Westlake Girl by Wampler Frieda;Wampler Larry;

Author:Wampler, Frieda;Wampler, Larry; [Wampler, Frieda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TwoDot
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Bell

In the spring of 1929, Daddy leased the store and attached house. He had new projects under way. Our new house wasn’t ready, so we moved into the two-story house that we had previously rented out. It was much larger, with a spacious, open kitchen-dining-living room. Mommy and Daddy took the downstairs bedroom.

My room was the first at the top of the stairs. Three small windows gave a nice view of Buster’s house and the forest to the south. But I couldn’t see the lake.

I liked the unfinished ceilings on the second-story rooms. As I lay in my bed, I could look up past where the ceiling would have been to the backside of the shingles on the gabled roof. It got loud during heavy rain but that never disturbed my sleep. The rain soothed me.

Behind the house, Daddy built a little shed for the big, brindle milk cow my parents had owned since before I was born. We called her Bell, on account of the large bell she wore around her neck. Bell was also my middle name, but I had been named after my Grandma Laura Bell Woodard, not a cow. Still, the shared name may have strengthened our bond.

Weather permitting, Bell roamed free in the daytime. She grazed on grass and brush wherever she found it. The soft clanging of the bell made it easy to track her movements, but she never wandered far.

Whenever I approached, she came to meet me. I scratched behind her ears and in the hollow between her eyes. She was very tame. I counted her as my pet.

Bell was no less glad to see Daddy when he came for her in the evenings. That meant it was milking time, when she could relieve the mounting pressure in her udder and munch her nightly ration of grain. She gladly followed Daddy’s lead back to the shed.

Until I got too big, around the age of five, Daddy would lift me up onto her back for a ride home. Bell spent nights there in the shed. The next morning, she gave more milk and restarted her routine. Cows like routine.

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