Russell wanted to play my Mousetrap game and I wanted to see his farm. He asked his folks if I could spend the weekend at his place and I asked my folks if I could go. It was a win-win situation. A cultural exchange between suburbia and the grange. Russell and me couldn't wait for Friday to roll around. I brought my gear to school and his mother picked us up after and drove us a few miles outside Baton Rouge to their property. We were two happy ten year old boys.
It was a medium sized mixed use operation, mainly focused on beef but there was poultry, swine, some dairy animals, horses and a few acres of garden. It was big enough that they had a permanent hired hand called Lercy. He was a mysterious, tubercular looking older man and I remember wondering how he was physically strong enough to actually help. He drove a rusty blue tractor and it was all done up with pictures of naked women taped everywhere inside. Only he and the farm cat were allowed to sit in the seat.
Russell's father was a tall, strong young man all dressed up like a cowboy, which was something I hadn't seen too much of in Louisiana. His wife was a sassy red-head brimming with good cheer, confidence, pride and freckles. There was an older brother who's purpose on this earth appeared to be that of keeping Russell sharp. Kind of reminded me of my own sister.
We got my stuff stowed away in the brothers' room and were given a snack. It was time to tour the property. Russell led me around to where the chicken coops were and showed off the rooster who sat atop the little house with a kingly air. Not too far away was an enclosure for some big old pigs. They were the pink skinned type with white fur. When I saw them they were slathered with black mud and blue clay. They were happily snuffling up what looked like kitchen scraps.
There was a small corral across the way with two horses and a few more caballos wandered the property coming from time to tome to drink from a huge galvanized trough. The balance of buildings other than the big house were a massive barn, a tall silo, various sized pens for cows and an enigmatic turnstile affair, for which I couldn't figure out the purpose of. In addition to these things, there was a big long concrete trough full of some nasty looking, evil smelling chemical brew.
Way off in the back was an endless stretch of good grassland and you could see the herd of cows ruminating under shady patches where some oaks grew by a pond. Two magnificent German Shepherd dogs and a big, dusty black cat also lingered in this haven. Presently, my host and I heard a commotion from the barn. On the way to investigate we stopped at the silo to talk to Lercy. He was busy with some kind of small metal cage. He stood up as straight as his shrimp-back allowed and answered my many city boy questions about the silo.
“We store lossa grain uppin thar, bwa. Faid fer dem hongry anmuls. One mo thang, tell ye wut, twain youn may anna faince-pose, a main pudda clay jug all cork tup lak, in ta bollum, afore it gets fullup, gess whachegit laitur own?”
“I own no.”
“Corn squaizuns, bwa, thas wut. Wyatt-latnin.”
“Hah kinnit git inta a sail-dup jore?”
“Bwa, pressure done git so heavy it jus force juice on up thu dat clay. Drapbudrap, kinda lak.”
“Yessur. Thanky fer taichin me.”
“Noddadam thang to it, Sun. Nah, ya'll go own, I got me a lil job.”
Russell and I ran across to the big open barn door and wandered inside. The shadowy interior was much cooler and that felt good. My eyes took a moment to adjust. Russell's brother was swinging from a rope, strung from a ceiling beam by jumping off the hay loft to land in a pile of broken bales on the floor. Sunday afternoons were Tarzan movie days in Baton Rouge and every boy worth his salt could imitate the cry of the jungle lord.
We amused ourselves for hours trying to best each other in length of swing, volume of yodel and complexity of dismount. After quite some time, a tall gaunt humped shadow appeared at the sun-splashed doorway. It was Lercy and he was toting a big gunny-sack. He shifted his faded welder’s cap on his sweaty brow and whistled loudly. We turned our attention and saw the two Shepherds come running.
“Looky heah, bwas,” he said holding forth the bag which was tied with a knot on top and clearly held something alive struggling to get out.
