Horse of a Different Color Read online

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  A Lesson from George Miner

  BY FRIDAY evening George Miner and I had covered the entire township, and with no apparent intention he had taught me more about judging livestock than I could have learned in any other way. When looking over a farmer’s cattle and hogs he made no arbitrary decisions, but led the man into thinking as he did. If there was a scrawny, nondescript heifer in the herd—and in the herd of each tenant farmer on the high divide there were usually three or four of them, with a bull to match—George might say, “Was you to keep that roan heifer over the winter, Joe, I reckon you’d be owin’ yourself money. If she ain’t farrow, she’ll drop an awful small calf come spring, don’t you think? And from the looks of that bag and them little short tits, I wouldn’t misdoubt that about four quarts to the milkin’ would be as much as she’d ever give.

  “Now you take that spotted one over there; she ain’t got too bad of a bag on her, but don’t you figure she’s too weedy in the legs and ga’nt in the belly to ever make a good milk cow? I might be all wrong, but it always appeared to me like a good milk cow ought to have belly enough to hold a big load of grass and water—along with a good sized calf—elseways she ain’t got much to draw on when it come to fillin’ a milk bucket. Don’t I recollect of you buyin’ this bull of yours at the auction when old man Peterson died, a couple of years before the war commenced?”

  “Yeah, that’s the same one, George. You sure have got a right good memory.”

  “I wouldn’t bank much on it, Joe, but I kind of recollect takin’ note of him at that auction and gettin’ the notion into my head that his kinfolks was like as not the first cattle to be fetched into this part of the country. My father used to tell about ’em; Longhorns from Texas; drove up here over the Chisholm Trail in the 1870’s; some of ’em close onto six foot high at the shoulder hump and no more’n eighteen inches wide acrost the hips. He used to say a Longhorn cow wouldn’t give milk enough to fill a tin cup, and it was so poor it would take four days for cream to rise on it. Used to say Longhorn beef was tougher’n boot leather, the longer you chewed a piece of it the bigger it got, and a man would like to strangle if he tried to swaller it. In the eighties they begun fetchin’ in Shorthorn bulls from England to improve the herds, but a lot of that blood got spread out so thin it didn’t do much good.

  “Now you understand, Joe, I couldn’t say this bull of yours come down from that early stock, but I wouldn’t misdoubt it from them wide horns of his, and that roan color. Anyways, he’s kind of gettin’ on in years, and you could lose him outright if he was to get blowed down in a blizzard come winter. Did ever you take note of them Holstein cattle Bud Austin fetched home from the Kansas City stock show a few years back? They ain’t purebreds, exceptin’ the bull, but they’re awful nice milk cows; bags the size of a wash tub, and some of ’em will give up to thirty quarts of milk a day. Last time I talked to Bud he was sayin’ he had three or four comin’-two-year-old bulls in that herd that he’d like to get rid of, and I don’t reckon he’d expect to get all outdoors for one of ’em.

  “If you want me to cull out old Roany here, and few of these weedy heifers he’s sired, you’d have a pretty good little credit comin’ on your notes at the bank, and I wouldn’t doubt me none that Bones would leave you have a new loan for enough to get one of them Bud Austin bulls . . . and maybe a heifer or two. Seems like older cows—like them yonder—generally always drop stronger calves when they’re bred to a young bull, and one of them little fellas of Bud’s would be in fine shape for next breedin’ season if you was to put him into your herd this fall. The nice part about a Holstein bull for a mixed-breed milk herd is that his heifer calves most generally turn out to be good milkers—that is, if the cows that bear ’em are worth their keep—and his bull calves have a big enough frame on ’em to make pretty fair beef steers.”

  If he was looking at hogs he’d point out that this or that one looked to be a little short on size and long on years, or he might say, “It’s surprisin’s, ain’t it, the way these corn-country hogs run mostly to lard and fatback after they’ve been inbred a few generations. It used to be a fat hog was a good hog, but anymore it seems like they’re goin’ out of style, along with whiskers and Congress boots and the likes. Mostly the packin’-house buyers down to Kansas City and Omaha want bacon hogs—long in the back and slim in the gut, with a lot of lean streaks mixed in amongst the fat—and the way the market is now they’ll pay up to three cents a pound more for them kind of hogs than what they will for fat ones.

