Button

Button was very small, incredibly ugly, and despicably mean. If you’ve ever seen old, used-to-
be-black asphalt freckled irregularly with crushed rock, then you know about how Button’s hide
looked. Button frequently grazed his way right under Fred’s belly when the two of them were out
to pasture. Fred, Mr. Vacik’s hay wagon horse, was a sorrel, loose-limbed and gentle, and
absurdly patient with Button’s quirks.

Mr. Vacik’s house was several blocks south of ours, but his farm was right across the little dirt
road that bordered two sides of my grandfather’s property. The big pipe and chain-link gate to the
farm-yard was right on the corner, but I seldom made use of it because there was always the
danger that Button might be in that yard. Even when Mr. Vacik put Button and Fred out in the
pasture, the barnyard was not safe. If Button spied me in there, he’d let out a squeal, run lickety-
split for the rail fence, drop right down beside it and squiggle under. He’d be up again in a flash,
charging with his mousy ears plastered flat to his head and his scrawny neck stretched down and
out like a scoop shovel. Whatever sprints I won after reaching school age were directly
attributable to Button’s motivational coaching.

“Fights like a girl, that one does!” Mr. Vacik would chuckle around the stinky quid of tobacco
tucked into his cheek. “Bites, kicks, and screams.”

I was forbidden by my grandfather to set foot on the Vacik farm unless the owner was there in
person. If I was awake, I was either at the farm with Mr. Vacik, or watching the road, hoping to
see his rattly old truck bumping along ahead of its dust-cloud. Looking back, I wonder more
about how Mr. Vacik managed to put up with me, than about how Fred managed to put up with
Button.

If Mr. Vacik was doing the early-morning egg collecting rounds in the chicken yard, I was tagging
along with a little pail, reaching under the chickens in the lower hen-boxes, scouting the yard for
hidden deposits, and asking an endless stream of questions.

Some of my questions he answered.

“Roosters don’t lay eggs ‘cause they cain’t, that’s why.”

“Mebbe we milk cows ‘stead of antelopes ‘cause we can catch the cows.”

His down-home logic was hard to argue with.

Some of my questions Mr. Vacik ignored. If he was ignoring something I really, really wanted to
know, I’d just keep asking. Sometimes he’d relent and give me an answer. Sometimes he’d
snatch off his grimy hat, run a gnarly hand through the grizzled remains of his hair, and ask in
exasperation, “What earthly good’ll it do ya to know that?”

Whenever he said that, I knew it was time to be quiet for a while.

Somewhere I got the notion that horses were for riding. I’d never seen anybody ride one, so far
as I could remember. Mr. Vacik certainly didn’t ever use his horses that way. But the notion
stuck, and I thought it was a rather fine idea. I started a campaign.

“Mr. Vacik, can I ride Fred?” We were shoveling grain down the dusty chute from the barn’s
storage bin to the truck bed. It was a sticky-hot Nebraska afternoon. I was so impressed with my
five-year-old efforts at increasing the speed of the operation that I felt sure it was an auspicious
moment for asking my million-dollar question.

“Wal-now, can ye?” Mr. Vacik’s shovel didn’t miss a beat.

My heart beat a little faster. “Bet I could if you’d lock Button up and give me a chance!”

The old man stabbed his shovel into the grain at his feet, slapped his thigh, and laughed so hard
he was wiping big, muddy streaks across his face every time he ran the back of his hand across
his eyes.

I was dumbstruck. For one thing, I had never seen Mr. Vacik laugh before. More importantly, I
could not imagine what had triggered all that amusement. I turned my back on the howling
farmer and doubled up my efforts to get grain going down the chute. My chagrin was increased
by the fact that it became immediately obvious, even to me, that whatever contribution I had been
making to the grain-loading team was negligible. It had been nicer to shovel alongside Mr. Vacik,
pretending all the while that my efforts were contributing significantly to the speed with which
the truck was loaded.

Eventually “we” did get the truck loaded – silently. We delivered the grain to the noisy
contraption behind the chicken houses where plain old oats, barley, and rye began their
transformation to animal feed of one sort or another. I opened my mouth to ask what, exactly, the
machine was doing to the grain, but thought better of it.

Next we loaded the flatbed with a mountain of sweet-smelling hay bales and headed for the back
cow-pasture. Out there, Mr. Vacik took his “nippers” and popped the ties on the top tier of bales.
I knew the routine by heart. When he got in the truck, he would drive along very slowly while I
threw down hay just as fast as I could. More than once I managed to throw myself down with the
hay. On such occasions, the truck would grind to a halt while I fought my way out of the mooing
mass of slobbering, crowding bovines and clambered back aboard.

