I loved to play in the barn.   I was not suppose to climb up the ladder in the barn that led to the layloft.

It was a very tall ladder and Daddy told me, "If you fell off that ladder, you'd hit the barn floor and probably break your arm."

The cats liked to hide their kittens up there and so I HAD to climb up to see them.   I would listen for their mews of hunger and hunt them out, hidden in the piles of hay.   I could peek in and see their little eyes staring up at me out of the darkness of their nest.   They always hissed and scratched me when I tried to pull them out to play with, as they were more than a little wild and afraid of people.

It was also fun to climb up on the inside edge of the barn wall.   I could grab the hay lift fork rope and swing out and drop into the hay pile.   The hay lift fork was a large metal fork that was tied to a strong rope.   The rope was suspended on a pulley rig.   One end of the rope hung outside the top of the barn clear to the ground.

When it was haying season, the rope on the outside was tied to the tractor.   The hay lift fork was lowered into a wagon load of fresh hay, cut from the pasture.   When the tractor went forward, the rope, slung over the pulleys in the barn, clamped shut the lift fork and it lifted up a bunch of hay into the haymow, high in the barn.   Then someone in the barn pulled on another rope that unlocked the hay lift fork and the hay fell into a pile.

After haying season, this fork hung unused in the middle of the barn roof.   The outside rope was tied off securely at the bottom of the barn.   The rope inside was tied off up against the barn wall.   I would grab this end of the rope, swing out over the hay pile and let go, falling with a soft plop into the dusty hay.

I played this game while Daddy was off working in the fields and Momma was busy in the house.   It was fun, but I knew if they caught me, I'd get a good hard spanking.

Also in the hayloft was a long beam of wood from one barn wall to the other.   This beam had been cut by hand when the barn was built, and had splinters and rough edges.   It was fifteen feet above the barn floor.   I was absolutely forbidden to EVER climb the ladder that led to that beam.

Of course, I had walked across that beam many times.   It was a thrill and made my stomach knot up when I got to the middle and looked down.   I was always scared, but with no one around to help me out and a good spanking if anyone found out what I was doing, I had no choice except to walk to the other end to get down.

One Sunday, my cousin Mary came out from the big city for a visit.   I took her into the barn to show her the new kittens.

I told her, "You cannot walk across that beam up there because it is very dangerous."   Whereupon, I immediately climbed up the ladder and walked across it.

She threatened, "I'm going to tell your Daddy."

"If you do, I'll tell YOUR Daddy that YOU were in the hay loft," I replied.

She never said a word to anyone and when she was ten years old, she walked across that beam too.