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Show slow-moving, cumbersome beast, the ox was strong enough to accomplish the most difficult frontier settlement work far better than other animals were able to perform. John K and Frank were but children when they caught the young steers. Red and Spot, yoked them together and dragged brush from the Cedar Hills, a distance of two miles. At other times they yoked the older oxen to a large wooden rack and hauled stumps from the hills for their fuel. The big, round woodpile required regular attention. AN ACCIDENT When John K was near eleven and Frank nine, they started homeward from the hills one day with a full rack-load of stumps. One boy drove the oxen and the other manned the brakes, and they sometimes alternated the jobs. John K dismounted to lead the oxen over a tricky part of the meadow trail. And while he was jumping back upon the rack, a stump he aimed for fell off the load, taking him with it. He fell right behind the oxen as they started ahead. Frank called "Whoa" at once, stopping the rack when a front wheel rested on John K's legs above the knees. The marshy soil, soft and moist, saved him from the crushing weight of the wheel. With swift presence of mind John K called directions to his brother, telling him to start the oxen and then stop them almost at once. He crawled out of the way when the front wheels rolled ahead and before a rear wheel 41 |
