A View from the Buggy Read Free Page A

loaded everything into the van, and I settled into the backseat again.
    â€œI hope we can do this again,” I whispered to Alvin.
    â€œSo do I,” Alvin agreed.
    I figured I’d smile a long time over this wonderful evening. And to think that God had made such amazing things as fish. He must be a very great God.

Horses and Boys
    Marvin Wengerd
    Can two walk together, except they be agreed? (Amos 3:3)
    W HEN I WAS A BOY WE LIVED ON A SMALL FARM IN W ALNUT C REEK Valley. Back then farms with waving fields of grain and sprawling cornfields stretched their yellow and green across the valley. The “big creek,” as we boys called Walnut Creek, tumbled its course to the river that lay beyond. This creek marked the southern boundary of our farm.
    Up from the big creek toward the house was a 12-acre bottom field in which we grew corn. In the spring came plowing, disking, and harrowing. Planting followed. Then cultivation. Row after row, hour after hour of sitting on a two-horse cultivator swatting flies, steering the lines, and managing fast foot pedal plunges to miss hitting tender corn seedlings.
    This all led toward monotony, of course. King and Queen, our half wild, half tame team, needed to rest at times, so the monotony was broken by end-of-row breaks where reading and tossing stones in the creek were favorite pastimes while we waited.
    When the corn was waist high, cultivating was over and summer with all its work and play began. Making hay, shocking, and then threshing wheat and oats and chasing groundhogs and each other made the sweat run down our backs. It also added inches to our biceps as summer moved into fall. By then the memories of our hard days cultivating were all but forgotten. The trees had begun to color and the cornfields had turned from a sea of green to a rustling golden brown. Harvest time had arrived.
    The cool October wind not only stole summer’s warmth and fun,but it also reminded Dad that it was time to pick corn. Years before, Dad had invested in a two-row corn picker—my brother and me.
    We would hitch King and Queen to our hay wagon equipped with one-foot-high sides all around. Off we jolted to the waiting cornfields. Our right hands were fitted with leather bands and sported V-shaped metal hooks on the palm side. With this outfit we tore into a corn husk and ripped it from the stalk. And with speed that’s hard to explain, the left hand grabbed the well-guarded ear and yanked it free. With the same left hand the ear is airborne to find its place on the wagon bed with a dull thud. Over and over down the seemingly endless field my Dad’s two-row picker ripped, grabbed, yanked, and threw corn.
    As we picked (such a simple word for a very difficult job!) corn, the wagon with King and Queen hitched to it moved along as well. We would start at the back of the wagon and work our way up to the front, filling as we went.
    Standing at the front of the wagon we would simply holler, “Giddap” to King and Queen. They would start off; the two most recently picked corn rows guiding them in a straight line.
    When we were ready for them to stop we’d call out, “Whoa!” The wagon would have moved ten feet or so by then, and obediently the horses would stop, even though the lines hung limply on the wagon. Horsemen call this voice command .
    â€œWhoa.” “Giddap.” “Whoa.” “Giddap.” “Whoa.” “Giddap.” All morning long King and Queen started and stopped perfectly as my brother and I fought cold hands and picked corn.
    We had just unloaded and were back out on the west end of the field, farthest away from the barn, when the incident occurred. The wagon being empty, the corn landed on the wooden wagon floor with a sharp crack, kernels flying in all directions.
    â€œGiddap,” I called and kept on picking corn, throwing it into the empty wagon. “Whoa,” I shouted above the rustling corn.