When school first got started, I was likin' it real good and I was doin' real good. Miss Tuthill would see our daddy from time to time and tell him how good me and Paco was doin'. When she done that, you'd a thought she just told him that we was just made king of the whole world. At them times you could see that that man was as proud of us as we was of him.
I was doin' real good in my times and divide. It ain't that hard. You just got to have a chance to learn it. I never had that chance before. Once you learn times, you got divide. Divide is just backwards times.
After we was in school for a spell, I come to see more why them Goodnight younguns thought on school like they did. Like I said, I liked school real good but now that I didn't have to fight to get to go - in fact, I knew I had to go - I didn't take the same satisfaction out of bein' there. The other thing was, I was catchin' hell all the time. I never had no problem in school before. When they'd let me go, them teachers was always tellin' me how good I done. Miss Tuthill said I done good, but the problem was, I done things too fast and I was mostly done way before them other fifth graders. Miss Tuthill had the thinkin' that if it was fifth grade cipherin' time, you done cipherin'. You couldn't read no book or work on homework from some other subject. When I got done, I'd just have to sit there and I don't think no boy who's 'leven in the whole world can just sit and do nothin'.
Me and Nate and Juan and Lily and Iris Colburn was the only ones in the fifth grade and they was all my friends. I'd try not to, but I'd get to wantin' to talk to some of them and then Miss Tuthill would get all fussed because I was keepin' them from gettin' their work done. When I'd bring a book from my daddy's library, Miss Tuthill would get all fussed because she was doin' what the County Superintendent told her to do and them books I wanted to read wasn't on that list. It got to where she was after me all the time and I told my daddy, I reckoned I'd just quit goin' to school. I'd just do my learnin' from him and from his books. I told him that I didn't want to cause no trouble but I just couldn't keep from it. I still liked learnin' stuff real good but I was comin' to hate goin' to school.
You seen fire in Daddy's eyes real quick. When he asked my why I was comin' to hate school and I told him, he was out the door, headin' for Nate's cabin so quick he didn't even finish his supper. Miss Tuthill boarded at the Taylors. The Taylors had had all them younguns and they had all them extra rooms that nobody was usin' now. Danny told me, them Taylors generally boarded the teacher. It give the teacher a place to stay and it give the Taylors a little extra money. Our daddies paid them for boardin' the teacher.
There was some talk, before Pablito was born, of the Taylors and the Dominguezs (that's Juan's family) tradin' cabins so Señor Pablo wouldn't have to keep buildin' on rooms but they never done it. Nate's mama was still some fragile in her thinkin' and after havin' to change her ways on Nate, Bent-Y folks thought makin' her move would be too much for her right then. She'd been livin' in that cabin for almost forty years. Anyway, she had all them grandbabies always comin' to stay with her and there was a need for an extra room for the teacher. Daddy said he didn't reckon the Taylors and the Dominguezs was the only big families we'd ever have on the Bent-Y so we might just as well keep buildin' on them rooms.
I'm not sure what happened when Daddy was talkin' to Miss Tuthill at Nate's house. Nate said when I asked him that he was sent to his room and he was tryin' to listen but he couldn't make out what they was sayin'. He could tell that my daddy sounded mad at first, and that Miss Tuthill was cryin'. Nate said they let him out just before my daddy left and, while Miss Tuthill's eyes was red, she was smilin' and laughin' some and that he heard my daddy say he was sorry for bein' so fussed and that he knew he'd have to learn to be more relaxed about his boys but that he'd appreciate if Miss Tuthill tried what he had suggested. Miss Tuthill said she understood Daddy's mad and that she'd be glad to cooperate with Daddy. She didn't want Sam hatin' school either.
I reckon what Daddy suggested was that I could read books when I was done with my work. Least Miss Tuthill kept askin' me to be sure I had somethin' to read when I got my work done. I started to stop hatin' to go to school but I never got to likin' it again like I done in Goodnight. I reckon with my new way of livin', school wasn't the only thing I had to do no more and some of the other things I could do was more fun than school.
