Now Vernon being the big brother that he was didn’t cut me too much slack. I was about twelve years old and he said if he had to work, I had to work. So when it came time to plow the corn he used the team of mares on the cultivator to plow the corn, and he hooked up the mule for me on a five shovel plow to plow. And thats what I did. the mule was smart enought to know how to do it. He’d go down one row and miss one row and turn and go back up the next. Our plowing was like making ovals. He would never step on a stalk of corn when he turned at the ends. He had enough room. I’d do that plowing and pretty near fall asleep plowing. But when I harnessed him I couldn’t reach the top of the mule to put it on so Vernon had to do that for me.
I guess it was good that Vernon taught me how to work that hard. I remember us getting into arguments out in the barn about who was stronger than the other one. We’d do chin ups, Dad would yell at us to do something worthwhile. We didn’t get tired doing them we just ran out of time.