as you should,
making the full most of it.
“It may not have happened exactly like that,
but still it’s as true as a farmer’s big hat,”
Grandpa always adds.
We want our stories
to make Miss Neftell and our friends
happy and glad.
Seed-Sack
Seed-Sack is a mule who thinks he’s a horse, or a human, a rooster, or a dog. He gives us slide-rides because he likes to sit down when we try to ride him. Then we plop on the ground.
It’s hard to teach a mule tricks because Grandpa says, “You can’t tell with a mule. They follow no rule.” But we taught Seed-Sack to carry baskets of eggs, to play tag and to toot along with the train that goes by. He also nuzzles the barn cats and hides our shoes when we play in the barn.
He wears an old straw hat, which he once gave to Ginger-Tea, the dog. But she didn’t wear it right, so he took it back. Then she wanted it back. So now they share and are friends. We taught them that too.
We can’t wait to visit him again on the farm. He’s too big to go in the trunk of the car, or the truck, Grandpa says, and besides he might get hurt.
His other best friend is Rexster, the talking rooster.
Here’s a Seed-Sack rhyme Grandpa likes to recite:
Seed-Sack, Seed-Sack, old and gray,
open your mouth and loudly bray.
Lift your ears and blow your horn
to wake the world this sleepy morn.
The End
Rexster
Rexster is a farm rooster who can talk. He says, “Get up, kids. The sun is shining. Get up!” Every morning he says this because we taught him how.
He follows us everywhere. He plays with us in the barn, swings on the rope and helps us gather eggs. He sometimes shares his food with the barn cats.
We like Rexster a lot and miss him. But Grandpa and Grandma say we can visit anytime. He can’t come visit us though, because he lives on the farm and should stay there.
His best friends are Seed-Sack the mule and Ginger-Tea the dog. He likes to hitch rides on both of them. He struts and sits tall and proud like a king. Rexster made our summer a Rooster Summer. Grandpa gave us a barn kitten to take home, so we can always remember our summer. We call our new cat Summer.
Grandma taught us this funny poem about Rexster:
We have a little rooster, the handsomest ever seen.
He washes the dishes and sweeps the house clean.
He goes to the mill to fetch us flour
and brings it home in less than an hour.
He bakes us bread and fetches a pail.
He sits by the fire and fans his fine tail.
The End
Now
All this happened some time ago. The farm is gone now. The creek is still there and the railroad tracks run through the land, but the house, barn, chicken coop, Rexster’s mulberry tree, even the fields are gone. There are big warehouse buildings, parking lots, a few new trees and concrete where they all used to be.
Now when my sister and I go past the farm and think of the happy “Rooster Summer” we shared, we both feel the sadness that time and change can bring. But we also think of one of Grandma and Grandpa’s often-said sayings and how true it is for us:
People, places come and go.
But stories, planted, sprout and grow.
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Rooster Summer Page 3