Livestock roamed through the thousands
of acres of woods in southern Missouri ”bootheel” where I lived in the
early 1900s.
One time my brothers put a young
calf in a small building, believing the mother cow would stay nearby and they
could milk her. At night the bawling of the calf and cow attracted other
cattle, and they ganged up around the place and made a great commotion. Nobody
could think of sleeping and nobody wanted to go outside and run them off.
Then somebody thought of shooting
them to move them away. Rolled up bits of bacon skins were substituted for the
lead shot removed from gun shells, and the cattle, peppered with these strange
bullets, dispersed without injury.
Hazel Barton
DeSoto, Missouri
Back in 1955 a call went out from the editors of the
then Capper’s Weekly asking for readers
to send in articles on true pioneers. Hundreds of letters came pouring in from
early settlers and their children, many now in their 80s and 90s, and from
grandchildren of settlers, all with tales to tell. So many articles were
received that a decision was made to create a book, and in 1956, the first My Folks title –
My Folks Came in a Covered Wagon –
hit the shelves. Nine other books have since been published in the My Folks series, all filled to the brim with true
tales from Capper’s readers, and
we are proud to make those stories available to our growing online community.