Paco never did come to hate goin' to school. He took to learnin' like if he didn't get his share real quick, there wasn't gonna be none left for him. After about a month, he was like me. He was always the first one done in the fourth grade. He'd get his work done and then he's payin' attention to what them older younguns was doin'. Like, when you're in the fourth grade, you ain't 'sposed to learn divide real good, but it took his interest when us fifth graders was learnin' it. He wouldn't leave me alone until I taught him how to do it. He got to where he could do it good as me.
If it was rainin' or somethin' on Saturday or of an evenin', me and him would have cipherin' races sometimes. After about two months, Paco won as much as I did. I don't know if he loved learnin' more than me but I reckon it meant more to him right then. When he was tellin' Daddy some new thing he'd learned, you seen a really proud boy. He might forget and go back to hide-hunter livin' in forgettin' to put on his britches once in a while, but he was never gonna go back to not knowin' stuff. Seem like some folks got a head and a way of thinkin' that just needs to have more and more stuff put in it. Him and me was the same in that. We never seem to get enough learnin'. We was different on how we liked to learn stuff though. He just loved school. I was gettin' to where I liked learnin' from readin' Daddy's books or learnin' from Daddy better.
Right after them other herd younguns got there, Aunt Lydia put her foot down on the milkin'. Our Jerseys had been there about a month and they seemed to be doin' real good and Aunt Lydia just loved milkin' them. She give them the same names as some Jerseys her daddy had when she was a youngun in Ohio. She made pets out of them and she wouldn't let Katy milk none of them.
They was real pretty cows. Mostly we had Milkin' Shorthorns and they was a kind of purple-white color. Daddy called it roan. But them Jerseys was little and brown with some black on their faces that made them look real pretty. They was gentler cows than them shorthorns too. I seen right off why Aunt Lydia liked them so much.
Along with them Jerseys, when the other herd younguns come, they brought cows from where they lived so we'd have enough milk for everybody. Up to this year, Aunt Lydia milked them extra cows but she said with all us boys big enough now, she just wasn't gonna do that no more. Because them other herd boys went home on the weekend, it was just us Bent-Y boys who had to help with the milkin'. Danny made such a fuss about havin' to do women's work he ended up gettin' a whippin' from his daddy.
But milkin' ain't that easy. You got to squeeze the tit right up by the bag with your thumb and top finger. That keeps the milk in the tit and don't let it go back up in the bag. When you got that milk trapped in the tit, then you squeeze with the rest of your fingers and that pushes the milk out that little hole in the end of the tit. That might not sound hard, but you try doin' that on four tits on two cows 'til you got all their milk. You get to thinkin' your hands is gonna fall off and then you get to wishin' they would. They was so sore I had trouble gettin' to sleep at first.
With them Jerseys and them other herd cows, we had seventeen milkin' cows. Aunt Lydia kept the three Jerseys and she give all the rest of us two. The ones milkin' was me, Paco, Juan, Danny, Nate, Virgil, and Katy. Katy made some fun of us when we first started milkin' 'cause it got so we couldn't even hold a pencil in school but, I reckon, it didn't take that long until we was milkin' about as fast as her. You couldn't really have no race because some cows let their milk down better than others and some cows give more. We didn't race to see who got the most the fastest but we did try to see who could get the most foam in their bucket. The faster you milk, the more foam it makes.
We done good on the milkin'. You'd think that six boys and a sometimes uppity girl would get to playin' or fightin', but you got to remember, Aunt Lydia was there.
One Saturday when we was doin' the mornin' milkin', our daddy come out and said he wanted to try milkin'. He said he never done hardly any and it hurt his pride that his boys could do somethin' he couldn't do. He took my bucket and set down at my cow and you could tell he wasn't tryin'. I knew he could do better than he was but I couldn't think why he was actin' like he couldn't milk. He done the same to Paco and by the time he'd had enough tryin' to milk, me and Paco was the only ones in the barn. The others already had their milk in the milk house and was in to breakfast. Daddy went on in the house, or at least we thought he did and me and Paco took our milk to the milk house. As soon as we got in there, we heard someone nailin' the door shut. We was left in there for about a hour. Lord knows how long we'd have been there if Aunt Lydia didn't come out to dip some cream. Me and Paco heard her pullin' the nails but you could tell that whoever was doin' it was tryin' to be real quiet. When she seen us, she acted real surprised and said she was wonderin' what happened to us. Then she got huffy like she does but you could tell she was funnin'. She was askin' us why we was just sittin' in the milk house for a hour when there was other chores to be done. She said she didn't have no trouble openin' the door.
