The Forbidden Fruit, Part I

It was a mid summer Saturday mornin’, the sun was telling me it was about 10:30 and I was coolin’ my heels waitin’ for the bus that was comin’ from Bartlesville to pull in. It was carryin’ my cousin here to help us out with the hay buckin’ and was runnin’ about a half hour late.

When I say helpin’ with the hay buckin’, I meant to say that she drove the tractor pullin’ the hay wagon as us guys threw the bales up to ol’ Clem for stackin’. We had about 500 acres almost ready to bale and that was a hell of a lot of buckin’ to do. Peggy Sue was my Daddy’s brother’s little girl and she had come down here to help out every year for about as long as she could drive a tractor. Now if the damn bus would get here we could go back home and start to get ready.

About that time I saw the bus round the corner and I scuffed up the pile of dust that I had made with the toe of my boot and strode over to where the bus would stop. Waiting there with a smile on my face, I tried to remember what she looked like after a whole year of not seeing her.

She was a pimply faced little brown haired 13 year old last year with a tin grin, barely in a training bra and sassy as they come. But, to be totally fair, she was the best tractor driver on the farm. She could keep an even pace so us guys never had to run or anything and we didn’t have to use more energy than necessary and she could foresee any problems before they arose. Hell, with her at the wheel, we can buck and barn-stack sometimes as many as 1200 bales a day.

As the bus pulled to a stop and I stood back waitin’ for her to make her appearance, I suddenly felt a little nervous at our meeting. She always was a little flirt, after all I am 3 years her senior and, if I do say so myself, kind of a hunk of a guy, I mean in size not in looks. Anyway, when we ended last years balin’ season, she made kind of a pass at me and I didn’t know how she would react to our first meetin’

Anyway, a broad grin came over me as she finally came down the steps carryin’ a suitcase that seemed bigger than she was. I took two large strides toward her and grabbed the unmanageable thing from her grasp just as she reached the ground.

“Let me take that,” I said as I took it from her.

“Oh thanks Randy Joe. That thing’s heavy,” she said to me, not even lookin’ up, but when she did, her eyes met mind and the attraction she must have felt for me over the last year or so now was starting up again. And this year, I had a whole new appreciation for my cousin.

She was a pretty little thing. About a shade over 5 foot, barely 100 pounds soakin’ wet. She was wearin’ her hair in a ponytail and it seemed a little lighter than I remembered. But the biggest difference was that she had filled out quite a bit. She was no longer a little girl but definitely a young lady with all of the curves in the right places and I couldn’t help but notice.

I sat down the suitcase beside her as she looked up with a wide grin on her face and then she jumped up and gave me a big hug around the neck. I, of course, hugged her back and lifted her off of the ground by a foot or more.

“Wow Cuz, you’ve grown up a bit in a year,” I exclaimed as I almost drooled at the sight of this beauty.

She spun around, flaring out the skirt of her dress, exposing her thin, athletic legs to my gaze and, as she smiled at my greedy eyes and where they were trained, she jokingly said, “Gee Randy Joe, I thought you’d never notice.” Then she lowered her chin a bit and looked up at me with a shy, blushin’ smile on her face.

We chatted about what we’d done during the last year as I drove her the 35 miles to our farm. When we arrived, I was listing to the story of the day her braces came out and her first kiss with a boyfriend. I walked her suitcase to the house while my Momma grabbed her with an embrace and an arm around her shoulder and she walked her to her room.

Having our whole crew finally here, we began the hay bucking the very next day. That meant that we were up a 5 AM and worked until dark, about 8:30 in the evenin’. Peggy Sue took her place on the tractor and the rest of us walked along grabbin’ the bales as they left the combine. We fell into a routine and as the time passed, my mind started to stray towards my pretty little cousin.

During the course of the day, the temperature could get from 55 to 95 degrees in about 6 or 7 hours so we all dressed in layers. The guys would just take off our shirts as it got hot but Peggy Sue didn’t have that luxury. She often wore sweats over her other clothing and eventually would strip them off in favor of a pair of shorts and a tank top.