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Earning his keep
I was the last of seven children to be born on a small farm in Wake County in 1940. My father’s belief was that every living thing on the farm had to work to justify its existence or it did not belong. If a cat would not chase a mouse, it had to go. If a dog would not run a rabbit or tree a squirrel, it had to go. For my seventh birthday, my father bought a goat. In his blacksmith shop he made a two-wheel cart and harness for the goat. I was then given the responsibility to do errands around the neighborhood and go to the local country store and back. As time passed and I got older, my interest in the transportation changed and the goat and cart sat idle. My dad could not bear the thought of the goat not earning his keep, so back to the blacksmith shop he went to make a special harness for the goat to pull a garden push plow. From that day forward until his death, the goat’s chore was to pull this plow while my dad plowed the one-acre garden we had every year. Rommy Campbell |
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