As soon as we heard that nailin', me and Paco knew we was bein' tricked on and I reckon even someone as dumb as Vox could have figured out who done it. Wasn't nothin' our daddy couldn't do and the way he was goin' about that milkin', you know he was just tryin' to hold me and Paco up so we'd be the last ones in the milk house. When we was tellin' him we knew he done it he acted real surprised and like his feelings was hurt that we would think he'd do such a thing. We knew it was him anyway.
We got back at him by puttin' one of them lizards that won't hurt nobody in his bed. He didn't say nothin' for about two weeks and me and Paco got to thinkin' maybe it crawled away before he got in bed. We seen we got him though by how he got us back. We was just comin' out of our dust room one day, headin' for our horse chores when he grabbed us, tucked one of us under each arm and headed for the horse tank. We knew what was gonna happen. When we come up, even before we got the water out of our eyes, you could tell by the laughin' that everybody on the Bent-Y, includin' them school younguns, knew what was gonna happen too. I love that trickin' but how do you get the best of somebody like our daddy who's been at it so long that he's already done everything me and Paco can think to do to him?
Come the first of November when most of the fall ranchin' work was done, my daddy told us he had to go back to Austin for more of that legislature. Neither me or Paco could think that out. He was gone a whole month before and now he was havin' to go again. We asked him if them other senators was dumb or what? Why did it take them so long to make them new laws that our daddy had to leave us again? Daddy laughed and hugged us and said, "It takes so long because this is a Democracy and in a Democracy everybody has to have a chance to tell their thinking on new laws."
Paco said, "Well, could be they ain't dumb, but if you ask me, they think too damn much. Don't they know we ain't had a daddy 'til just recent? We don't need him goin' off listenin' to other folks thinkin'. If you want to listen to thinkin', Daddy, I got some thinkin' you can stay home and listen to, and if I ain't got enough to keep you interested, I'll get Sam to help me."
Daddy laughed real hard but he still had water in his eyes. I reckon we don't talk about it as much as we done at first, but the three of us is still lovin' the hell out of each other. Our daddy gets water in his eyes real easy, especially when me and Paco talk about how much we need him. He hugged us real hard and said if it was up to him, he'd stay home with us. There wasn't nothin' more interestin' to him than his boys. But it was his duty to his state to go to Austin and he'd try his best to get them long-winded senators not to talk so long on their thinkin' so he could come home sooner. He made us promise to write to him every day and we was both cryin' for him to stay home, but he went anyway.
It come to me again that when you love somebody real hard, it's easier to get mad at them than at folks you don't care about. That's still really got me questioned. Before I had my daddy, I was thinkin' that if I had somebody who loved me, all them mads and scares and chest hurts would be gone. But they ain't. All them things is different and there ain't near as much scares but there's still some mads and your chest still hurts you when you do somethin' you wish you didn't.
But, like I said, I still got that question. Lovin' someone and bein' mad at them just don't fit good in my thinkin' but that's how it is with me and my daddy. I know he has to go to Austin but it still makes me mad at him when he does. It's the same way with Paco. If he does something I don't like and, say, Danny does the same thing, I get more mad at Paco. And while I'm thinkin' on this, it comes to me that if Virgil done the same thing, I wouldn't be as mad at Virgil as I would be at Danny. I reckon that's 'cause Danny's family, and while I like Virgil real good, I love my cousin - not like I love my brother, but I love him.
Sometimes I get a real strong hurt in my chest when I get mad at Paco or my daddy, but it just happens. What do you say about lovin' and bein' mad at the same person? Ain't nothin' to say. I'm still thinkin' on it.
