkness, those heroes pushed on

And rarely had chances to sleep.

Well, it’s naptime on the prairie,

When a cowboy’s ambition grows dim.

In the heat of the day,

It’s just normal to lay

In the shade of a cottonwood limb.

A modern cowpuncher who works on a ranch

Has adapted on different lines.

With inside commodes and gravel-packed roads,

He’s missed out on lots of good times.

There’s much that he missed but things that he’s gained

In being a hundred years late.

See, now when the boss drives away from the ranch,

The cowpuncher heads for the shade.

Well, it’s naptime on the prairie,

When a cowboy’s ambition grows dim.

In the heat of the day,

It’s just normal to lay

In the shade of a cottonwood limb.

Those ’punchers who lived in the great golden days

Never thought about grabbing a nap.

Or maybe they did and just didn’t tell it

To grandchildren perched on their lap.

They say that those trail-driving cowboys were tougher

Than those of us living today.

I really don’t care, as I pull up a chair

And take me a nap in the shade.

Well, it’s naptime on the prairie,

When a cowboy’s ambition grows dim.

In the heat of the day,

It’s just normal to lay

In the shade of a cottonwood limb.

In the heat of the day,

It’s just normal to lay

In the shade of a cottonwood limb.