I was never acused of being ladylike. I was a rough and tumble sort, short on manners and dress. Mama tried and failed miserbly. Grandma Minnie did get my attention with this warning, "Earline keep your dresstail down over your knees". They both aimed for me to be refined. Never happened.
I did heed Grandma's admonishment with having the hemline of my dresses torn out halfway to give me an uneven look. It never bothered me, but poor Mama and Grandma were forever stitching me up. It was fine with me as long as I was covered. Feed sack dresses were fininshed to stop at mid knee, I was covered half to there and half to my ankles. Six inch hems were factored in for growth and hand me down. Good to go.
I usually owned two pairs of dungrees for farmwork/playtime/cold weather. I mostly wore them for farmwork/playtime/cold/hot/in between. Church called for a dress. When my dungrees were "soiled" beyond decent, I would wear a dress. One memorable day I wore a dress for play.
Me and Buddy had learned that we could ride a calf. He was a bull calf about six months old and free rangeing in the corn patch behind the house. This patch was what Daddy called the junk patch. A terrace through the middle of this small field held peach trees with room on one side for planting potatoes or produce for our consumption. The other side of the terrace was planted with corn and some velvet beans to run up the stalks to have for the livestock for forage when we were through with the harvest. Cows and mules loved to glean the velvet beans and leftover corn nubbins.
So,
Unbeknownst to Daddy, Buddy and I had requistioned a piece of plow rope to use for our harness in calf riding.
My dungrees were dirty/smelly/in the washtub. I was wearing a dress with one sash missing. I tied the attached one in knots to shorten it and let it hang. My dresstail was unstitched half way around. My left knee was covered. My right leg was covered almost to the ankle. I was ready to ride that calf.
We looked for the calf amongst the dried corn stalks. The place was also thick with dried coffee weeds and cockle burr stalks. If you have no idea about cockle burrs, then think of a pea sized nodule with barbed needles like a porcupine. The needles won't come off the burr, but will stick and cause the whole thing to attach to whatever it touches. A cow/horse tail will catch and hold cockle burrs to become matted. A kid with a head of hair will draw those things like a magnet. They stick to clothes, shoe laces, anything that it touches it hooks and stays until pulled off/out. Cockle burrs were one of the banes of childhood for farm kids.
We find the calf and drive him to the corner of the field where we use the fence braces to mount ourselves onto his back. He isn't happy, we work our magic of twisting and pulling and pushing and fussing until one of us gets on him bareback. Buddy is always first. Why?
I wait and watch as the calf heads straight to the cockle burr thicket. I hear Buddy hollering/grunting/whimp whistling for the calf to heed his commands. Finally he gets the calf back to the fence corner.
My turn.
I climb onto the fence braces, the calf rumps about, Buddy twisted the calf by inserting his fingers into his nostrils and twist like we had seen cowboys do their horses on TV. The calf bolts. We finally get him back into position. I huff across his back to realize I'm facing his butt. I get turned back around with my dresstail over my head. I pull the plowline up to the choking spot on that little bull and he takes off trotting. I'm bouncing like a bag of jello and hollering for Buddy to come help slow him down.
"Buuuuuuuudddddddddyyyyyyy, help me"!
Buddy had gone to the house. He had his turn and was finished.
The stubborn calf headed straight to that patch of cockle burrs.
My skinny legs with my big bare feet were being dragged and scraped through the thickest dried stalks of burrs on the place. Dresstail with half hem unstitched was collecting burrs. They hurt, my legs were showing scratches on dry skin. Mama's bottle of Jergens lotion wouldn't help this.
He dragged me against corn stalks with hanging tags of velvet beans. The word velvet is misleading here. You want to know what loose fiberglass in your drawers feels like?
Velvet bean velvet.
After a long way around the field and back to the barnyard gate, he decides I needed to be smeared off his back. He walks as close as he can to the gatepost and stops to rub. My leg is caught by the barbs on the wire that was twisted around the gatepost to help secure the fencing. I'm haveing a bit of a problem here. The bull headed calf has sulked and won't go anywhere. My leg is chinked between him and that barbed fencepost. I'm in a mess and stuck.
I'm hurting.
That calf was huffing, I was shaking, things needed to change.
I hauled of and slapped his head.
He grew to twice his original size and bellowed like a full blown bull. That calf took off around the barnlot bucking and snorting and unloading me and my cockle burred self.
I looked up from my prone position to see him rolling his eyes at me as he stood looking down into my face.
I saw my future and it wasn't pretty.
I got out of that barn lot without a memory of how, but Mama was perplexed when she saw me daubing iodine on my legs and kneecaps. My dresstail was all unhemed, chicken doodie was all over me, cockleburrs were matted and I was through with yearling busting.