I'm even gettin' to love Katy some. She can still be uppity sometimes but it seems like she's gettin' all the time to act more like her mama, like a grown up lady. I already told you she's real good with Paco. She don't ever act uppity with Paco, and, I swear that girl thinks she's his mama. She's still comin' over and learnin' him things and if he gets a hurt, she's fussin' over him and kissin' on his hurt like he was no bigger than Buck. If me or Daddy would treat him like a baby like Katy does, we'd probably get a cussin', but he takes it from Katy and seems to like it.
I told you how Katy was doin' him like a mama when he first got his arm broke. She kept doin' that a long time after he could do for himself and he just let her do it. Seemed like he was tryin' to catch up on all that love he lost out on all them years by takin' extra love from Katy. I got the feelin' too that Paco knew that lettin' Katy mama him would make her feel more grown up and help her get over her uppity. Paco seen things in folks right off that didn't come to me 'til quite some time later.
But there was a limit to what he'd let her do. I seen that when he first got his arm broke and Katy wanted to bring him a bed pan. I reckon you know what that is. That's a pan you shit in while you're lyin' right in bed. Me and Paco ain't 'sposed to say shit no more but we do anyway. Danny does and all them cowboys do and even our daddies do when they're talkin' about cows or horses. How come it's shit when them animals do it and bowel movements when folks do it? Seems like the same thing to me. Seems that way to Paco and Danny and Juan and them other Bent-Y boys too so that's what we call it. Them mamas yell at us some for it, but I'm comin' to see that them mamas don't know everything and yellin' at folks is just in mamas just like them "nos" is in daddies.
Like I was tellin' you, Paco drew the line at that damn bedpan. He said he'd got to be fancy folks, he reckoned, in a whole lot of things. He was learnin' all them manners, even them table manners and he was doin' pretty good on his cussin' when women folks was around. He could even do good proper talk when he wanted to. He got used to shittin' in the house in them shit pots but it didn't make no difference what them other fancy folks done or how much his arm hurt. There wasn't no way he was gonna shit in no bed. I helped him walk to the shit house.
I already told you that both Paco and I are doing very well at learning how to talk properly. When our daddy is teaching us new proper things to say or when he introduces us to some of his proper friends or when we just feel like it, we can speak very properly. See? I done that good, didn't I? But mostly, it takes too much thinkin' and it makes you feel like it's not you talkin' so we mostly just talk range talk. I'm usin' mostly range talk to tell you this story unless I forget or I go to showin' off like I done a minute ago.
What I started to say before I went to showin' off was that we ain't 'sposed to call them places shit houses no more. We're 'sposed to call them out houses or privies or toilets. I can't think why they got so many name for something you just do that in.
About the first of December, our daddy come back from Austin and he hardly come in the door and got the huggin' done before Paco was askin' did he hear anything from that Pinkerton man down in Arizona. Daddy said that he didn't and that got Paco real quiet. Seemed like for the first time, Daddy didn't know how to get him out of his quiet so he just let Paco to his thinkin' and I was gettin' some upset from the sad you could just feel in that room. Finally Paco said, "I feel like one of them spiders you see hangin' on that long string they make. Can't do nothin' about which way the wind blows you. When I think on it, that damn spider's luckier than me. He can climb back up that string. I gotta just hang there until the goddam wind blows me to know who I am."
Daddy hugged him. "You're my son, Paco. That's who you are. Have you been worrying about that, Son?"
"I try not to but it just keeps comin' in my head. What am I gonna do if I got to go away from my daddy and my brother?"
Daddy said, "I reckon I can't keep those thoughts from coming into your head. I can just love you real hard. Paco, Son, if I thought there was a chance you would have to go, I'd tell you. I just don't think you have any relatives still living. I really believe that you're going to finish your growing up right here on the Bent-Y."
Paco said, "I keep thinkin', it takes so long for that Pinkerton to get word to us, it must be awful far away. If I got to go there, I won't never see my daddy and my brother no more."
That kind of talkin' almost got me cryin'. It seems like I talk a lot about cryin'. I don't remember cryin' much before our daddy found us but then I don't remember feelin' much neither. I know I didn't feel no love and I can't even remember feelin' mad much. Only feelin' I remember at all was bein' scared sometimes that that damn preacher man could come back and get me.
