Them Bulls
by Harold Baldwin, Swift Current, Sask.
‘I looked at the four beasts. In their slavering mouths were miniature J.I.C. bits. The harness maker averred that no bull that was ever calved could slug his head against “the J.I.C.’s.” He had never drive bulls, that harness maker. Nor had I.
I yearned to take hold of the rope lines and steer the creatures. I did not yearn for long. A summer with four green oxen endowed me with the most remarkable vocabulary ever attained by a green Englishman. I learned to cuss them in English, American, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and my own native dialect. They treated all with the same indifference.
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Of my efforts to plough sod prairie, one short green English youth, with four mastodonic but unbroken oxen, much must be left unrecorded. My contests with that four-ox team bring a laugh to the surviving oldtimers yet.’
- More History from the pages of Canadian Cattlemen: CPR Pioneer Dinner
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