A View from the Buggy (6 page)

“Check on him at first break,” Dad instructed me, and I did so, finding Kerlin much the same, though he had managed to drag himself around his box stall some.
Well
, I thought,
I'll go back to work, and I'll call the vet too. Maybe he'll have some more ideas.
I went to the phone shack and got out the phone book. I flipped to the Yellow Pages and looked under
Veterinarians.
My finger traced down the list. There it was. I dialed the number.

A cheery voice answered and I explained, “This is Eldon Shrock calling from over here by Evart. I have a sick ram that needs some help and I was wondering if I could speak to a veterinarian.”

“You said a sick ram?” the woman asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Then you need to speak to Dr. Miller. Hang on a minute.”

She put me on hold and soon a man's voice came on the line. “Dr. Miller. How can I help you?”

“This is Eldon Shrock calling from over here by Evart,” I repeated. “I have a sick ram that has been losing weight. He also has some problems standing. We help him to his feet, but a minute later he lies down again. We started giving him penicillin this morning, and I was wondering if there is anything else we should be doing.”

“Well…sounds like you're doing the right thing,” Dr. Miller said. “I don't know what else to suggest right now. If he gets worse in the next few days, give me a call back.”

I hung up and went back home. But Kerlin remained unchanged for the next few days. Finally we decided he should go outside and get some fresh air. However,
where
was the question. We didn't want him in the front yard where he wouldn't get the shade he needed, since it was quite warm. We eventually came up with the idea of taking the round bale feeder and covering it with plywood behind the barn to give him some shade.

The following day we built our Kerlin shelter. When we finished, the next problem was transporting Kerlin to his new home.

“We couldn't carry him,” I said.

“Let's use the wagon,” Duane suggested.

I agreed, so we put cardboard on the red wagon to protect Kerlin from splinters, since the wagon was made of wood and was very old. With one of us taking the front half of Kerlin and the other the rear half, we loaded him on for his ride. What a sight we made with this stately ram on the old red wagon looking very uncomfortable. My sisters laughed at us as we took off toward the shelter. I pulled the wagon slowly so Kerlin wouldn't get a bumpy ride. Around the barn and out into the field we went. Nonetheless, we arrived safely with me pulling the wagon and Duane supporting Kerlin so he wouldn't fall off.

We unloaded him and got him inside the shelter. Everyone pitched in to pick fresh grass for him, and we supplied him with plenty of water. Then back to work we went, with the thought of Kerlin in the back of our minds.

I went to check on him later in the day. As I came close to the shelter, there was no Kerlin in sight. I did a quick search and found him a distance away under a tree where he had dragged himself.

Wow
, I thought.
He can't get up but he can really drag himself around.
I called Duane to help me get him into the pen again, where I refilled his water bucket and picked more fresh grass.

That evening Duane and I tended to Kerlin again. We had high hopes, but by the next morning there were no signs of improvement. If anything, Kerlin was worse. Duane and I consulted with each other on our next course of action and also asked Dad. At his suggestion, we called the vet. He said Kerlin might have
coccidiosis,
and prescribed
corid and some thick pasty stuff that was supposed to give Kerlin more energy to help him fight the sickness. Dad called a local taxi driver and went into Reed City to the vet's store. There he picked up the prescriptions.

We gave Kerlin the medicine that evening, but by the next morning he was worse than ever. Dad came over to try his hand at giving Kerlin his medicine, and later that morning I went back to check on Kerlin. As I got closer he didn't move his eyes at all. Then I looked at his stomach and saw that he wasn't breathing. Kerlin had died.

I immediately called Dad and Duane, telling them the sad news.

After work Duane and I loaded Kerlin and hooked the wagon to the walk-behind mower. I carefully drove the mower out behind the barn by the fencerow to where we had a few apple trees that were in full blossom. Underneath the largest and prettiest one, we dug a fair-sized grave, digging deep enough so no coyotes or wild dogs would dig him up.

Then we placed our prized ram, the one that showed so much promise, into the grave and covered him in dirt. That was a sorrowful day for all of us. Thankfully we had two attractive little rams who soon grew up so we could keep on adding to our flock. We comforted ourselves and looked forward to better days ahead.

Billy Goat Style

Oba Hershberger

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones (Proverbs 17:22).

M
Y BROTHER-IN-LAW
L
EVI
Y
ODER WAS PREACHING ONE DAY ON THE
subject of sheep and goats. Now, of course, he said, we should all be like sheep, easily led and meek. Then Levi added that it's hard to teach a goat something and to make them remember.

Now, isn't that the truth!

The following Monday I was pondering these truths, and of course my mind has a habit of wandering. I get so far afield that it sometimes gets tangled up in other stuff. In my thinking that day I was wishing that Levi had warned me 50 years ago about those goats, because it sure could have saved me some grief. See, back a long time ago, I had a habit of trying to drive anything that had four legs.

Now our family dog wasn't hard to train, and I had hours of fun with him. Then for some reason, which I no longer can remember, Dad bought me two little billy goats at the sale barn. They were for me to play with, he said. I was the youngest, and he probably thought this was cheaper than another brother or sister, since I was child number 14. So I took to those two little rascals. I named them Dick and Din and watched them grow.

Now it was hard to make pets out of animals who got beat over the head by Mom and my sisters every time they ventured into the flower beds. The goats eventually got soured at the whole human race. But one lesson I learned from this time in my life was how to mediate between females and goats.