I reckon I don't do that much cryin' but like Paco said once, "When it comes to family and the way you love them, cryin's the only thing that takes care of what you're feelin'."
Ling Pau had her baby. It was a girl. She was some like Pablito when she was first born. She looked real funny and all she done was cry and sleep and shit. Ho Tau's mama had to teach Ling Pau how to use diapers. In China, I reckon, they just let them babies shit in their bed. Paco and me watched Ling Pau changin' them diapers. Lookin' at what was in them diapers made me kind of sick and mad. It didn't smell like that damn preacher man's shithouse pit but it put me in mind of it. I don't watch no more but Paco loves them babies so much he asked Sarah to teach him how to change them diapers. He done it too.
You could hear that baby cryin' in the night. I got to wonderin' if Ling Pau ever got any sleep. Sarah stayed about two weeks after Ling Moy was born and by that time she was real cute. Paco loved that baby just like he loved all them other babies but he couldn't give her no bottle like he done Buck. Buck's too grown up for a bottle now but when we first come to the Bent-Y, Paco loved to hold Buck while he was eatin' from that bottle.
Paco can't give Ling Moy no bottle 'cause she eats right from her mama. I never seen no baby do that before and I guess I never knew they did it. But, when you think on it, it makes sense. You see them calfs eatin' from their mamas. It didn't surprise Paco none. He said them Indians babies was eatin' from their mamas all the time. Them Indian babies was eatin' from their mamas until they was about three years old.
I come to like that baby real good too and sometimes me and Paco would go to fussin' over who was gonna hold her. Paco and me fuss about a lot of things but it don't mean nothin'. One time when I was mad at him, I said to my daddy, "If someone else was thinkin' on Paco like I'm thinkin' on him right now, I'd want to shoot them. What's the cause of I can be mad at him but I feel like shootin' somebody else do they be mad at him?"
Our daddy laughed. He said, "You two are sure enough brothers. When Sean and Kevin and Brian and I were about your size, we fought all the time. Our daddy and mama got so tired of listenin' to us fuss they'd make us go in separate rooms so they didn't have to listen to it. But, if someone else did something to one of us, we were all fighting the one who did it. When folks live close together like brothers do, you're bound to get on each others nerves once in a while. Don't worry about it. You and Paco will fuss with each other some until you're grown but then you'll be like your uncles and I are: very good friends as well as brothers."
Daddy's answer didn't satisfy me too good. I know what he's tellin' me is right but I still think on that lovin' and bein' mad at the same person and no sense on it comes to me. You reckon it's one of them mysteries that just is and there ain't no answer to?
When Ling Moy was first born, her daddy seemed like he was real mad at everything. He's gettin' to talk English real good but he never talked mean to Paco or me. But when Ling Moy was born, he fussed at Ling Pau. He fussed at Sarah. He fussed at Ching Lu and dammit, he even fussed at me and Paco. He even stopped doin' that cow-towin' around Daddy but he didn't fuss at him.
Paco asked Ho Tau, "What the hell's the matter with Ho Chow? He's meaner than a range cow who got her tit stepped on."
Ho Tau told us that all them Chinamen want their babies to be boys and Ho Chow's mad at Ling Pau for givin' him a girl. Paco thought that was the dumbest thing he ever heard of. "What the hell's the matter with them dumb Chinamen. Don't they know if they don't get no girls there won't be nobody growin' up to be ladies and if they ain't got no ladies, no more Chinamen babies can be born? Hell, if they keep thinkin' that way, pretty soon there won't be no more Chinamen. Anyway, Ling Moy is cute and I like her a lot and Ho Chow better be good to her."
Ho Tau said that Ho Chow would get over it pretty soon and he'll love that baby just like his daddy loves Ching Lu. He said it makes him mad, sometimes, at how his mama and daddy have took to Ching Lu but he knows it's from him just havin' them to hisself all them years. He loves Ching Lu too and he don't know why he gets so mad at her.
