THE DUMB BULL WASN'T REAL

We lived out in the country from Elba, AL when I was growing up. Just a short piece away from the house was the old Holland Cemetery. Word had it that Indians were buried in the back part of that cemetery, but no one had been buried there in years. We also enjoyed walking through the cemetery reading the headstones or looking at the wood stakes and just wondering about the person laid to rest in each spot. I grew up with the cemetery being close, so I didn't have any problem with it being there......until dark. When dark arrived I didn't want to go near the cemetery, pass it, or anything else especially on foot.

My youngest brother was seven years older than I, and he always liked a good prank or a good joke. He was the prankster in our family. I always begged to go with him, to do things with him and naturally he didn't like that.

My brother must have been 17 when I heard him asking our daddy about how to build a dumb bull. Daddy cautioned him that those things were illegal to use because they would frighten people and animals so badly. I'd never heard of such a thing so I was all ears to hear what they were saying. First of all, he was to get the old wood keg out back with the top and bottom out of it. Then he was to stretch a piece of dead animal skin over the top very, very tightly and let it dry for several days. In the top he was to make a small hole right in the center before the skin dried. A heavy string that he had waxed with a knot on the bottom end was inserted in that hole. As the skin dried it would be tight around the string in the hole. Someway when he pulled that string he had waxed with bees wax up out the keg it made a reverbrating awful, awful, sound that could be heard for miles around. It sounded like what I suppose a very large bull would likely sound, or should I say a "dumb bull."

I had forgotten about the dumb bull until one night my brother announced he was going to go out on the hill by the cemetery and try it out. Of course I asked to go with him even though the cemetery was an area I didn't like to go at night. The Morris family, an elderly man with his two sisters and a grandson, lived in the little house way off the road and down at the bottom of the hill. Mr. Morris would come up to our house in the day time to sit on our porch because he said there was no air stirring in the bottom where they lived, and none of us had air-conditioning back then. Our front porch was shaded by a large oak tree and our being on the top of the hill made us able to feel the breeze blowing. We thought a lot of all the Morris family.

It must have been as late as 10:00 o'clock that night when my brother and I, along with the dumb bull, made our way to the edge of the hill so we could look down and see the Morris home. There were no lights on anywhere. People didn't have yard night lights back then and it was pitch dark. Only the sounds of the night were around us. My brother must have been grinning when he started slowly pulling that string through the top of the dumb bull. I've never heard such a loud, vicious sound in my life. The night was black and still, and he pulled it again. He saw it first. A light came on in the back of the small Morris house, and we could tell they were coming through the house by the lights coming on. Finally the porch light came on and Mr. Morris came out. The young grandson came out, stood with the screen door open and Mr. Morris yelled, "Get back in that house, boy. Get back." The boy went back inside.

I don't remember if my brother pulled the dumb bull again that night, or ever again, but I know it scared Mr. Morris. My brother was laughing so hard, and I was scared and wanted us to go home.

The next day when it got too hot in the bottom for Mr. Morris to stay home, we saw him walking slowly up to the house. Mr. Morris was a small in statue man, but a very nice person. He made his way to our porch where my daddy was sitting and he sat down on one of the white metal rockers. In a little while he said, "Old man, there was a big one that came through the valley last night. I didn't see it.......but it was a bigggg one. I heard it." I can just see my daddy now with the knowing smile on his face. I think he never revealed our secret about the dumb bull and we never did that again. Just so we know.....things are not always what they appear to be.