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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781938486449 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Fulcrum Publishing |
| Publication date: | 11/30/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 160 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
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The Dogs and I
True Tails from the Mississippi
By Kenny Salwey
Fulcrum Publishing
Copyright © 2013 Kenny SalweyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-938486-44-9
CHAPTER 1
A Motley Pair
My first memory of a dog is from when, as my hill country folks would say, "I was knee high to a grasshopper." I was maybe three or four years old. As I was walking between our house and the barn, I was suddenly attacked by our dog, Brownie. She was short-haired, all brown except for some white on her chest and front legs, and stood about knee high to an average sized adult person. Brownie charged straight at me, leaped into the air, landed against my chest, and knocked me flat on my back. Then she stood on me and thoroughly washed my face, which no doubt needed it anyway. I wrapped my arms around her, and we laughed and yipped and rolled about in the hot summer's dust. After that, a "rasslin' match" somewhere among the farm buildings became a daily routine.
Over the next couple of years Brownie and I made many happy trips tramping back and forth from the house to the garden, where we would "help Ma" until she'd chase us out of there for knocking over her plants. From there we headed off to the pig pen. I'd crawl up on the board fence to watch the old sows lie on their sides grunting contentedly as the baby pigs nursed. Brownie, on the other hand, was anything but content. She'd jump up and down, barking as if to say, Get up, you big brutes, and do something. They never did.
We also found fun near the chicken coop, where we liked to sit in the shade of a giant old elm tree that overhung the chicken-wire fence. The chickens came and went as they pleased in and out of the coop, scratching in the dirt and picking bugs out of the grass. Being of the Leghorn breed, they were lightweight and could fly a little. Now and then one would fly high enough to clear the fence. Then the race was on! Brownie and I would chase after the hen in a helter-skelter fashion until I caught it and tossed it back inside the fence, where it would ruffle its feathers and slowly strut about among the rest of the flock.
So it was that our days passed — until Pa brought another dog home. We'd never seen anything quite like this new dog. He was quite large, maybe ninety pounds or so, and looking at him alongside Brownie was like seeing Mutt and Jeff in person.
The two dogs met in usual dog fashion. They walked stiff-legged round and round, each trying to sniff the other's behind. They would break apart suddenly, run a short distance in opposite directions, and then return to their sniffing ritual. The new dog had coarse, wiry, tight-knit hair. His face seemed square, and bushy eyebrows stuck out so far they nearly covered his eyes. His tail was docked short. Pa said he'd had a dog that looked like this one when he was a kid, back in about 1920. That dog had Airedale blood in him, and Pa figured this one did too.
Even though our new dog had some years on him, Pa thought he'd work out just fine. There was one problem, however. We couldn't come up with a proper name for him.
Then one morning as the family was eating breakfast, our hired man, Orville Blank, looked up from his stack of pancakes and declared, "You know somethin', folks? A number of years ago all we heard on the radio and read in the papers was 'Wendell Willkie' this and that. Why not call him Willkie?" Ma and Pa stared long and hard at Orville and then said in unison, "Why not?" My brother, Gerry, nodded his head in agreement, and I did too, even though I didn't know Wendell Willkie from Jack Frost.
Around that time I was old enough to start going to school. School put a dent in our ramblin' times, to say the least. Every day I'd run home from school to be met in the yard by Brownie and Willkie. A whole lot of jumping, barking, tail wagging, and hand licking went on before I could get on with my nightly chore of carrying wood from the woodshed to the house. As I worked to take a piece of wood from the pile and stack it on the rickety old sleigh, Brownie stood guard on one side of the pile and Willkie took the other side, watching for any mice trying to escape from their hiding places in the wood pile. They never ate any mice they caught; they just killed them and spit them out. After a while, I'd gather up the dead mouse, carry it to the barn with the dogs watchfully tagging along behind, and feed their catch to the cats.
Then I'd return to the loaded sleigh and pull it over to the house, where there was an outside-inside wood box mounted in the kitchen wall. The box sat on hinges and had a handle on the outside. I'd grab the handle and tip the box out to fill it with wood.
Now came the tricky part of the whole operation. I'd put one hand against the top of the box, put the other on the handle, and push with all my might in order to tip the full box back in to the kitchen. I was always careful not to let it slam shut too hard. Most times this went according to plan, but occasionally my top hand became pinched between the wood box and the kitchen wall. At first I would try to remain calm, hoping I could simply pull my hand out of my glove. That was not always the case. Now I'd begin hollering, hoping Ma would hear me from inside the house. If that didn't work, I'd holler and pound on the wall with my free hand. When that failed, I'd holler and pound once in a while and then just stand there, waiting in hopes that Gerry or Pa would find me and free me from that god-awful box.
Meanwhile, the dogs sat nearby, ears perked up watching and listening to me carrying on. I wondered why they didn't bark once or twice to sound the alarm. I guess they were having too much fun watching my antics to spoil it all with barking.
