“You’re going to be alone on the place this weekend,” my father said as though that was no big deal. “I expect you to handle it.”
We were walking back toward the barn from the fenced pasture where we kept our best brood cows. The ladies - as my dad called them - turned their faces toward us, then went back to grazing the sweet short grass of their pasture.
“For how long?” I said, trying to control my uncertain voice that now and then still turned squeaky.
“Two days. I have to go to a medical conference in Chicago. There’re a couple of presentations I need to hear. You’ll be okay.”
I had never been left alone on our farm, and the only thing I was ever in charge of was the dogs. My father always found time for the cattle, even if he’d had one of those days when everyone in town seemed to get sick. It didn’t matter if he was tired to the bone when he came home, he still made the rounds of the place, looking after his herd of Herefords. My mother had gone to Canton, Ohio, to visit her sister for a few days, and now my father had to go away, too. I thought they could have planned things better, but it gave me a chance to show my stuff. I knew I could take care of just about anything that might come up, and I was ready to prove that to my dad.
I finished my chores at the barn and went to wash up for supper. The kid I saw in the mudroom mirror looked confident, even sort of smug. I gave him a thumbs up and went into the kitchen.
I had, in my fifteenth year, got the idea that I knew more than most people. Certainly more than my parents. And I did not hesitate to demonstrate how smart I was. If my father, for instance, started holding forth at dinner on baseball - a sport he cherished - and got a fact wrong or quoted a player’s stats incorrectly, I would point out his error, whenever I could. My father wasn’t always happy that I knew so much.
One summer night a while back, as he pushed some green beans around on his plate with his fork, he got to talking about responsibility and quoted a remark of Connie Mack’s. Then my dad rested his chin on his hands thoughtfully and began by saying what a great baseball manager he thought Connie Mack was. “He knew what really matters. Once he told a reporter, ‘I guess more players beat themselves than are ever beat by an opposing team. The first thing any man has to know is how to handle himself.’”
“He said ‘licked,’” I said, correcting my father. “It’s ‘licked themselves’ and ‘licked by an opposing team.’”
He folded his napkin, laid it carefully on the table, leaned forward on his elbows, stared me in the face and said, “So what?”
“So you got it wrong,” I said, emboldened by the plain fact that I was correct.
“I got the spirit right,” he said. “You missed the point. The point is you got to know yourself. Know what you can do and what you can’t. So why don’t you just bring a charge against us a little instead of missing the gist of what I’m saying to you?”
“Try not to be so annoying,” my mother said. I thought for an instant she was talking to my father, but she was not.
My dad was often put out with me, and so I was a little surprised - a few weeks later - that he would go to Chicago and trust me with the cattle.
Our farm wasn’t as large as most, but there was a lot to be responsible for, and I was determined to handle whatever came up, to show my dad I wasn’t just all talk.
As soon as he left on his trip, I headed out to the barn lot to see that everything was okay when I noticed the water in the cattle trough was low. I didn’t understand how that could be since a float and lever maintained the level.
When I investigated, I saw the float hanging in mid-air and not a drop of water came from the filler pipe.
I checked the pump. The casing was hot. I checked the fuses in the barn, and one was blown. So I disconnected the pump, took it into the workroom and in a half-hour had replaced the carbon brushes and repaired the short - the source of the problem.
When I turned the system back on, the sweet purr of the pump engine as it kicked made me feel like an old hand. But the problem with the pump turned out to be a breeze compared to the disaster that confronted me the very next day.
I mucked out one of the stalls in the barn where my father kept cows that were close to calving. Only Low Loretta was close to her time. She got her name because her unusually short legs kept her pretty low to the ground. She was not much to look at, but she threw some fine calves and was my dad’s favorite.
She liked the orchard to the pasture especially because of her fondness for apples. She was allowed in that pasture during the day, as long as someone was working around the barn to keep an eye on her. And my dad always put her up at night when she was close to her time so she could be checked on easily. She often had trouble at calving. On Saturday afternoon, I went down to the pond to fish a little and take a swim. I left Loretta in the orchard lot. She was basking in a spot of sun under a tree and looked too content to move. I wasn’t planning to be gone for very long.