Me and Paco looked at each other and started laughin'. Our laughin' made Ho Tau some mad. He thought we was doin' it at him. When we told him what our daddy said about lovin' and bein' mad at the same person, it made him feel some better but he can't think that out either.
Ho Tau told us that Ho Chow's still got a lot of that China thinkin' in him. In China you need to have sons because they take care of their parents when the parents get too old to work. A girl gets married and goes off to live with her husband, and he takes care of his own parents. China folks think, if they don't have sons, they're going to starve to death when they get too old to work anymore.
That explanation didn't satisfy Paco. He was still kind of mad at the thought of Ling Moy not being loved and he said, "You Chinamen sure got some dumb ways. Whoever heard of not lovin' your own baby? Seems like it would take someone dumber than Vox to do somethin' like that."
When Paco said that, everybody who heard him was surprised. That wasn't Paco's way. I already told you, he was one for makin' folks feel good and this bad-mouthin' talk from him just didn't sound right.
It made Ho Tau mad. "You don't talk on folks like that on the Bent-Y. Your daddy would want to know how you're talkin'. I ain't one for tattlin' but I know what your daddy wants and what he wants makes it good for all the folks livin' on the Bent-Y. You keep talkin' like that, I'll be tellin' him. Anyway, us Chinamen must be doin' somethin' right. Like them school teachers say, there's a hell of a lot more of us than there is anybody else in this world."
I never seen Paco quite like that before and I couldn't think what was makin' him be like that. He just never was mad with folks and he never run out of things to say but he done both of them now. He had fire in his eyes and he knew Ho Tau was right about there bein' more Chimamen than other folks so he couldn't think of nothin' to say right back. Finally his head come back to him and he said, "I reckon you're right about all them Chinamen but like everybody around here is always sayin', 'This ain't China.' This is the Bent-Y and folks here love whatever baby they get. Ho Chow better be good to that baby. She's real cute and I think she's gettin' to know me. I think she smiled at me this mornin'. Makes you feel damn good when a baby smiles at you."
Paco went off by hisself for a spell, I reckon tryin' to get over his mad. I wanted to ask him what the hell was the matter with him but I never seen him like that and I didn't know how to go about it. Somethin' from way down inside him must have come to his thinkin' and he needed time to take care of it.
Me and Ho Tau kept on talkin' about how China folks think on girls. Miss Tuthill was havin' Ching Lu sit right beside Ho Tau in school so he could tell her what was goin' on. Ho Tau said a whole lot of China folks don't think no girl ought to get no school learnin' 'cause they ain't smart enough to do nothin' with it do they get it, so Ching Lu never went to school in China.
About that time, Paco come back and sat by us. You could still see he had a mad on him so he didn't say nothin'. He just sat there and listened.
Ho Tau went on tellin' about China girls. He said they're real good at house kind of things but they can't do no schoolin'. He said his mama's a real good mama but she can't read or do no cipherin'. He said he don't know why our daddy is so strong on Ching Lu goin' to school. She can't do no cipherin' and she can't do no readin'. She don't even know any of that China writin' so how the hell can Ho Tau teach her anything? Ho Tau said he reckoned them China girls was too dumb for schoolin'.
Before anyone knew what was happenin', Paco was all over Ho Tau. Paco was on him so quick that Ho Tau didn't even have time to do any of that China fightin'. He didn't see Paco comin' and Paco was sittin' on his belly, hittin' him in his face with his fists before Ho Tau could do nothin' with his feet or with Paco's arms like he done to Nate. When we pulled Paco off, both him and Ho Tau went to cryin; not from bein' hurt but from bein' mad, and especially from them bein' friends, and it hurt them in the chest that they was fightin' with each other.
Paco said through his sobbin', "I'm sorry, Ho Tau, but just 'cause folks ain't had no chance, don't mean they're dumb."
When Paco said that, I seen what his mad and his fightin' was all about. All them years he didn't have nobody lovin' him and he didn't have no chance. He knew the pain of not being loved and he knew how bad it feels to think you're dumb from not havin' no chance. I don't think Paco should have started fightin' Ho Tau but I was proud of him for wantin' Ling Moy to be loved and for carin' how Ching Lu felt. Even Ching Lu seemed to know why Paco done that. She looked at him like she was tryin' to say, "Thank you for stickin' up for me."
