To the hog house

To the hog house

I didn’t bother opening the wooden gate because the latch sometimes didn’t fall back into place cleanly and you’d have to fiddle around with it. I’d rather just climb over. Fences are so cool. People can climb over a fence, but cattle—much bigger, tougher, stronger—have to stand on the other side, watching.

We didn’t start the day with clean clothes. Our chore clothes didn’t need to be washed unless we were splattered by something and we got a shit all over. Usually, it was mom who found them and put them in the wash. I couldn’t even be bothered to notice that they needed washing. Dirty clothes are the best. Not that they are dirty so that you can see a lot of dirt, but just not clean.  You don’t have to worry about getting them dirty because they are already unclean.  That’s it…I like unclean clothes. 

Perfect weather. No coat, but no sauna, either. On my feet, solid leather, with hard plastic soles; when you step down, you can do it with authority. They laced up several inches above my ankle, wearing white, or at least they used to be white, tube socks. My feet were happy, too. Snug ankles inside worn leather that didn’t give much room for movement. Tough, rough, even though everyone around me wore the same stuff, I felt special. It was like I knew somehow that I needed hard soled shoes long before anyone ever told me. I could wear these shoes when I knew that I didn’t have to wash out any hog houses. Many people would call this footwear ‘boots’ but we reserved boots for the black rubber things we wore in the rain, and washing out hog houses.

The ground was dry, but it wasn’t middle-of-August hard. There was some moisture and the weeds were still green and healthy. Of course, Dad perpetually complained that we needed rain. Someone once said that while Newell, to the north got 1 ½ inches, and Nemaha to the west got 2 inches, and Sac City to the south got 1 ¾ inches, Bob Martin would get 2 tenths.  Me, I just as soon have long dry spells. I didn’t need any rain, I didn’t care about the crops, I was just filling my role as a grunt.

On my way down to the South Hog House, I passed through the small cattle lot where Paul was dumping feed into the bunks from the feeder wagon. Yeah, he was busy, but he could have been a bit more understanding when I would come running to him, crying and terrified some 10 minutes later.