Tuples and Attributes

Some stories from when he was around 10:

When I was about 10 years old we had gone to campmeeting in the lumber wagon. It was a trip of about 40 miles. We started in the evening and went part way, and slept under the wagon over night. The horses were tied to the wagon and kept walking around so we could not sleep much. The next day we went on to the campsite. It was a new and novel experience to me, so I was well keyed up by the trip. After we arrived home from the campmeeting and I had gone to bed, I roused up dreaming that I had wandered away from our tent and had gone to sleep in some one else’s tent. I crawled out under what I thought was the edge of the tent, and was quite amazed that I could not reach the ground with my feet. I then gave a big jump, and on the way down I awoke. I had been asleep in the upstairs of our house. I had gotten up and opened the screen and sat on the windowsill of the open window, and jumped out, and landed on the ground below. I had cleared some boxes that were immediately under the window, so did not get hurt. Before I could fully realize what had happened, father was out beside me asking what in the world I thought I was doing.

I was about 10 years old when a rather amusing incident happened. I had gone after the cows in the early morning. The sun had not yet risen, and I was still a bit groggy with sleep. The cows were more than a half mile from the barns. When I got to where the cows were, my dog Mage, that I had taken along to help bring the cows home, ran up on a straw stack and began to bark viciously. I said to Mage, “sick em”. He came down and crawled under a fence and went down into an oat field of ripening grain. I followed him. He soon stopped and began barking more viciously at something in front of him that looked like a ball of fur. His barks became continuously weaker, and I finally recognized the smell, and realized what the ball of fur was. We both ran back to the pasture, and as soon as the cows got a whiff of us, they ran to the barns as fast as they could go. We could not come into the same yard with them, but had to crawl under the fence in back of the barn. When I got to the house, Mother would not let me in the house. I passed out the joke that I had met up with an old friend. Mother brought me out some clothes into which I changed in the barn. I had my breakfast served to me out in the yard, but it tasted terrible. Scrubbing with soap did not seem to help much. I buried my clothes in moist earth, and after three days they were odor free. Since that experience I have been wary of skunks. Bathing helped a little, but it was several days before I was odor free.

I was about nine or ten when an incident happened that caused me a great amount of grief. It was a rainy day, and I took a parasol with me to get the cows. The cows were somewhat undecided as to whether they wanted to stay and eat more grass or go to the barn. I found that by raising the parasol quickly and giving a loud whosh, the cows would run rapidly towards the barn. As we were nearing a narrow lane, I raised the umbrella with a loud whosh; and one of the cows that was behind could not get past the rest soon enough to suit her, and in her fright she jumped into the fence. She tore the wires loose from the posts, and the top wire hung to her just above the front legs. It was a new galvanized wire and did not break, and she ran with it sawing a gash into her breast. It cut clear through her brisket, so I could see through to the insides of the cow. She finally stopped and I pulled the wire loose from her body. I went to the house and called father. He went to look at the cow and went to the house and got a gun and killed her. She was a big cow, and fat. Father refused to butcher her. It was hot weather and 12 miles to town by team, a 5 hour trip, to get ice, and father was afraid the meat would spoil before it could be sufficiently cooled. I cried myself to sleep for several nights after the incident. The only consolation I could think of was that I would some day grow up and work and earn money to pay for the cow, that I had caused to die. I did not get a licking, but I think that I never, till now, told the reason why the cow jumped into the fence.