Stories from the Round Barn

by Jackson, Jacqueline

• ISBN13: 9780810151017
• ISBN10: 0810151014
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-05-16
• Publisher: Triquarterly Books

Summary

In 1911, W. J. Dougan founded a farm near Beloit, Wisconsin, and working with the University of Wisconsin built on it an unusual round barn. Using anecdotes, stories, and vivid description, Jacqueline Dougan Jackson recalls the hardships and satisfactions of farm life and the struggles -- both communal and personal -- to build a life worth living.

On the Dougan farm, that goal demands hard work but also leaves room enough for good humor and the colorful lives (and troubles) of the cast. Not least among the characters are the cows, such as the notorious M-12, an animal infamous for attacking children. Dairy cows are the lifeblood of the farm and as such in need of constant care, whether through the curative powers of gin or the more modern techniques of artificial insemination.

And though the stories revolve around the farm, they are also of a time. The Depression nearly drags the farm under. The situation is so desperate that when Jackson's father finds a mouse in the butter churn, he grapples with whether or not to destroy the precious butter. As a thirtee

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Prologue: The Round Barn	1	(5)
Preacher Fellow	6	(1)
The First Milk Route	7	(7)
Fools' Names	14	(4)
Boots	18	(3)
Income Tax	21	(4)
The No-Legged Farmer	25	(5)
Barefoot	30	(2)
Agnes	32	(4)
Good for Something	36	(3)
Dan Kelley	39	(3)
Grampa's Blue Memo	42	(12)
Ronald's Courtship	54	(4)
Sleep, Little Baby	58	(10)
Jim Howard	68	(8)
Naming Cows	76	(3)
Circumcision	79	(2)
Grampa Dresses	81	(2)
S.O.B.	83	(2)
Daddy Churns	85	(3)
Grampa Bandages	88	(2)
Fernwood Scrimshaw	90	(3)
The Show	93	(4)
Chez Nous	97	(4)
God's Footstool	101	(4)
Hallelujah, I'm a Bum	105	(8)
Dehorning	113	(2)
Seeds	115	(4)
An Educated Man	119	(2)
The Facts of Life	121	(10)
4-H Project	131	(9)
Why a Round Barn?	140	(9)
Billy Beadle	149	(6)
Unbutton	155	(4)
Miss Glenn	159	(10)
Jackie's Milk Route	169	(16)
Birthing Paralysis	185	(4)
Detasseling Corn	189	(7)
Snakes	196	(9)
Catching a Cud	205	(15)
Craig's Minutes	220	(2)
Musical Beds	222	(3)
Stuart Peterson	225	(6)
Grampa's and Grama's Intimate Life	231	(7)
Grampa's Glorious Day	238	(1)
P.C.	239	(4)
A Sower Went Forth	243