After the hay was all down, we fired up the old John Deere and dragged the rack of disks
crossways over the stalk-littered corn field we’d plowed the week before. I sat high up on the
fender that shielded the inside of a big tire. Sometimes the bumps in the field made my knuckles
bump the knobby rubber on the tire. The smell of diesel mixed itself with the aroma of Mr.
Vacik’s ugly lump of bleeding tobacco, and the dirt-clean scent of freshly broken brown clods.
More questions begged to escape my lips, but I pressed my mouth firmly shut. One laughing-at
in a day was a-plenty.

Six bawling cows lined up precisely at 5 o’clock beside the barnyard gate. I pulled the ring and
rode the gate as it swung open, propelled by the lead cow’s butting head. The cows always
lumbered through the gate in precisely the same order. Bess and Boss took the stanchions first,
though Mr. Vacik never bothered to lock their heads in. The cows were at least as anxious to be
milked as the farmer was to get it done. Matilda, Mattie, Petey, and Sal took the delay
philosophically, lowing occasionally, but mostly just swiping at flies with awkward-looking tails.
I remembered telling Mr. Vacik that Petey was a boy’s name. He just said, “Well, Petey here
shore don’t seem to believe that.”

Farm chores were endless, varied, and to me, ever interesting. The last act at the dusky end of
each day was to repeat the egg-gathering. But on this day, we didn’t go straight to the chicken
yard. Instead, Mr. Vacik stopped the truck near the gate to the west pasture. He propped it open
with a bent stick. He hallooed at Fred and Button. Fred picked up his head and trotted for the
barnyard. Button turned his back to us and kept scouting the trampled dirt for a morsel of grass,
or left-over hay, or whatever. Mr. Vacik muttered something I couldn’t quite hear, yanked off his
hat, and flailed it at the stubborn Button. The little beast threw a spiteful rear hoof in Mr. Vacik’s
direction and high-tailed it after Fred into the barnyard.

My heart was hammering a mile-a-minute. I didn’t know what Mr. Vacik was doing, but I did
know that this was not the usual end-of-the-day pattern. I was not about to ask any questions.

An old tin can with one edge bent into a sort of spout served as a scoop. The farmer tossed some
grain into the worn trough just inside the barn door. He dropped a loop over Button’s head when
the greedy pony shoved his way between Fred and the trough. Securing the pony to a ring on the
side of the trough, Mr. Vacik shooed Fred back out the barn door and shut it. The dim, musty
barn creaked now and then. Button’s agile lips scoured the trough, collecting every single kernel
of oats.
From some (to me) unknown niche, Mr. Vacik produced a tiny bridle. It looked rather worse for
the wear, but even I knew what it was for. I was appalled. Did he think I wanted to ride Button?
Why, I didn’t even think of Button as a horse. He reminded me more of the hissing, snapping
watch-goose that kept all the children out of Mrs. Bieler’s yard.

Echoes of the morning’s laughter sealed my lips. I watched, mesmerized, as Mr. Vacik’s gnarly,
practiced hands pried Button’s mouth open, tucked the bit between his teeth, and secured the
head-stall so quickly the ornery creature had not an instant to resist. Next thing I knew I was
plopped astride Button’s bony back with reins in one hand, a tuft of asphalt-covered mane in the
other, hanging on for dear life. The lowering sunlight rushed into the barn faster than the door
swung open.

Mr. Vacik’s hat came into play again. He dusted it at me and my unlikely mount with dramatic
results. The enraged little beast flew out of the barn, around the corner, through the gate, and
across the West pasture at breakneck speed. Tiny hooves beat a deathly staccato that almost kept
pace with the pounding of my heart. I had always perceived Button as small, but from my new
vantage point atop his back, it seemed miles and miles to terra firma. I wished earnestly that I
had never, ever opened my mouth about riding Fred or anybody else. I am absolutely certain that
the only thing between me and a disgraceful fall was sheer terror of the huge distance between my
perch and the ground below.

Somehow Button and I managed to stay together all the way around the “back 40” and up to the
barnyard gate again. Here, however, my luck ran out. When Button dodged to the right through
the gate, I just kept on going straight – colliding ignominiously with the aging, splintery gate post.
My hands still gripped two reins and a tuft of mane. Button, angered that his headlong flight was
checked by my death-grip on the reins, turned tail and smacked me twice in the back with flying
hooves.