The day arrived when I created a harness for the two goats. Of
course there was some twine and baling wire involved. Next I took my little two-wheeled cart that I had made for the dog and put in a tongue instead of shafts.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not much of a genius at harness making or cart crafting. I'm aware that my services in designing machinery were never sought after by Wayne Wengerd or White Horse Machine.

But I wasn't disheartened. I set to work, and the great day finally arrived. My chariot was ready. The goats were pretty gentle by this time, or so I thought. I had been driving them together with nothing hitched behind them, so at this point I figured all was well.

One evening I got the goats all ready to hook up right after the chores. Out in front of the barn I had my sister Mary hold them while I did the real important stuff, like getting the tongue of the cart between them.

Also I should mention that at this time of the night, if you had driven by our old homestead, you might have noticed big white geese walking out toward the barn on their way to eat a little cow feed that was left scattered there. I should also mention that we all knew goats and geese didn't mix.

Sister Mary was getting mighty squeamish by now, trying to hang on to those fine specimens called goats. But I was like the other younger boys, thinking my sisters were sissies. So I continued and got the goats hitched up. I got in my chariot and grabbed the lines. Dick and Din took off at a mighty fine trot. I imagined they even paced, but it might have been a gallop. I really couldn't remember much afterward about those particular moments.

The evening was windy, and I didn't have any elastic band under my chin to keep my derby on my noggin. And let me tell you, this little flying Dutchman was getting the ride of his life.

Then we met the aforementioned geese. My hat flew off in the general direction of the geese, landing on one of them—or so they say. Business really picked up after that, as geese make very funny noises when excited.

Well, in all that fuss, the geese went one way and the goats went another. Of course there was still some direction not used yet. And you guessed it. That direction was up! I took that route when we hit the walks. And if one goes up, one usually comes down again. Which I did. When I landed in the dust, I had also been left behind as the goats continued on.

I wish this story would end with the hero riding off into the sunset, but it doesn't. The goats ran into my shop. My shop with a door that was approximately 36 inches wide while the width of my chariot measured 48 inches. That might not sound like much of a difference between the door and the chariot, but I can assure you it is.

When those two objects met each other, all of my fine workmanship came to naught. Harness parts, or might I say twine, leather, wire, wheels, axles, tongue, seat, and other assorted items too numerous to mention, were all sadly scattered.

When I limped into the shop, there Dick and Din stood at the top of the shop stairway looking at me with those mournful eyes. And all they said was, “Ba-a-a.”

Our New Life Together

Oba Hershberger

The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion (Proverbs 28:1).

O
N
N
OVEMBER
7, 1968,
SOMETHING TOOK PLACE THAT HAD NEVER
happened to me before. My uncle, Bishop John, placed a woman's hand in mine and somehow or other we were married. I'm pretty sure we said “yes” to all the questions he asked us. But at the time I was so nervous I'm not sure what those questions were. If the bishop had asked me if I'd promise to wash the dishes every day, I'm sure I would have agreed.

We soon set up house in an old farmhouse. My good wife, Lorene, wasn't a complainer, so we made it through that first winter with flying colors. Though we did discover that the old house was a lot easier to keep warm in the summer than in the winter.

I had been a farmer's boy growing up, and that was what I liked. But my dad had retired from farming in 1963 and one of my brothers-in-law, Andy Yoder, had taken over the farm. I, being the youngest in our tribe of 14, started working in the carpenter trade.

Now let me be the first to tell you that I was not a carpenter at heart. But my new wife just didn't have enough work for me in the kitchen, so I figured I'd better keep my job. At the time I was paid $2.35 an hour, which was second to the top wage our boss was paying. He had around 40 men working for him. I was on his framing crew under my brother Monroe, who was the foreman.

The eight of us working under Monroe had a lot of fun, but Lorene and I both wanted to farm instead, which would give us more time together. But no farms were available at that time, so we kept on saving
our money and praying. We also had hope invested in my dad, knowing that in the past he had helped others of our family get on a farm. He'd even help with building if there was a need.

So we couldn't have been happier when Dad stopped at our place one evening in the fall of 1969 and told us Ben Kuhn's farm might be for rent. Whoopee! But there was one kicker. The farm was about 14 miles south of where we lived. It also had old buildings and an old house. But Amish farmers had been renting the place for many years, so it was ready to go as a 200-acre dairy farm.

Our closest Amish neighbors would be Jake and Mary Otto, the parents of an only child, Big John Otto. This old place also had a mile-long lane. But all that didn't discourage us. We were so excited about moving onto a dairy farm that nothing was going to dampen our enthusiasm.

So in October of 1969 we started milking cows and feeding a few hogs. When I look back and realize how little I knew and how much I needed to learn, it about makes my knees shake.

Our long lane had a few drawbacks, one of them being that people would drive up the lane right to our house at night, thinking it was a road. I never was the bravest Indian in the tribe, so I'd sigh with relief when the car turned around and went right back out the lane.

A nice feature of the farm was the river running along the edge with lots of woods behind it. The woods, though, were owned by a non-Amish neighbor. Sometimes folks would park their trucks near our house to hunt coon in those woods. Now that would really get us skittish. We might be in bed, and here comes a slow-moving truck into our lane. They'd park near the house. And what were we to think? Did a kidnapping lie ahead of us? But we tried to remain calm while we figured out who this might be.

In January we had an incident I'll never forget. We'd finished the chores, eaten supper, and gone to bed. I can't remember what we had for supper, but I'm sure it was good. I'd discovered by this time that not only was my wife, Lorene, the prettiest lady in Coles, Moultrie, Douglas, and other surrounding counties, but she was also the best cook.