The Forman of the La  Bonita Ranch was named the Corporal.  He was in charge of all the cowboys there, about 15 cowboys that worked with the cattle.  On this day I went with my Grandfather, he was talking to the Corporal.  My grandfather would talk to Albert Martin who would tell him when he needed some fencing.  But the Corporal knew exactly where the fence needed to be done because he had gone and looked and checked it all out.  So my Grandfather was talking to the Corporal about building a fence.

The Corporal could only see out of the right eye.  The other eye was grey white, he couldn’t see out of that eye so he usually wore a patch over it.  My Grandfather would jokingly tell him, “one good thing about your eye like that, you don’t have to squint when you use the rifle.  You already have one eye closed.”   I think he was trying to make the Corporal feel good about just having the one eye.  But I don’t think the Corporal thought it was funny. 

While my Grandfather was talking to the Corporal, I was standing with the cowboys,   out of their way, but watching them branding the calves.  They’d bring a calf, knock it down, they’d have the branding irons in the fire.  They were red hot; they would put them on the calves and burn the hair and burn into the skin.  When the little calf would scream, waw, that’s when they would take it off and let them go.  I was just standing there watching and one of the guys said to me,    "Do you want to sit on top of the horse?"  I said, “Yeah, okay. "  They had a big horse.  They picked me up and sat me on top.  And they told me, here are the reins, hold on to the reins.  Hold on to the saddle horn.  I’m going, “Okay.” 

Andrez, nephew of John's Grandparents 
with Pony

I’m sitting there on the horse and one of the cowboys slaps the horse on the back and the horse takes off.   Tuck, de da tuck, tuck, de da tuck, tuck, de da tuck.  He took off real fast.  I’m holding on.  My Grandfather turned and noticed that I’m taking off on a horse.  He looks around and sees another horse and he goes and jumps on that horse.  I didn’t realize he was a good horseman.  He got on that horse and took off after me.  He was hitting the horse on the back to make him go faster and he caught up with me.  He grabbed the reins and stopped the horse.  He told me to climb behind his saddle.  He was holding both horses.  I climbed up over the saddle and climbed across and jumped on to his horse and he said, “Hold on.” 

We trotted back slow towards were the cowboys were.  He brought the other horse with him. He got there and handed the reins to one of the cowboys.  Then he got off and then got me off.  He said, “Don’t put him on a horse like that, he doesn’t know about horses.  He doesn’t know about riding horses; don’t put him on a horse.”  They said, “Oh, okay.”  I think he was mad but he didn’t show it. 

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