He swung the bag three times as the dogs jumped around his feet and then he tossed it in our direction. The dogs went wild and began attacking the bag from different angles. Shrill squeaks issued forth from the burlap and one of the dogs grabbed the whole shebang and shook it violently. That dog yelped and dropped it immediately. The other hound had a try with the same results and as we watched the two freshly blooded attackers, they worked out a coordinated way to grab a separate lump each and shake like gravel sorters. Soon, they dropped it all on the dirt and made a few lunging precision bites. The bag lay still and the dogs sat, panting hard as blood seeped out of the burlap.
Lercy strode over and untied the sack. He lifted it up and shook out the contents. Two huge rats plopped out on the ground, quite dead and very gory. The old codger gave a command and the little wolves trotted out the door with their prey in their jaws and loped into the sultry heat of the day headed for the trees.
“Dem dawgs dun openupa bag canna whup-ace on dem mo'fakin rats!” exclaimed Russell.
“Sun-um-a-bee-itch!” I said, somewhat shaken by this unexpected gladiatorial interlude.
“Thass hah ye larn em ta kill rats widdout gittin hurt they seff till day faigur owt ta bess way agoin abaddit. Cum own nah, Mizzuz say to call ya'll ta supper, bwas.”
We had a wonderful meat and potatoes meal in which every last thing down to the butter on the bread was home-made and brimming with goodness. It was no wonder some of those kids I went to elementary school with were so big and healthy. We all ate like farmhands, literally. Lercy went to do some early evening chores and the father went to prepare something for the morrow they had all been discussing at dinner.
I wasn't familiar with the terminology they were using so it made no impact on me. The elder boy was sent to do some chores regarding the smaller animals. Russell and I were guided to clear up the table and go get our hides clean so we could play that dad-gummed Mousetrap game he was so over anxious to try out. He had talked incessantly of it ever since I had mentioned it at school one day. I could tell that his family was long weary of hearing about it. I also knew that it was the only reason I had been invited over.
It was a manic contraption wherein a small steel ball bearing was put through a hap-hazard obstacle course of various mechanical devices which each triggered another leg of the ball's progress. Eventually, if everything went right, a small basket came down on a mouse, trapping it to win the game. Once set in motion, the running of that kinetic energy transfer machine lasted for more than a full minute and appealed to the engineer inventor inside every little boy. Being heavily promoted on TV, it was already well known long before it became available.
We scrubbed up by turns and soon were laying with our feet under the bunk-beds and assembling the intricate structure. As soon as we had it built and set, Russell demanded to take it apart and rebuild it so he could memorize how it went for when he got his. We did that and I enjoyed the building of it as much or more than the moronic rules and the long song and dance leading up to triggering the trap and catching the mouse. At lights out, we put it away and I spread out my sleeping bag where we had been playing. Russell's brother snored like an asthmatic warthog all night long.
The farm was already going at full-tilt when we boys got ourselves dressed next morning. Russell's mother greeted us and listened to her son describe all the parts of the Mousetrap machine. She was busy making a whopping big breakfast as there were extra hands on deck that morning. There would be more men to feed in shifts who had been hired for the day. She handed me a big colander and told Russell and I to go out where her husband was. Evidently we were going to bring part of the breakfast back with us in that vessel. I was intrigued and very proud to be of help.
“Oar we goan be haven prayer osturs?” asked Russell with a grin.
“We shu roar, Hon.”
“Wutter prayer osturs?” I inquired.
I reckoned they were some type of fresh-water mollusk species and that we would gather them up at the pond. My mouth watered as I remembered my grandmother's Texas seafood gumbo chock full of fresh oysters, blue crab and Gulf shrimp.
“Cum own. Yewl say fer yerseff.”
We ran out the kitchen door to the turnstile machine I had seen the day before. Russell's father was relieving his bladder a few feet away from the contraption where a long handle jutted out to the side. He had hung his gloves on the handle and Lercy was standing by holding a pair of some kind of fancy pliers. There was a couple of men in one of the small pens with a fire going. I knew from watching Bonanza what was going on. They were branding calves.