  “Did ever you take a look at Russie Redfern’s Berkshires? If that brood boar of his ain’t six foot long he won’t miss it but a few inches, and he’s no bigger ’round the belly than that little sow yonder, but the hams and shoulders on him are square as boxes. I have a notion Russie’d sell a whole litter of pigs by that boar, and out of a right good Berkshire sow, for what Bones would allow you on your boar and a couple of these wore-out old brood sows. Mix a litter like that in with the best of your young sows, Bill, and it wouldn’t be scarcely no time at all till you’d have one of the best hog herds on this divide.”

  One of the valley farmers had a rather large herd of mixed cows and steers, with a massive-shouldered bull that weighed well over a ton and looked to be more Durham than anything else. The whole herd was in good flesh, and I judged that some of the better steers would scale above eight hundred pounds, though others that looked older wouldn’t go more than six hundred. The herd had been corralled before we arrived, and the farmer showed it to us with evident pride. The cattle were unusually docile, and as we walked among them George asked, “How many of ’em you milkin’, Harry?”

  “Nineteen,” Harry answered, “and there ain’t a poor milker amongst ’em. They’ve been turning out close onto sixty-five pounds of butter a week all fall.”

  “Mmm hmmm,” George hummed. “Been feedin’ ’em any grain?”

  “None to speak of, George. Only a load or two of frostbit corn now and again.”

  “Well, by jiggers, they sure are in nice flesh, Harry. I don’t see one amongst ’em that I could rightly cull.”

  Harry bristled. “What do you mean rightly cull?” he demanded.

  George didn’t seem to have noticed the anger in the farmer’s voice, but asked mildly, “Do you recollect that team of bay trotters I used to have before the war, Harry?”

  Harry’s anger subsided as quickly as it had risen, and he answered warmly, “I sure do, George. That was a mighty fine team of road horses. How fast could they make a round trip between your place and McCook?”

  The sun was warm, but there was a cold breeze from the north. Instead of answering the question immediately George began climbing over the corral fence. As we followed he told Harry, “Never did make a round trip without givin’ ’em a feed of grain and a couple or three hours’ rest on the McCook end of the trip, but they could leg it either way in two hours and a half. By jiggers, there’s a raw edge to that breeze, and it must be my hide ain’t as thick as what it used to be when I was younger.”

  He eased the seat of his jeans to the ground, leaned his back against the warm south side of the water tank, tipped his Stetson forward to shade his eyes from the afternoon sun, drew up his knees, rested his elbows on them, and went on, “Yep, that was a pretty fair team of trotters. A man couldn’t hardly cull ’em, but I’d ought to of got rid of ’em three or four years sooner’n I did. They cost me a heap of money along toward the last.”

  We’d squatted on our heels facing George, and Harry looked as puzzled as I felt. “How the heck could they cost you money along towards the end?” he asked. “You didn’t have no vet bills on ’em, did you?”

  “Nary a dime,” George told him, “but to have ’em in good shape for the road they had to be stable kept, and it took about a ton of alfalfa hay and eight bushels of oats a month to feed ’em. Of course in them days grain and hay was cheaper’n what they are now but, near as I could reckon, the feed for that team cost me leastways twe
nty-five dollars a month, and drivin’ ’em to McCook on Saturdays took the whole day’s time. I ain’t no Barney Oldfield at drivin’ an automobile you understand, but with the Oakland I can easy make the round trip to McCook in two hours, and it don’t cost me over four dollars a month for gas and oil. It seems like nowadays new ways of doin’ things come along so fast a farmer can’t hardly keep up with ’em, but if he don’t it can sure cost him a lot of money.”

  Harry seemed a bit confused, and said, “I guess I ain’t follerin’ you too good, George. How do you mean?”

