Wild Cow Tales by Ben K. Green Read Free Book Online

workin’ stock, then I would need pretty bad to move that cow so you could get in the bank Monday mornin’ to tend to mine and the bank’s business.”
    He pounded his fat fist on the counter and said, “Hell, give me the money.”
    So I counted out $200 in tens and twenties and I said, in a humorous tone of voice, “Fred, when I work stock for people on Sunday, they usually buy my breakfast.”
    Pat busted out laughing again and said, “The breakfast is on the house.”
    I got my horse and went up and unwrapped this old cow from around the bank door and unwrapped her from the telephone pole and took her and put her in the wagonyard. Fred got a hold of Ike Simmons, who was the porter at the barbershop, and they began to clean up that green splashy aftermath that comes from a mad cow. By church-time few people knew that the bank’s cow business and my banking business had been tended to so early on Sunday morning.

PEDDY

    I WAS SETTIN’ IN THE SADDLE SHOP while Bill, the saddle maker, put some new riggin’ in the front of my saddle. I’d roped a big four-year-old wild mulethat morning; when I dallied the rope to the saddle horn, this big mule was stout enough that he tore the riggin’ out of my saddle. I had managed to give him slack and at the same time wind him around a tree and tie him before we got in a storm and I lost my whole saddle. Bill was an old-time saddle maker and he never stopped talkin’ while he worked, so I was hearin’ stories about the times that other cowboys had tore their saddles up when in walked Mr. Davidson, who ran a dry-goods and furniture store next door. He had been to the post office and comin’ back by came in to talk to me and Bill. He passed the time of day a few minutes talking about the weather and work and stuff. Then he turned to me and said, “Ben, I want to sell you eight two-year-old heifers worth the money.”
    I knew about his heifers, but I thought it might do him good to talk about ’em, so I didn’t butt in. He said that he had a string of yearling steers in his pasture, and when he shipped ’em out in the spring the man that bought ’em didn’t want these eight heifers that were in the bunch, so they had turned them back in the pasture.
    He wanted to stock this pasture in the late fall with another bunch of steer yearlings and would like to get these heifers out of the way. I listened to all this and I liked Mr. Davidson; he was a nice kind of ole country merchant that ever’body some time or another had owed money to, and after thirty years in the community there still wasn’t anybody that would say anything bad about Mr. Davidson. He took jokin’ pretty good too. I knew that I’d make a trade with him before we quit talkin’, but I feltlike I ought to carry him on a little while, so after this explanation about his heifers I asked him how fat were they and how much would they weigh.
    He said they were big fat, and would weigh about 600 pounds apiece.
    I said, “Well, I guess they’d be worth about six cents a pound and that would be $36 a head; put them in the corral and I’ll come get ’em.”
    He said, “Now, that’s not quite the kind of a trade I want to make because these heifers’ll bring about eight cents a pound, and you know I’m no cowboy and don’t have anybody workin’ for me to pen heifers, so why don’t you just buy ’em and go gather ’em out of the pasture yourself?”
    I said, “Mr. Davidson, I didn’t know that you didn’t like me.”
    He said, “Why Ben, what do you mean? You’ve always been one of my favorite boys.”
    I said, “Well, I know for a fact that Ole Slim Cartwright rode in that pasture at $3 a day until he paid his dry-goods bill and never did see hair nor hide of them heifers. And now you wanta sell ’em to me just like they’as a-standin’ at the gate bawlin’ to get out.”
    We had a big laugh and he admitted I was a-tellin’ the truth.
    I started out by tellin’ him that it seemed to me like