Russell's father rolled a smoke and told him to show me all around the operation so I could get my bearings. We walked over to where a bunch of small calves had been separated out from the herd into a big pen. Men were leading them through a little walkway one by one to the cement trough where they were encouraged to walk through some kind of medicine the men referred to as "dip". The little bovines seemed to want to do it no more than a young boy wants to bathe.
After a good chemical splashing, they were led to the branding area. Here they were hobbled and laid down by a big black man while a Mexican fellow pulled an iron out of the little fire and burned in a tattoo on the animal's hind-quarters. The hair smoke stunk of sulfur but the calf didn't bleat any louder than he had when he was getting his bath.
He was then let up, untied and directed to another corridor of temporary fencing which led right up to the turnstile. We ran back alongside the candidate. When the hoofer stepped into the turnstile, Russel's father pulled hard on that long handle. The two walls of green welded pipe closed like a Venus Flytrap onto the calf's sides, immobilizing it.
Lercy squatted down on his heels and after adjusting his welder's cap, he reached a bony arm through the pipes and grabbed the calf by its testicles. His other hand snaked through the bars wielding the pliers and I heard a snick. There on the dusty ground were two longish blobs that resembled chicken livers. Lercy tossed them a few feet away, the lever was raised and the calf ran down to join his mates into a big pen where another man doctored the cut.
This I hadn't seen on TV and I said, “Gawd Amighty!” to no one in particular while looking down at my crotch.
“Id doan hurtum nun, Mak. Thass so thee doan grow uppan trample evurbaddy. Ya see, thass da diffurnce inna steer anna bull. A bull steel has alla his takkul. We keep a cuplum fer braidin but theys sayprit fromma ress,” explained Lercy.
I was born thirsty to learn any and everything from anyone who would waste their time to teach me and that attitude sped my emotional recovery from what I had just seen. Wanting to reciprocate the kindness of this tuition, I asked Russell's father where I could find those prairie oysters to gather up for our breakfast. I had a white-knuckle death grip on my colander and I hoped he'd send me to the pond yonder.
Before he could answer, Lercy grinned and motioned toward the pinkish blobs in the dust at his feet that had been hanging from the calf only a moments ago. I looked at Russell and then up at his father to see if I was being fooled.
“He's tailin you true Gospel, Sun. Ya'll stay rat by till ye gitchur bowl all fullup annen brang it on in ta ma waff.”
I decided to make the best of it. I grabbed up the warm tissue and plopped it into the bowl. The next calf came and many more came behind it. The process was like a well-oiled machine. Kind of similar to Mousetrap. I started to glow with pride for my infinitesimal part in garnering a living from the soil. The ancient human spirit that attends the gathering of any kind of food came among us and we all started to verbally celebrate as that colander filled up to the brim. It was like picking black-berries or catching fish and watching your pile getting bigger and bigger.
“We gonna haivus won bag ole buncha dee-luxe prayer osters, nears eye kin tale,” I chirped.
“Way dull yew tais ma mamma's butta mielk biskits,” chimed Russell.
“Goes amighty nice wid dat fraish back bacon, yeah bwa, ats fer daim sho!” said Lercy, licking his thin lips.
“Habbout we fainushup this nut-cuttin afore we stort talkin bout foo,” said the Boss.
“Then we gonna play us some Mousetrap,” clarified Russell.
When our bowl was full we raced into the kitchen and proudly handed over the prize. The lady of the house took the colander and rinsed all the dust and blood off thoroughly. She looked over at me and said that I didn't really have to eat them if I didn't want to. I told her I sure did want to, as long as that's what they all ate. She smiled and dried them off on a tea towel, dusted them with flour, salt and pepper and fried them up in a big black skillet. Russel's brother came in with a basket of fresh eggs.
It was one of the best breakfasts I have enjoyed down to this very day. It was the first and last time I had prairie oysters. They were delicious as I recall. On Sunday morning I had to go home and after rolling up my sleeping bag, I gave the Mousetrap game to Russell. It was the least I could do after such a rarefied weekend. At the time I would have swapped places with him if I could have figured out a way.
fin