pull up a stump and i will tell you a story

[pcombe]

The day a young country lad discovers the meaning behind the words
“CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE”




This is a story about one of the many roads traveled by a young farm boy to discover a rite of passage.
It is a TRUE story for your amusement.

First let’s set the stage for the drama about to unfold:

For the uninitiated, there is a subtle difference between range cows and milk cows.
The range cow has a wide streak of just “pure cussedness” while the milk cow has been domesticated to the point where they are merely endowed with “contrary behaviors.”

If you were to stop your bike on the highway, and while gazing with idyllic contemplation at the country side you are riding through. You may not notice that the milk cow is probably not the brightest star on Old Mc. Donald’s horizon?

While it is no doubt arguable the twice Dailey milking of cows is one of the most repetitive and down right boring chores a young man faces growing up on a working farm it is also fertile ground ( pun intended) for his active imagination.

Morning or evening you might find the young man kicking a rock down the road a quarter mile or so to drop the wire gate and let the cows out of the day pasture, follow them back to the corral and open the gate to the barn, while grandfather heads off the other direction to do the same with a second set of “milker’s.”
Grandpa is in a hurry this morning because he has to go into town and load up the old Rambler wagon for his thrice weekly run delivering rural route mail.

THE LESSON

When my cows are in the corral I open the barn door and this mornings milking operation gets under way (cows are clever about hiding their boredom).but not so a young man. It happens twice a day, every danged day! Day in and day out, year after year!

The “girls” file into the barn and always head into the same stall each time.
I lock their heads into the stays at the front of the manger and they munch contentedly on hay.
I hobble the first cow (lest her contrary nature forces her to kick over the milk bucket) and with experienced hands I make short wet work of the first cow.
Having moved to the second cow I take a break half way through and spend a few minutes doing what a boy (bout 13 at the time) does, which is day dream!
I am young enough so as not to be jaded by life, yet wise enough in the ways of nature as country lads are apt to be?

I am squirting streams of milk into the faces of the anxiously mewling barn cats,
And noticing that the cow I am milking reminds me of some of the older girls that live in the Big Lost River valley of Idaho where the farm sits on land wedged between the lost river to the North and encompassing spring creek to the south.

I notice my cow has huge Betty Davis eyes and lashes that lay long and gentle along her cheek just as Marilyn Monroe’s do; and my older sister and friends strive to mimic with a feminine beauty weapon called an eye lash curler (“they do double duty equally well for a pocket vise for tying fishing flies boys”) and thick layers of mascara.
I chuckle and concede to myself that I really can’t see the venerable Miss Davis nor the buxom Norma Jean as ever having been a milk maid and am about to get back to the chore at hand when the barn door opens and grandpas cows come stumbling into the barn in the clumsy manner that cows are want to do when stepping from light to semi-darkness., When grandpa pauses by the door to relieve himself. (He’s in a hurry)

While he is in the middle of it, a newer cow in the herd backs out of her stall and heads back out the barn door at a trot.
Out of instinct grandpa reaches out and catches her by the tail to stop her.
Just as expected the cow yanks him out the door as well.

Just then: Grandma comes walking up!

NOW, WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE SHE SEE”S?

I rolled on the barn floor laughing and kicked over the milk bucket myself!

Let this be a lesson to you ladies. Just because you catch him with it one hand and grasping at tail with the other it is still only:” CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE”.

Paul Combe

[Papa Zook]

I love it! You're a good storyteller Paul. I could see that whole scene playing out in my head...great story!

[Lucky]

THANKS! Good story.

[Angelbymyside]

A very funny story. Really very visual!!

[pcombe]

A very funny story. Really very visual!!

Thanks Angel:
Once in while i just can't control myself!
This story really is the truth, time and perspective makes it more colorful.
I posted one called wyoming windblown story also.
If folks like them i will run another sometime. I don't want to bombard folks.
Most of the story's i have written over the years have been at least partially based in truth.
The story about the kid and the dollar really did happen.
I just made up the part about the sack because i liked the ending better.
Pcombe

[Rod69]

Very good story.