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.
