Recently I went walking down Memory Lane, sort of
thinking what I might include in a children’s book if I decided to write one
based on my family’s life.  We’ve had
some adventures worthy of a novel while living on our mountaintop farm!  I still laugh each time I think of the story
I’m about to share. I hope you get a chuckle, too.

Ours was a working, farm, the kind
where our kids had to get up at 5:00 AM, while it was still black outside, to
milk cows and feed calves before boarding the school bus at 7:00 A.M. for the
long ride to a small school in the valley. 
Our four kids took turns milking, two going to the barn at a time.  This particular time was Joe’s and Sharon’s
turn.  Joe was in fifth grade, and
Sharon was in eighth and old enough to start primping.  This created problems, because Joe’s morning
timetable time included sleeping as late as possible and crawling out of bed to
hurry to the barn and then back to the house for breakfast with only seconds to
spare for a quick teeth brushing, whereas Sharon, in her opinion, needed at
least an hour to get presentable.

The problem was intensified because
Sharon, a natural-born fraidy-cat, was terrified to go outside in the dark
alone.  As you can imagine this was a
constant bone of contention and usually ended with either Ma or Pa pulling Joe
out of bed by the ear (figuratively speaking) and handing him a milk bucket.

This morning was no exception,
except that Sharon grew impatient and finally, grabbing a milk bucket and a
headlight, she headed to the barn alone. We had electricity at the barn but the
long path was pitch dark, so the kids wore battery-powered headlights like coon
hunters or miners. 

I was busy frying ham and eggs so
Pa had the honor of urging son from his warm bed and shoving him out the door
after sister, who had now been gone for several minutes.  In a short while, much to our surprise, both
kids came barreling back into the house with empty buckets and faces as white
as ghosts.  At first they were too out
of breath to speak, but finally came excited gestures and the words, “Panther…barn
yard…big pine tree.” My husband grabbed a shotgun and ran out the
door.  While he was gone, I heard the
rest of the story.

Sharon had arrived at the barnyard
gate and was opening it when she heard a hiss coming from the big pine tree
just beyond the gate.  She looked
up.  There in the pool of light created
by her headlamp, on a limb high above her head, was a big, black panther.

Joe had started down the path just
as the panther gave a loud, blood-curdling scream.  He thought it was his sister. 
With heart in throat, he began running and yelling, becoming even more
terrified when she didn’t answer.  When
he got to the gate, she was still frozen, staring at the panther, and the
panther was still staring at her.  Joe
yanked her arm and they flew back to the house.  The panther, thank God, did not give chase.

Before long my husband returned.  He had not gotten a glimpse of the big cat.

He put the gun away, while telling
the kids next time this happened, one of them needed to keep shining the light
in the panther’s eyes so it wouldn’t run off while the other one slipped back
to the house to get him so he could go shoot it.

Quick as a flash, Sharon, her eyes
as big as saucers, said, “Daddy, may I please be the one that comes to get
you?”

She is all grown up now, and a beautiful, caring
sort of person, but I have a feeling she would still want to be the one…

Yes, there were panthers in
Arkansas thirty years ago.  I saw one
myself.  There may still be a few.  We have lots of wildlife in our woods,
including plenty of bears.  I recently saw
one on our farm. Hey, next time I might share one of our true-story bear
adventures.  We’ve had several of those!