Still clinging stupidly to the reins, I turned my back more firmly to Button to protect my face
from his flailing hooves and nipping teeth. Through the fog of my fright, it began to dawn on me
that Mr. Vacik was laughing again. No – he was howling. Tears poured in shameless rivulets
down weathered, already-smudged cheeks. He didn’t even try to wipe them away. He was nearly
bent double, shaking all over with mirth, slapping his leg so hard it had to be getting black and
blue.

Finding his voice at last, he yelled, “If you’re ever gonna be a wrangler, you gotta snug up to that
beastie! The farther you are away, the better he can batter you. Get ahold of them reins and haul
him in.”
I heard him, but I didn’t have enough presence of mind to figure out what he was yelling about.
Still howling, he staggered over to Button, reached across him, and pried my fingers from their
grip on the ends of the reins. Instead of releasing me, he shortened the tether, and clamped my
hands back on, about an inch from the bridle.

“Look ‘im in the eye now! Yoa got ‘im by the mouth, so he cain’t bite ya, and he cain’t kick ya
neither. You gonna be a rider, you gotta be in charge. Look’i there now, he can’t do nuthin’ at all
so long as you keep a grip like that!”

He was right. I didn’t know whether to be mad or to laugh. My shin and my backside ached
where a swift kick or two had connected. My fingers had slits like paper-cuts from getting the
mane yanked through them. But all of that was nothing to the sense of awe I felt in recognizing
that there was a way for me to fight back. If I kept the right grip, Button couldn’t hurt me any
more.

But Mr. Vacik was not done.

“Look here,” he demanded, smacking his hat against Button’s back legs. Out of habit, the
wretched creature bucked and struck out with flying hooves. “You let ‘im get some good
momentum like that, and he’s gonna kick ya into next week.”

Now Mr. Vacik moved right in behind Button’s tail, batting at him again with the hat. Even I
could see that the flailing hooves were impotent in such close proximity to their intended target.

“You try it.” Mr. Vacik spat a stream of red juice at the bottom of the gate-post and removed the
reins from my trembling fingers. Now’s as good a time as any to figger out that every hurtful
creature is less so if you stay close enough to ‘im.”

It was one thing to appreciate the success of Mr. Vacik’s little experiment. It was another thing
entirely to think of going there myself. I was rooted to the spot.

No matter. Mr. Vacik simply turned Button around, backed him into me, and waved that infernal
hat again. I was so frightened that tears came. And although they would not stop, the fear turned,
again, to amazement. Button’s back hooves stomped on my toes and bumped against my shins,
but even I had to admit there wasn’t any real pain or danger in it. Just annoyance. It was my turn
to wipe muddy smears across my face. My turn to laugh. We laughed together, Mr. Vacik and
me. We laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

The last of the sunlight was fading away from the barnyard. “Hoodledy doodledy!” Mr. Vacik
shouted. We gotta get them eggs ‘fore it’s too dark to find ‘em. You just latch onto this critter
and snuggle all the way up front here a’fore ya turn tail. If ya try to walk away from the back
o’im y’re sure ‘nuff gonna get six more welts afore ya get away.”

Sure enough. Sliding firmly against Button’s hairy hide, I made it safely to the front end and
walked away unscathed. Mr. Vacik slipped the bridle, waved the ornery “beastie” into the
pasture, and hooked the gate wire back over the post.

The light over my grandfather’s chair was already on, and the red light on the big tube radio
flickered before we got as many of the eggs as we could find. For the first time ever, Mr. Vacik
walked me up to the back door and knocked. I was terrified again. Nobody ever interrupted my
grandfather’s newscasts, or his baseball games.

“Say, Fred” (my grandfather’s name was the same as Mr. Vacik’s horse), the gravelly voice
drawled. Just thought you ougtta know the kid’s probly got a few bruises. She decided it was
time to become a wrangler. Yer can be right proud though. She’s got more grit than I’d figgered.
Might even let ‘er try ridin’ yer namesake one ‘a these days.”

Mr. Vacik waved his hat, slid back into his truck, and roared off. I stared at the shadowed layer of
red bricks that marked the end of the steps below the screen door, awaiting a storm of irritated
words. But my grandfather just turned back into the house, chuckling and muttering to himself.
Not a word about the interrupted news-cast.

Quiet as a shadow, I skimmed through the kitchen, around the farthest reaches of the living room,
through the work-room, to my little cubicle behind the addition. Tonight I was not lonely. A
whole world of new ideas percolated between my ears.

“Now’s as good a time as any to figger out that every hurtful creature is less so, and every useful
creature is more so, if you stay close enough to ‘im.”

It’s been nearly fifty years since those words were etched into my memory. I didn’t understand
their full import at the time. Maybe I still don’t. But the long-deceased farmer’s down-home
wisdom, when heeded, has never failed to prove worthwhile.