When we first started goin' to school I got to wonderin' why Virgil was older than me but he was in the fourth grade. Didn't take long to see why. He couldn't hardly read. As time went on I seen that that was the cause of him bein' shy too. I seen that too about Harold Colburn. He was in the sixth grade when we started but Miss Tuthill made him read with the fourth grade. It liked to kill him when he had to do that and it got him so he would hardly look at me after school. I liked him real good and sometimes when I was done with my chorin', I'd go to the school younguns' house to see could Harold come out and play. For a spell, after he knew I knew about his readin', he wouldn't come out and play with me. It took a long time for me to make him know that what he couldn't do didn't make him no different to me. When he knew that, he seemed to need me more. He told me once that where he went to school before, when folks seen he couldn't read, they funned on him so much he wanted to die.
Me and Harold kept on bein' friends but not as good as Juan and me. That was 'cause Harold got to be real good friends with Virgil. I seen that the only time Harold didn't look scared and the only time Virgil didn't seem real shy was when they was together. We'd all play together some but them two got to where when you seen one, you seen the other.
It even got to where Harold slept at Virgil's cabin most nights. Them younger Colburns, especially Daisy, was doin' real good and they didn't need Harold so they wouldn't feel homesick. But Virgil's mama said them two boys was good for each other. They was fine boys and they was smart but for some cause they couldn't read. She was hopin' they would give each other confidence and maybe help them do better at readin'.
I couldn't think why them boys couldn't read. It come so easy for me and you seen how easy it come for Paco. I was like Virgil's mama. I knew them boys wasn't dumb. I didn't know Harold as good as I did Virgil but when you was talkin' to him, you seen he wasn't dumb. I knew that Virgil wasn't dumb. He was the best at doin' a lot of ranch things. His daddy had taught him to trail and he was almost as good as a man at doin' it. When we was all playin' together, Virgil was the one who had some of the best ideas of what to do and when somethin' needed good sense to think out, Virgil was the one we looked to. Why can't someone as smart as them boys read? That questioned me.
Both them boys was real good at cipherin' but when it come readin' time, they was the same. They'd get all nervous and go to makin' noise by shuffling their feet and bumpin' into stuff and doin' other things that made the teacher mad. They'd drop their books and pencils and when you drop one of them slate pencils, they break in a million pieces. You seen when the teacher fussed at them, it just made them do them things worse. When the teacher would ask Harold to read, his hands was shakin' so much, he had to lay his book on his desk. It would have been movin' too much for him to read if he was holdin' it in his hands. Virgil's head would jerk sometimes for no reason. Our daddy said it was a tic.
Me and Paco felt sorry for them boys. They was good but they didn't think they was. When me and Paco was talkin' about it one night after we was in bed, thinkin' on how they must feel brought back feelings on Paco and he went to cryin' real hard. I tried to hold him and comfort him but he cried so hard that Daddy heard him. Daddy come and by that time he had to comfort both of us. Paco got me to cryin' for how bad he felt. Daddy said he was proud of how thoughtful we was of other folks' hurts. He said a soft heart was one of the things that made a real strong man. We went to sleep feelin' some sad for Virgil and Harold but feelin' good about ourselfs. Ain't our daddy somethin'?
Speakin' of cryin', a lot of nights you could hear some of them littler younguns in the school younguns' house cryin' for their mamas. Our daddies was proud that most Bent-Y hands wanted their children to get schoolin' and they knew how hard it must have been for some of them mamas and daddies to let their children come. A whole lot of Texas folks was used to livin' off by themselves and bein' real clannish about their younguns. Lettin' their younguns out of their sight took some hard thinkin'. Range livin' folks didn't hardly have nothin' but each other and sendin' them younguns off for schoolin' was a real sacrifice for them parents, especially them mamas.