  “Well, it used to be, back before the war commenced, a valley farmer could do right good with a mixed herd of cattle; one with some Jersey and Guernsey blood mixed in with his beef stock, so’s’t he’d have milkers enough that the butter’d square the grocery bill. When he come to sell his steers it didn’t make much difference what their color was, or if them out of his milk cows was a trifle on the runty side, and them out of his beef stock was built kind of like a buffalo bull—most of their weight up front, and spindlin’ off to a little of nothin’ in the hind end. But it seems like the style in cattle has changed. Anymore the buyers for them big packin’ houses down to Kansas City and Omaha will pay close onto twice as much for a carload of fat steers if they’re all of one breed and one age and one size than what they’ll give for a mixed-color carload of the same weight. To top the market every steer in a car lot has to be a match for every other one; not over two years old, and danged near square—back as flat and level as a table top, close onto as wide acrost the hips and shoulders as what they are deep in the belly, with legs no longer’n their heads.”

  “That don’t make sense,” Harry broke in irritably. “Packin’ houses buy cattle to slaughter, not for the show ring, and if a steer’s good and fat the color of his hide or the shape of him or whether he’s a two-year-old or a four-year-old don’t make no difference in the quality of the beef.”

  George turned his face up just enough that his eyes showed under the brim of his Stetson, fired a thread-fine squirt of tobacco juice at a corn cob between his feet, and said, “Didn’t make sense to me neither, Harry, till I got to studyin’ on it some. Of course, the color of a critter’s hide don’t make no difference in the beef, exceptin’ that it marks him as a certain breed or mixture of ’em. Now you take a Jersey steer; he’ll need four summers on pasture and winters on hay ’fore he’s big enough to put into a feed lot, and it’ll take leastways four months to put a two-hundred-pound gain on him. But with all that feedin’, the beef out of him won’t be no better’n if it was out of a two-year-old Hereford that never seen an ear o’ corn . . . and there won’t be as much of it neither.

  “Or you take a steer out of a pretty good mixed-breed cow that’s been bred to a heavy-shouldered twenty-five-hundred-pound bull—one that’s mostly Durham, with a little Longhorn and Shorthorn and one thing another throwed in. Given three or four years on good pasture and hay he’d ought to weigh close onto eight hundred pounds, and four months on corn ought to put another three hundred on him, but he’ll have bone enough to carry a ton, guts as heavy as his sire’s, and when he’s dressed out the forequarters’ll weigh close onto double what the hinds do. Bones and guts ain’t worth much to a packin’ house. No matter how fat that kind of a steer is the meat out of him is bound to be on the tough side, and the steak is all in the hindquarters. The forequarters, where most of the weight is, won’t be good for much exceptin’ pot roast and hamburger and the likes.”

  As George talked Harry kept glancing nervously toward the corral, and a little worry began to show in his face. More, I thought, to reassure himself than to advance an argument, he said, “If a steer’s got a good layer of fat on him I don’t believe a year or two of age will make all that difference in the toughness of his meat.”

  George looked up from under his hat again, spit, and asked, “Don’t Mabel grow radishes in her kitchen garden?”

  “Of course she does; all the women folks do.”

  “Ever notice how tender them first ones in the spring are?”

  “Sure have, and tasty.”

  “Get kind of woody after the first two-three weeks, don’t they?”

  Harry seemed to get the idea that he was being drawn into a trap, and answered a bit sullenly, “Might be they do. What you drivin’ at anyways?”

  “Nothin’ much,” George told him, “exceptin’ that a radish and a steer are a lot alike in one way; the faster they grow the tenderer they’ll be. The big difference is that it don’t cost nothin’ to leave a slow-growin’ radish in the garden, but a slow-growin’ steer in the herd gets outside of just about as much feed in a day as a fast-growin’ one.

