THE SHEEP DIP
The sheep bleated. They backed away. They sprawled
and lunged. They threshed about in the tank. They splashed
the yolky strong dip into the eyes of the tank men. Fresh
dippers took their place. Soon they too were soaked to the
skin. And then it began raining ,
"The drouth's broken," whooped a young farmer.
"Yah," jerked out the boss, eyeing the sky distrustfully.
It
was twilight, and we were about to knock off anyway.
\Ve waited for the boss's wife to come in the truck for us. The
agent drove us back. We left the horses in the village.
Late next morning we managed to get the truck started.
The boss needed a new truck. But he hadn't the cash to
spar~
for a nickel harmonica. We chugged into the village long after
the others had started drenching. We worked the rest of the
day without a let-up. At night we couldn't start the truck. We
rode back on the horses. Two on a horse. The youngest boy
became violently sick during milking. He had swallowed some
of the dip. He had to stay in bed.
Our flock was at the tail end of the dipping. The farmers
were dog-tired. They crawled around, red-eyed, snuffling. The
weather had a bullillg streak on. Every afternoon at about the
same time a storm broke out and raged all night. The county
agent kept chirping to cheer us:
"Make the yo jump.
the one with the mark on her rump,
And when she's soaked well,
Let her go plumb to hell."
Even the Lutheran minister paid us a visit. He went around
nodding approvingly. He patted the heads of the lambs. He
pointed to a ewe with a rupture: "must be a good milker."
Between dipping and drenching some of the old hawbucks
rested to talk. Alfalta wasn't extra good this season. You
couldn't sell enough wool to plug a pair of ears. The pape1'3
say they're going to put up a
5;50,000
monument for the old
lumberjacks who first cleared the country. Yah, but it would
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