A MOTHERS LOVE

         Sam Bender was picking his way accross the dried out desert. it had been a dry winter. his desert range along the vekhol wash was picked clean.  what the cattle hadent picked clean the cold dry winds that swept the desert had blowen away. he had been putting out supplemental  feed for months but his cows were poor and weak. the hardiest were picken the scant leaves and twigs off the palo verde trees and catclaws. he had his collar turned up against the cold wind as he rode along. almost all of his cows were clustered around the waters where he had put the supplement . but he still prowled the country every day hoping to find some part that hadnt been grazed off. he went farther and farther south every day often into the papago  ranges that he neighbored but their cows were just as poor. or worse because they couldnt aford the suppliment. 
        after a long , cold and dry ride he had turned toward home when he noticed a little patch of red in a mesquite and cat claw thicket.  reinning his bay horse over to it he saw a little , thin white face cow. she didnt weigh six hundred pounds. her hide was stretched over her bones that stuck out in sharp points alomg her back. as he rode closer she shook her horns at him and  pawed the ground. dry, gummy slobbers drooled from her mouth as she bawled her anger.  Bender circled around and the little cow circled with him keeping her head facing him. as he got on the farside of the thicket he found a little bitty day old calf. his eyes were bright and his momma had licked him clean so that his coat was clean and shinney.  that cold wind ruffled his coat and Bender was amazed that this little skrawney cow had produced this little bright eyed wonder.  that little whitefaced cow couldnt have enough milk  to fill a eye dropper and Sam wasnt about loose what was probably going to be this years calf crop!!  with using a little common sense he rode into the thicket with the intention of picking up that little thirty pound calf. but momma had other ideas. Sam was determined to take that little feller home to a good feed and maybe save his life. he knew in his own mind there was no way that little cow could raise this cute little calf. just as he got to the calf and leaned off the side of bay momma decided she wasnt going to stand by and let him take her pride and joy with out some kind of dispute. her sharp little horns hit the bay in the rump. he made a big jump and tried to stampede out of the thicket away from mad cow. Sam was trying hard to get back upright in the saddle and pull the bay to a halt. but that little cow just kept hooking and bawling. little bright eyes had scampered into the protection of a catclaw bush.  a hundred yars down country Sam got the bay pulled up. he had managed to right himself and get control of the wreck. the little cow had returned back to the thicket. he thought about going back but decided it would be a poor decission. he turned the bay toward home . the sun was sinking in the west behind the javalina mountains and it was still five miles home.
    the next morning Sam was at the bender well putting out the supplement when he heard a bawl . looking up he saw that little whitefaced cow comming into the lot with the little bright eyed calf trotting along behind.  Sam decided mothers know best.