It's A Good Thing That Lewis & Clark Didn't Have A Barn
It’s a Good Thing that Lewis & Clark Didn’t Have a Barn
Copyright 2006 Harris B. McKee
My cousins, Wayne and Brenton, lived a good life. They each had a Shetland pony and there were a couple of extras so I could ride when I visited. They also had a “timber” and land that was rich in arrowheads. In addition, their grandfather Simons was a pretty nice man. He didn’t seem to work anymore even when we threshed on their farm. He even cut out a wooden six-shooter for me. I don’t remember whether I took it home or not; guns were frowned on in our household since my dad said that guns were for killing.
The three of us, aged about 10, 8 and 6, decided to carry out an overnight expedition into the timber. We took along the ponies, and their English Shepherd, Laddie, and some blankets made up into bed rolls that Aunt Mary provided. With much bravado, we marched off into the timber shortly before dark. We probably could not have gone earlier because Wayne and Brenton had chores to do before we left.
We soon found a place to make camp. Not having had any military training, we didn’t post a guard but all tried to go to sleep. Noises in the timber kept us awake and apprehensive. What were those crunching sounds in the timber? Coyotes? Wolves? Maybe there were Indian ghosts come back for their arrow heads? As the sounds continued our resolve to spend the night began to weaken. But we couldn’t admit to Uncle Everett and Aunt Mary that we were too scared to stay in the timber. What could we do?
Finally, we marched back from the timber, stumbling over sticks and tripping over a few rocks but without any whimpering at all. We were just moving to a better position. That position was the hay mow in Uncle Everett’s barn.[1] We had barely settled in when we heard Uncle Everett’s gentle voice inquiring about our condition.
As the commemoration of the 200 anniversary of the Lewis & Clark expedition nears its end, I guess that it’s a good thing that they didn’t have a barn to turn back to or they might not have completed their exploration. For us McKee cousins, it’s just as well that there was a barn because we didn’t have an Indian guide. We probably wouldn’t have even gotten to the Missouri River!
[1] Their farm had only recently been electrified and all of the hay mow light switches had an indicator light to warn that a light had been left on, a feature missing from our own barn built during the war.