It was some hard on the younguns too. Not just them little ones who missed their mamas and daddies, but on all of them. They didn't hardly have nothin' to do. Range younguns was brought up thinkin' they was only as important as the work they done. They knew their parents loved them but they also knew that if they was to stay alive and not starve to death, they had to work hard for the family. When they was on the Bent-Y for schoolin', mostly there wasn't no chores for them to do. They helped cook and clean up after and they took care of their sleepin' place and took turns cleanin' the middle room but in their thinkin', that wasn't hardly no work, especially the boys. They was used to chorin' with horses or cows and writin' on paper or slates and washin' dishes and sweepin' floors didn't do much to make them feel useful.
Señor Pablo helped what he could, by havin' some of them older boys learn how to take care of simple sicks and hurts on them horses. Some of them got to where they could take care of some horses on the range and didn't have to send them to the main houses. Mostly, though, them other herd younguns was so bored they was botherin' us main house boys when we was doin' our chorin'. They was tryin' to help but they was mostly in the way because they didn't know how Señor Pablo wanted things done.
Our daddies built swings and maypoles and see saws and stuff, and them things kept some of the younger ones busy. But by the time them younguns was about me and Paco's big, they liked playin' some but it was workin' that made them feel important. There was mostly a lot of sad and homesick younguns who was somehow willing to put up with things because someone had put in them a need for learnin'. Wasn't only our daddies who was proud of them younguns. When I thought on it, I was proud of them too.
Me and Paco talked about them younguns a lot. We knew that they had had their mamas and daddies all their lives, but we knew how hard it was to leave them. Both me and Paco loved learnin' things but we just got our daddy. We decided that if the only way we could get schoolin' was to leave him, we was just gonna stay dumb.
Our daddy wasn't gonna have to go back to Austin until next spring but he was still gone about two nights a week. He went to Amarillo or Claude or someplace to look out for Flynn business. It was gettin' to the place where you could sell fat cattle almost year round and sellin' cattle is what took our daddy off mostly. You heard them stories about the big spring round-up and the summer cattle drive. Well, the railroad changed all that, at least for folks with a railroad close by like us. Folks are startin' to round up and sell any time they got cattle fat enough.
The spring is still the biggest round-up. Them bulls is with them cows all winter and come spring there's a lot of new calves to be rounded-up, branded and most of them bull calfs needed to be cut. There would always be a few fat cattle to sell in the spring if the winter wasn't too hard but mostly they got fat on summer grass and was sold in the fall. Like I said, with the railroad handy, you could sell any time you had fat cattle and the railroad made it better too cause you didn't have to walk all the fat off them cattle gettin' them to market.
Daddy's proud of me and Paco 'cause we're learnin' so much about the cattle business. It makes me and Paco proud too. It makes you feel like a man, knowin' them things.
Our daddy gave me and Paco each three cows. When we find them in the spring, they'll have calfs and we can let them get fat and then sell them. Daddy said that will be our money. Our daddy don't just want me and Paco to have money, he wants us to know how to earn it and how to do with it after you got it.
I'm already thinkin' on how to earn more money. If my calfs are heifers, I'll keep them and let them grow up to be cows. Then I'll have six cows and it's sure some of their calfs will be bulls that can be cut and made steers out of.
You make steers out of bulls by cuttin' their balls off. They got a big word for it that I can never remember but mostly everybody just calls it cuttin' anyway. I ain't never seen it done because they do it durin' the spring round-up and that was mostly done when me and Paco got here.
They cut them bulls for two reasons. If they leave them bulls, they get mean and hard to handle and if there's too many bulls around, they'll all the time be fightin' over them cows and hurtin' each other.
I reckon the most important reason for the cuttin' is that bulls get all muscles and them muscles make tough meat. Steers get muscles too but they get a lot of fat in them muscles and that makes the meat taste sweet and not tough. You got to decide when they're little which ones will make good daddies for makin' calfs that will grow into good, fat stock. When you decide which ones will make good daddies, you don't cut them. You just let them grow up to be bulls. When Danny was tellin' us all that, me and Paco was glad we ain't cows. What if somebody decided we wouldn't make good daddies and cut our balls off? Makes you sick to think on it.