Many Sunday drives ended at my Great Aunt Ruth’s farm, two bucolic acres in the heart of Fullerton, California, long before it became covered over with tract homes and factories. The farm was a glorious treat for my four year old self.
There was a sturdy, short fig tree bearing hundreds of Black Mission figs, a tree the adults considered so safe that I was allowed to climb into it unsupervised and eat as many figs as I wanted.
I was horse crazy, but Maude, a swaybacked old horse, barely counted. She was retired, but I was allowed to sit on her if I could persuade two adults to help. One had to hold my leg so I wouldn’t fall off and the other had to persuade a reluctant Maude to amble in lazy circles around the paddock. It didn’t feel much like I thought horseback riding should feel.
I always wanted to pet Pete, the peacock, but he was kept locked in a pen when I was around. His screams were quite satisfactory though. “Help me, help me,” rang out again and again all over the farm.
Then there were the geese. There were six and they were taller and wider than I was. They were mean too. They set my brother and me running for dear life one day, chasing us, hissing, with their huge wings spread. Suddenly Jerry, barely two years old, stopped, turned to face them, squatted down, stuck his elbows out and hissed back. It was astonishing. He was much smaller than any goose there, but they all stopped chasing us, stopped hissing, folded their wings and pretended they hadn’t even seen us. I was in awe of my little brother, my hero.
One precious time I was allowed to gather the eggs from the chickens who ran around everywhere. I took my work very seriously. I entered the big, dark barn bravely and solemnly went from nest to nest to nest. After I had checked every one of them, I triumphantly entered the house with two eggs in my basket.
“Are these all you collected? You’ve been gone an hour! Where are the rest?”
“Oh, they were dirty, so I threw them away.”
I was never allowed to collect eggs again. Who knew that eggs didn’t come looking like the ones from the grocery store? Someone might have told me. In retrospect, I imagine that they also were not pleased with the raw eggs splattered on the barn floor.
And then there was the cow, the huge, spotted, horned, and mysterious cow named Bessie. The grown ups assured me that milk came out of the four faucets she had under her belly; I knew that milk came out of glass bottles. I kept getting caught sneaking into the barn and staring at the cow waiting for milk to come out. Finally someone asked why I was there and my cousin, Vonnie, decided to teach me how to milk a cow.
It was a strange process involving a stool and a bucket, only two stools this time because there were two of us. Vonnie explained that I should grab a faucet and squeeze and pull on it. That seemed to me like a rude thing to do to a perfectly nice cow, and my little hands were tentative as I tried. Bessie, too, thought this a strange process and turned her big head to see what was going on. Her horn bumped the top corner of my forehead and I yelped in surprise. Vonnie reacted as if I were getting murdered. She leapt to her feet and snatched me away protectively, telling me the cow was just too big for me and couldn’t be trusted and this was not safe. She did go back and show me how milk really did come out of the faucets, but I had to stand a long distance away to watch.
A week or so later as I looked into a mirror, the light caught my face just right and I discovered the tiniest of dents in my forehead, just where that horn had touched me. I could scarcely believe it. There was no pain, no redness, no bruising, just a perfect, tiny, tip-of-a-horn-shaped dent. Seeing it made me feel warm all over, as if I were instantly back at the farm, full of figs, hearing Pete, the peacock, and watching that miraculous, beautiful cow with faucets, Bessie, give milk.
I saw that dent occasionally all through my teen years, always with the same rush of warm recollections. I missed it when I looked for it one day as an adult and it was gone.