A calf was born one bitter winter night when I was four years old. Dad was in the barn feeding the livestock when the cow came wandering in. He was alarmed—she had been due to calve, but it was obvious she was no longer pregnant. Her calf wasn’t with her.
He knew he had to hurry. A newborn wouldn’t survive long on its own in that weather. The cold would take it fast.
It was the kind of cold that made every breath sting and froze water in minutes. He followed the cow’s tracks through the snow and was horrified to find she had dropped the calf in the slough at the bottom of the pasture.
When he found it, the calf was barely alive. Only its nose was above the black water. Dad scooped it up—thirty or forty pounds of soaking wet calf—and hoisted it onto his shoulder. Its body was soaked and heavy, the slough water already stiffening in the cold.
By the time he reached the barn, both of them were drenched and freezing.
He knew he had to get the calf warm and the only way to do that was to take it in the house. He placed the calf in a metal bushel basket with handles to make it easier to carry.
I couldn’t figure out what he was doing when he came in the back door with that basket. I recognized it from the barn—the one he used to take corn to the livestock. I had never seen him bring it into the house before.
What I remember next may be something I truly saw, or it may be the way the story settled in my mind after years of hearing it told. Either way, this is how it lives in me now.
It wasn’t until he set the basket down that I could see what was inside—a tiny calf, cold and shivering, barely alive.
Mom hurried for towels and blankets. Dad lifted the calf out of the basket and laid it in front of the warm oil burner while they rubbed it gently, trying to dry it and bring some life back into its stiff little body.
Dad didn’t want to take it back to the barn that night. The cow was a first-time mother, and after what had happened, he wasn’t sure she could be trusted to care for it.
So they left the calf on the kitchen floor beside the stove, where it would stay warm through the night. If it rallied, they needed a way to keep it from wandering through the house—so they tied its feet together with a pair of Mom’s nylon stockings.
They went to bed, hoping the calf would still be alive in the morning.
Imagine Mom’s surprise the next morning when she found the little Houdini had slipped free of the stockings and was strolling around the kitchen like it lived there.
Fortunately, Dad was able to reunite the calf with its mother. He kept them together in a stall he prepared in the barn until the weather warmed and they were both stronger.
Looking back, I think that little calf taught me something before I was old enough to understand it. Sometimes life hangs on because someone refuses to give up.