As I lay on the raft I’d built a summer ago, I thought of how the first words out of my dad’s mouth would be, “Everything okay?” I’d be able tell him that everything went fine. Nothing I couldn’t handle.
My daydream ended abruptly, however. On my way back to the barn, I heard a sound I’d never heard before. There were two distinct and terrible noises. The first was like water gurgling through mud that was followed by a gut-wrenching cough.
I ran toward the orchard and found, about twenty feet from the barn, Loretta down on her front knees, throat stretched skyward, eyes rolled back in her head, looking as though she were about to die.
I knelt beside her and began to stroke and soothe her. She made a gasping sound and her sides heaved as though she was having a hard time breathing. I felt under her jaw and down along her throat. There was a hard place in her neck. I knew right away that she’d got a green apple stuck in there. Even though she was about to choke to death, I was determined to handle the problem myself.
I massaged her throat to try to force the apple loose, but I couldn’t budge it in either direction. The apple was lodged too far down to pull out. I told her I was going to get someone who could fix her up and ran to call our vet, Dr. Carrico.
When I told him what was the matter he said, “Stay with the stupid critter, keep her head up and I’ll get there as quick as I can.”
Doctor Carrico was an outspoken man of strong opinions and plain language. When he arrived and saw Loretta near death, he gave her a cussing like I’d never heard. “When’s her calf due?”
“Week, maybe.”
“I hope we don’t lose it.”
He felt around her neck studying the situation. Dr. Carrico moved deliberately. I never saw him hurry even in an emergency. Finally, he told me to go to the barn and get him a couple of short boards. When I found what he wanted, he pushed Loretta over on her side, placed one board under her neck where the apple was and another one on top. My dad’s favorite cow was very near her last breath and suffering badly. I could not imagine what he was thinking of doing. Then, as I watched in horror, Doctor Carrico put his foot on the uppermost board and stomped hard on it. Twice.
Loretta gave a great wheezing cough and swallowed the now-crushed apple. I sat back on my heels staring at the vet in amazement. I would never have thought of doing what he did. Never. If Loretta had to depend on me to save her, she’d be dead. I felt inadequate and ashamed. I even thought about not telling my dad, but dropped that stupid idea in a hurry. He was not a man you kept things from. Loretta, now free to breathe, struggled to her feet, regarded us both with a baleful eye as though we were the cause of her problem, and then walked off toward her stall in the barn. I guess she felt safe there.
“It’ll be awhile before she eats another green apple,” Doc said.
“I bet you’re right about that.”
“Where’s your dad?”
“In Chicago.”
“And he left you to see about things?”
“Yes, sir, he did.”
“Well, he’s lucky you know when to holler for help. Good thing you didn’t wait one more second.”
Late Sunday afternoon, I began watching for my dad’s car to turn in our road from the highway just below the south pasture. I rehearsed telling him what had happened, hoping I could find a way to hide how much of a failure I felt. But when he finally got home, there was nothing to do but tell it straight.
My dad didn’t say anything much when I told him what had happened to Loretta. I said that I went off to fish and left her in the orchard. I even admitted I tried to treat her myself instead of calling the vet right away.
He didn’t seem to react much, just kept saying, “Hmm, I see,” a lot. I guessed he was very disappointed in me.
Almost two weeks to the day after her terrible ordeal, Loretta had her calf. We were in the barn with her when she delivered. My dad wiped the newborn off with a burlap feed bag, and Loretta waited patiently while it stood for its first nursing. The calf was a pretty little heifer, wonderfully proportioned and strong boned. After a while my father said, “What are you gonna name it?”
That surprised me because he always named the cattle. Then he said, “She’s yours. You earned her.” I looked at him in wonder. He smiled at me and slapped me on the shoulder as he left the stall. “Take good care of her,” he said as though he trusted I could do that. That evening, I went down to the pond to be by myself for awhile. The sun had set, but the sky still glowed. I looked up the gentle hill toward the house. Lights were now on in the living room, and I could see the shadow of my father as he got up from his chair and crossed the room to get something or other.
On that evening, in the fading light, I decided a few things: to stop tormenting my dad all the time, to give up being such a wise guy and to name my little Hereford calf after a legendary baseball manager. I called her Connie Mack.
- W. W. Meade