No matter. Somebody always came to rescue me from my wood box plight, and the two dogs and I went on to seek other adventures around that little hill country farm.
Just as my early childhood days passed away, so did Brownie and Willkie. What a motley pair they were. I guess you could say we were a motley trio. But we sure brought each other a whole lot of happiness.
CHAPTER 2Workin' Dogs
Rover looked like he had some sort of herding shepherd in him. He was medium sized, maybe fifty pounds, and his hair was long and white with some large brown patches. His ears hung down a bit, and he mostly wore a smile.
The thing Rover enjoyed most in life was rounding up the cattle. In fact, he was so good at it that each morning before milking, all we had to do was stand out in the barnyard and call, "Here, Rover. Come on, boy. Here, Rover," and the cows would start coming up out of the pasture toward us. They knew full well if they didn't head for the barn old Rover would soon be with them, making sure they did.
Rover would circle around behind the herd and nip at the heels of those who lagged behind. Once he had all the cattle headed in the right direction, he'd slowly follow, letting out a yip now and then just to be sure the herd knew he was still with them. He never chased the cows so hard that they ran, because that's hard on them when their udders are full of milk. Pa wouldn't have stood for something like that.
When all the cattle were in the barnyard, Rover took his place outside the wooden fence, where he waited "on call" in case he was needed.
Before the evening milking, the job was more challenging. The cattle had been grazing all day in the large daytime pasture. A crick ran through the middle of it, and wonderful old burr oaks and cottonwoods stood along the crick banks, offering the cows shade near the flowing, fresh water. It naturally followed that on beastly hot, humid dog days of summer, the cows preferred to remain lying under the trees, chewing their cuds and relaxing. No amount of hollering, "Here, Rover" could coax them from their far-off retreat.
If brother Gerry was available, he usually took Rover to go bring the cows home. Pa knew that if I went, there'd be a certain amount of dallying. But sometimes the job fell to me. And oh, was it an awful job. I'd set off with Rover on the dusty cow path leading down the hill to the crick. Then we'd follow the winding crick upstream. Here's where the wasted time began.
A leopard frog jumped from the bank and — kaplush — hit the water. I couldn't help myself. I had to peek over the edge of the bank; Rover did too. We watched the frog kick long under the gin clear water until he popped his head up on the other side of the crick. He stared back at us, goggle-eyed, without blinking.
We went on. Every curve and bend in the crick presented a new chance to see something. At one place the swift currents of a springtime flood had carved out a hole in the crick maybe three or four feet deep. The water was slow and quiet here. There were fish near the bottom finning away their time. I mentioned this to Rover as we sat on the high bank, and we both peered down into the water for a spell.
In another quiet, deep spot we watched a muskrat swim. He paddled steadily along, his long leathery tail swinging back and forth to steer him where he wanted to go. Suddenly he dove into his underwater tunnel in the crick bank. We didn't see him again.
Farther up the crick an orange fox squirrel scampered away from the water and bounded to the safety of a nearby burr oak tree. As we passed under him he scolded us. Rover looked up at him as if to say, Oh, give it a rest, will ya? We're just passin' through.
Finally we came upon the cows, in the shade of the old cottonwood trees. Upon the sight of Rover they rose up from their beds to stretch a bit, then plodded along the cow path toward home in single file with the matriarch of the herd in the lead.
When the cows were in the barnyard, I closed the gate behind me, and Rover went to his watchin' place.
Pa had the door open and was ready for milking. He asked, "Trouble findin' the cows, Kenny?" I said, "Well, they were way back by them old cottonwoods. I did see some fish in a deep hole, though."
Pa smiled. "I guess we're gonna have to go after 'em sometime soon, then." I smiled too.
When I was about six years old, I got my hands on an old BB gun, a hand-me-down from my older brother, Gerry. Wow! Now I had a real purpose in life. I had heard Ma and Pa talking about how brother Gerry was old enough to do "men's work" around the farm instead of hunting house sparrows and starlings and such. They said, "Kenny is big enough now to take over the job."
Sparrows and starlings were considered vermin on the farm. They ate up a lot of grain and pooped all over the hay in the barn so the cows and horses didn't like to eat it.
Rover and I took to our new "job" with dedication and a great deal of gusto. We spent every spare moment at it. Any sparrow seen sitting on a shed roof or a tree branch was fair game. (The ones on top of the barn were out of range of my BB gun.)
One of our favorite hunting places was at the granary, where we ground the grain stored there into animal feed. A certain amount of grain was always spilled outside. This was good news for the sparrows. There was also a place for them to perch on several tattered electrical wires that drooped from a pole in the yard to the granary. Perfect setup. I opened the sliding door about two feet, and Rover and I slipped inside. I worked the lever action to cock the gun and stood still. Rover sat patiently at my leg. We both peeked out to watch for sparrows.
In due time, they came. About a dozen or so landed on the ground and began to peck at their meal. Now was not the time to shoot, as they were moving about too much. Finally a few flew up to their wire perch to soak up the sun and rest a while before eating some more. This was the time I was waiting for. I brought the gun to my shoulder and did just as Pa said I should: aimed carefully, took a deep breath to steady my nerves, let half of the breath out, and squeezed the trigger.
