Some of you will remember back in the sixties, Art Linkletter had a television show called Kids Say the Darndest things. I wish to expand that to Kids Do the Darndest Things, and I as a four-year-old child, was no exception. In fact, some of my actions were unpredictable, even to me. I found them quite amusing, but my parents, not so much.
We lived on a small farm when my twin brother and I were growing up. After supper, Dad would go out to milk the cows and usually I went with him. We had several barn cats who wouldn’t have anything to do with me, except for the white one who loved attention and would come to me to be petted. One night while Dad was doing the milking, I carried the white cat to where the hay was stored, something I had done many times before. The half door was open on that side to let in fresh air.
I had heard somewhere, probably from my parents, that a cat would always land on its feet, so I decided to put it to the test. I carried the cat to the door, held her over the top of the half door, and let her drop, then peered over to see what happened. She landed on all fours, not on the ground, but dead centre of the manure pile. It had been raining for a couple of days, so the pile was quite sloppy. I took to laughing as I watched her, struggling to get out of there. Dad came on the run to see what I found so funny. He arrived just in time to see a brown streak hightailing it towards the cow pasture. He was a man who was never at a loss for words, and I got an earful. While he finished milking the last couple of cows, I had to stand on the other side of the gutter and listen to a stern lecture. That was followed by an immediate bedtime once we got back to the house.
Then there was Charlie, my toy porcelain snake that had joints that made him slither realistically when tossed on the floor. Instead of frogs or bugs in my pockets, I had Charlie. One day we had company stay with us for a few days, and that afternoon I decided to show Mother’s dear old friend, Marion, my buddy Charlie. I tossed him in front of her, and he slithered toward her feet. I thought it was quite amusing, but Marion did not. I didn’t know she was terrified of snakes. Thinking it was real, she let out a horrified scream and took off like a bolt of lightning to the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. That was one of my saddest days ever. I wasn’t sad that I had to apologize to Marion under Mother’s watchful eye, but when Mother grabbed poor Charlie and dumped him in the trash, I was heartbroken.
Back in those days, Dad farmed with horses. He would hitch a horse to a plow or cultivator when it was time to work up the vegetable garden. I was not allowed too close for safety reasons, but I always sat by the house watching. I noticed when Dad wanted the horse to go right, he would holler out “Gee” and if he wanted the horse to go left, he used the word “Haw”. So those two words became quite familiar even though at four years old I had no idea what they meant. Our next-door neighbour had an old horse that he used for similar chores.
One sunny afternoon while I was enjoying some time on the swing dad had made us, I spotted the next-door neighbour, who coincidentally was hard of hearing, working his garden over with his horse. He too was using those two words gee and haw… so when he would holler gee, I yelled out haw. Of course, the horse would turn in the wrong direction. Not just once, I did it several times. That is, until Mother came out to see why I was yelling those words, and that’s when my fun ended. I was marched into the house and made to sit it out, stewing, knowing that when Dad arrived in, I would have to tell him what I had done. After he heard my tale of woe, I was taken over to the neighbour to apologize. I had to speak very loudly to explain why his horse wasn’t following his commands. I imagine both men got a chuckle over that ordeal, but certainly not within my hearing.
I could go on with more examples of things I did on the farm, but I’ll save those for another time. I must admit my actions, which I found so amusing, always led to punishments by either Mother or Dad, in hopes I’d never repeat them again. But I came up with new things often.
Born and raised in Nova Scotia, Marilyn and Bill met and married in 1972. Having raised 3 boys and accumulated a respectable number of grand-children and great-grand-children, she wrote her first book and published it in 2024. A collection of short stories titled The Kendricks of Glasgow Junction. She is contributing short stories about growing up in Nova Scotia to this website and will be publishing a collection of them in the near future.