I Said, Whoa!

The year was 1950.

One of my daily chores was to make sure the milk cow was in the pen each evening so my Mom could milk her. The calf from this cow would stay penned up so the cow naturally would stay close to the yard while grazing. On many occasions, she would stray farther off and would not come by herself when I called her. I would holler very loud “Sooooooo cow—sooooo cow!”

Sometimes she would hear me, look up, and keep grazing. Then I had to go after her and physically chase her in. Some days she would be way back across the creek, where we also had land. This happened to be about half a mile away and called for a long walk. Sometimes my older brother would saddle up our old horse and I would fetch her on horseback. There was a ravine or smaller creek draining into the larger one, which I had to cross.An old abandoned fence stretched across the ravine with just enough room for the cow to pass underneath.

One day, I decided to ride my horse under this fence line because it was a short cut of sorts. I knew I had to lean way over to the side. In doing so, I would hold on to the saddle horn with my left hand and let the horse walk under the wire fence. Well, it just so happened one day the horse must have walked a little higher on the cow path and the strand of barbed wire just caught my finger, which was on the saddle horn.

The wire started cutting into my finger and since I was leaned way over in the saddle, I couldn’t pull on the reins to stop the horse. All I could do was holler “Whoa! Whoa!” but the horse wouldn’t stop. By some miracle, the wire did slip loose but not before cutting my finger to where I could see white bone.

Since it was on the top of the second knuckle, it didn’t bleed too much so I just wrapped it in a handkerchief and went along doing the rest of my chores for the evening. I don’t think I even mentioned it to my parents. There was no tetanus shot—just a scar that I have to this day. I’m just thankful I still have my finger!