  “Now you take that Hereford herd of Otis Relph’s. Only the bull is a purebred, but Otis has been keepin’ that kind of sires long enough—tradin’ ’em off every two–three years to bring in new blood—keepin’ only the best heifer calves, and cullin’ out the poorest cows every fall, that now the whole herd is as alike as a row of doves on a fence wire. In country like this valley, where there’s good summer pasture and plenty of alfalfa hay for winters, you can’t beat them short-legged, wide-backed Herefords like Otis’s. Before they’re two-year-olds his steers’ll average seven hundred pounds apiece; they’ll hit a thousand after ninety days on corn, and if they don’t top the market when they’re shipped they’ll come mighty close to it.”

  “Yep, I suppose they will,” Harry said, “and I’d sure like to have cattle like ’em, but I reckon it would cost a heap of money to build up a herd like Otis’s or yours, George, and the butter from a mixed herd comes in mighty handy on the store bill.”

  “I wouldn’t misdoubt me you could make the change-over for less’n what you’d save in feed if you done it,” George told him. “Bones would allow you a pretty good price on stock as fat as what yours is—even the poorest of ’em—and I reckon you could pick up a dozen of last spring’s heifer calves from Otis for around forty dollars a head. If you wanted to take in some different blood, I’ve got a comin’-two-year-old bull I’d leave you have for an even hundred, and I’d give you a year without interest to pay for him. Of course he ain’t purebred, but he’s close to it, with a good compact build, and I have a notion he’d sire some awful nice calves out of Otis’s heifers.

  “You know, it wouldn’t surprise me none if your butter was costin’ you more than what you’re gettin’ for it—countin’ feed and the smallness of the calves a man gets out of milk cows. Not more’n a week ago I was readin’ in the Country Gentleman about an Ayrshire dairy herd some place in Ioway. Don’t recollect just how many cows there was in it, but there wasn’t a one of ’em producin’ less’n two pounds of butter a day. I kind of reckon it would cost about as much to get one of them kind of cows out here as what Bones would allow you on four of your milkers, but she’d turn out just as much butter as all four, and you’d save the feed that three of ’em’s been gettin’ outside of.”

  Harry sprang to his feet as if someone had pricked him with a pitchfork, reached for George’s hand, pulled him up, then told him, “Cull ’em, George! Cull ’em right down close and take the bull. I’ll be right proud to have that one of yours, and it won’t take me no year to get him paid for neither.”

  In that single week George culled nearly two hundred and fifty cattle and five hundred hogs, while I booked them, arranged with farmers to haul the hogs in to the Wilson place on Saturday morning, and hired young fellows to drive in the cattle and help with the sorting and loading. George and I did little talking, but in those five days I gained a greater admiration for him than I’d ever had for any man other than my own father. I don’t remember his ever calling me Ralph or Bud, but before the week was over he was calling me “Son,” and I liked it.

  From the time he’d talked to Harry about changing his herd over from mixed breeds to Herefords I’d been thinking about starting a beef herd of my own. When I’d first come to Beaver Township I had no intention of staying a minute beyond the end of wheat
harvest, but Effie Simons took me under her wing then, and the country had been good to me ever since. At first the high, dry divides with their history of crop failure and poverty, the blazing heat, and the searing wind that blew incessantly from dawn till dusk had seemed ominous to me. But month by month, as I’d made friends, prospered, and learned the richness of the soil in Beaver Valley my dislike had turned to liking. My week with George, my admiration for him, and the enjoyment I’d found in the evenings spent with the Wilsons, convinced me that I would be happy to spend the rest of my life in Beaver Township—and for some reason I couldn’t put into words, I had a feeling that my life was going to be longer than the doctors believed.

  As George and I rode back toward his place after making our last call, I asked, “Would spring calves winter through all right in a divide pasture that has some fairly good shelter in the gulches?”

  “If they was in a herd big enough to give ’em coverage in a blizzard they’d make out all right.”

  “Would a horse herd do?” I asked.

  “Don’t hardly reckon it would,” he said. “Horses and calves don’t mix no better’n horseflies and honeybees. What you got in mind?”

  “Well,” I said, “I’ve leased a half-section of good pasture at the top of the high divide, and there’s a lot more grazing there than my horses need. I was just wondering how it would work if I put in about a dozen top-grade Hereford heifer calves, and maybe a bull calf from a different strain.”