Most times I missed the bird. In those days BB guns were not very powerful. In fact, I could see the BB fly past the sparrow. However, once in a while I hit one. It would tumble to the ground, and Rover would be out the door and on the bird in a flash. He'd mouth it, sniff it a little to make sure it was a goner, and come back inside to sit by my leg.
Before long we had company on our hunts. A mama cat who was nursing her kittens in the barn began to tag along. She took the sparrows after Rover was through with them.
Soon there were other cats — many other cats. They placed themselves around the granary in the most likely positions to get a snack, waiting and hoping against hope that I would actually hit a sparrow. But Rover always had first dibs on the birds. After he pronounced them dead, the cats would pounce, and the lucky one would quickly carry its prize away to some hiding place.
When we marched across the yard on our hunting trips, I'm sure we were a strange sight indeed: me in the lead, my trusty BB gun in hand, Rover proudly prancing behind me, and a bevy of cats trailing off into the distance.
Nighttime sparrow hunting was a horse of a different color. Two people were needed for these expeditions. Usually this boiled down to brother Gerry and me.
We hunted in the hay barn early on in the winter, when the hay on the floor was still stacked high. Over the course of the winter, we'd pitch hay down through the holes in the haymow floor to feed the cows and horses below, causing the pile of stacked hay to shrink. We stood on that hay in order to shoot birds, and as the winter wore on our shots got longer and the birds were harder to hit. I had enough trouble hitting them without this added difficulty.
So on cold winter nights we'd bundle up in our warmest clothes, take the BB gun out of the closet, grab a flashlight, and head for the porch door. Before we got there Ma would say, "Careful out there, boys. Don't wanna have you shoot your eyes out. That BB gun is dangerous."
Pa would add, "Don't burn them batteries down in the flashlight, either. They cost money, you know."
And off we'd go. The peckin' order was like this: Gerry in the lead with the flashlight, me next with BB gun in hand, Rover following me, and a few cats bringing up the rear. The hunt was on in earnest.
At the hay barn door, we shut off the flashlight, slid open the door, and entered quietly. It was pitch black. The flashlight stayed off so we wouldn't disturb the sparrows sleeping above us. We slowly groped our way to an old wooden ladder that leaned against the top of the stacked hay. I held the ladder while Gerry climbed to the top. Then he held onto the top of the ladder so I could come up to join him. We both rested a bit as we lay in the pungent hay. The quiet was broken only by the cows and horses munching the hay from their mangers. The smell of the animals wafted up through the open hay holes. Rover and the cats sat watchfully at the foot of the ladder, waiting for the action to begin.
Gerry snapped the flashlight to life. I held the BB gun at the ready. Our four eyes focused on that narrow beam of light as it slowly swept along the hay barn rafters. The roof boards were nailed to the rafters with a two-inch space between them. There is where the sparrows made their beds by crouching snugly inside the gaps. But every space did not hold a sleeping bird; maybe one in ten did. When the light found the bird, Gerry would step behind me to shine the light over my shoulder and along the barrel of the gun, putting the sparrow in the spotlight.
This gave me a chance to practice Pa's instructions. I aimed carefully, took a deep breath, and squeezed the trigger. I guess sometimes I forgot to leave half of that deep breath out. Maybe that's why I missed so many times.
Now, a missed shot from a BB gun outside in the open air was not a big deal. The BB flew a short distance only to harmlessly fall to the earth. A missed shot in the hay barn was a whole different ballgame. In the barn the BB flew almost directly overhead to hit against hard boards while we were looking up at the target — not a good combination! Sometimes the BB bounced back at us to strike our hat or coat, a vivid reminder of Ma's warning about shooting our eyes out.
Our eyes did remain in place, although a BB hit Gerry on the cheek one time. He got by with a story about how he had been crawling about in the hay looking for a shot sparrow when a hay stalk poked him in the face. It was a close call in more than one way!
In late winter we moved our nighttime sparrow hunting expeditions to what we called the straw pile. The straw pile started with a post-and-beam structure about thirty feet square and six feet high in the middle of the barnyard, which always stood there year-round. The straw was added at threshing time. A threshing machine, belt driven by a tractor, separated the grain from the straw and blew the straw onto the post-and-beam platform in the barnyard, creating the straw pile. From that pile we would carry straw for animal bedding into the barn.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Dogs and I by Kenny Salwey. Copyright © 2013 Kenny Salwey. Excerpted by permission of Fulcrum Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
1. Introduction,2. A Motley Pair,
3. Workin' Dogs,
4. The Multi-taskers,
5. Old Spook and the Last Duck Hunt,
6. Ragtag Spike,
7. Joey Girl,
8. The Black Widow,
9. Travelin' Travis,
10. McTavish,
11. The Redemption Coon,
12. A Name to Remember,
13. About the Author,