John Wesley and the Calf
Posted April 3, 2020
With dark, cowlicked hair and big brown eyes, Charles Wesley Watkins was a lively 5 ½ year old, almost six. I was a little beyond seven, and we were fast friends.
John Wesley specialized in talking, especially in telling colorful stories of how he would avoid catastrophic events. The tale I remember most vividly involved his escaping an “Eastern Airliner, way up in the sky.” John Wesley would simply roll down the window, walk out on to the wing, and use his shirt for a parachute. And, if anyone questioned any part of such a plan, the quick witted JW would immediately contrive an even more outlandish revision.
The Watkins family farmhouse was about a baseball homerun from our house, and John Wesley and I spent most of the summer of 1949 playing outdoors. We planted a little garden, looked for treasures in the fields and woods, and ate parched peanuts side-by-side on a big porch swing. Every day we found something fun and exciting to do, and the most fun we had was playing with the calf.
In their barn, the Watkins had a weanling calf closed in a stall. The stall opened to a fenced barnyard that also served as the family backyard. Beyond the barnyard was a pasture where their cow, the calf’s mother, grazed. As weanling calves need to be handled as part of their training, John Wesley and I were encouraged to visit and play with the calf. We petted her, put on her little halter and walked her around the stall. Of course, as little boys familiar with cowboy movies, we climbed on the calf’s back and tried to ride. In response, she would jump and buck, and we would fall laughing into the straw. It seemed the calf had as much fun as we did.
In time, the calf was let into the barnyard to graze, separated from her mother by the barnyard fence. And, it was while the calf was in the barnyard that John Wesley and I came up with a capital idea: We would train the calf to pull a cart.
We looped a rope around the calf’s neck. To that we tied two long pieces of old rope and let them trail along the calf’s side as traces. This arrangement looked like it would work, except we had no cart. In its place, we found an old children’s swing seat. Built for very small children, the seat had a back and arms like a chair, but, of course, no legs. Our idea was to tie the traces to the front bottom of the seat and let the calf pull us around, one at a time.
Since it was John Wesley’s old swing seat as well as his calf, he would get the first ride. He sat in the seat holding on to the arms and raised his legs off the ground. I held the calf by the halter until he said let go, and when I did—Calamity.
The calf bolted. The wooden seat slid and bumped along the ground a few feet and turned over. John Wesley hollered, the calf bleated. The cow bellowed and began ramming her chest against the fence, over and over again. John Wesley’s mother screamed and came running onto the back porch. The screen door slammed. I froze.
Fortunately, after a few bumps along the ground, one of our knots broke and John Wesley was dumped on the ground, scraped, bleeding and crying. His mother ran to his side, the cow continued ramming the fence, and the calf kept running around the barnyard with the swing seat tow bouncing up and down.
Eventually, and I don’t remember just how, all settled down. The calf was released from its terror, John Wesley was taken into the house to be bandaged, and I was sent home.
Needless to say, John Wesley and I were no longer allowed to play with the calf. But, our mothers seemed to understand and accept the perils of farm play, and we weren’t punished.
On reflection, I have thought how fortunate we were that when pulled by the calf, one of our knots was quickly undone, and John Wesley spilled on the ground with only superficial wounds. Life and limb are often spared by the incompetence of children.