Prairie Girls

 

Lindsay

My name is Lindsay Martin, and I am an independent cowgirl on the prairie in the 1880’s. Ma and Pa own the M Cattle Ranch. Charley and Layne, my brothers, work on the ranch after school. They got to go on the annual spring round-up when they were ten-years-old. Now that I am ten, I want to go along, too.

I’ll tell you more next time about my adventures on the ranch.

 

Chores

Ten-year-old Lindsay was anxious to do chores on her family’s ranch. As a young girl I wasn’t anxious to do chores on my family’s farm. In fact, I did not like feeding the chickens, gathering the eggs, cleaning out the nests, weeding the garden, digging potatoes, well, you can tell there were a lot of chores. However, anxious or not, I had to do them. One chore which I did enjoy was going to the pasture with my dog, Red, to herd the milk cows to the barn for milking each evening.

Four o’clock most evenings found me walking through the barn lot down a narrow, fenced dusty (sometimes muddy) lane to what was called the milk cow pasture. These cows grazed in a different pasture than the ones where the beef cattle were kept. Getting the cows was an easy chore because my dog Red did all the work. I would simply call the cows and say “Go get ‘em boy”, and Red would circle behind the six or eight cows, nip at their legs a little and bark. The cows would then slowly walk toward the barn.

A lot of evenings I walked barefooted enjoying the feel of the fine dust on the soles of my feet or the softness of the green grass. During those walks I often thought about what my life might be like when I was grown. Sometimes I thought about my school lessons. Other times, I just enjoyed the sound of the birds in the trees and the beauty of the wildflowers. Most springs I enjoyed eating the wild strawberries or blackberries I picked along the way. Oh yes, I much preferred getting the cows to feeding, or as it was called then, slopping the hogs.