Welcome to the April A to Z Blogging Challenge! This year my contribution is the story of my great grandmother Alzina. She lived in the style of “Little House on the Prairie”and kept a record of her life through letters to family and her own journals. I find her story fascinating and intriguing. Each post will start (sometimes strangely) with a consecutive letter of the alphabet, just because they have to. My hope is that we can “catch” some of her courage to help us face challenges in our present times.

The Mad Dog Story, Part 3

By Sarah (Sadie) Pomeroy Postlewait, sister of Alzina

(A plague of rabies, brought about by a mad dog, continues to affect the pioneer families months after the dog’s death.)

Father noticed, one day the following summer, that old Steve the bull was doing an unusual amount of bellowing, so he made him a little more secure by adding a chain to the rope which already was fastened to a ring in his nose. As the evening shades settled down, Father’s fears seemed more assured. It was prayer meeting night. He made sure he had Steve secure by adding two more chains to his horns and fastening them to a large beam in the barn. Then Father and Mother went to church. They told Phebe, my older sister, their fears, but did not let grandmother or me know about it, for we were so nervous.

Phebe got us all to bed, then she sat by the window upstairs to watch. She could hear Steve becoming more and more fierce, pawing the ground, bellowing and striking the chains with his horns until she could see sparks fly. Finally, to her horror, she saw that he was loose. She thought about her parents.

At last they arrived, driving in carefully. The heard the clanking of the chains on the east side of the barn. Father mistrusted that Steve was loose and they were in danger. Leaving his team stand, he took Mother to the house and ran back to his team. Quickly he unharnessed the horses, and hurried them off to the pasture a quarter mile west. Then he ran to the neighbors house to ask for a gun and someone to help him. They gave him a lantern and two men came with him, but when they got sight of old Steve dashing toward them, with only one weak fence between them, they ran across the road and jumped into the field, leaving Father with gun and lantern.

One thing was in his favor. When Steve would make a dash, he would seem to feel something biting his hind leg, and would turn and begin kicking furiously. Fear seemed to give force to FAther’s movements, and in a short time he fired the shot that did the work. His neighbors came back to commend him for his bravery. (And yet there is more, concluded in Part 4, next post.)