Together, We Can Do Anything Sticking together as family has alway to my sisters, my mom and me—especiall after my dad lefts I guess he didn’t feel the same way about us did about him, and he went offto start a whole new faan iy I didn’ always want to falk to my mom about my ings, because she had her own problems taking cate of our ranch without my dad around. I was old entough to help out and we all pitched in, but it was sil hard on h Talked to my older sister, Alana, while we worked—and Talked tothe Sisters B That’s what we called our six cows, All of their names started with a 8 They were definitely part ofthe family got my frst calf when she was three days old, We bole fed her and named her Belle. She grew into a beautiful cow who gave birth to two other cows, Brandy and Betsey, and was grandmother to Bootsie. | gave Bootse to ry little sister, Adena. Then I gat one other cow that 1 gave to my older sister, Alana, We named her Blue, and Blue had a calf named Bailey Allsixof the Sisters B hung out and stayed ck ‘otherall ofthe time, Iwas clear to us that they lo7 on amar other nd wo ved them 10. We showed them toca 4 4H shows and took really food vate of theca” “bs When my dad let be moved dew the tet fom ua We would So him every day diving dev So ‘is ruck or working nis ond He ver seed hada ne fant keep hin busy Fly es Pall ral espvaly my mom Wed och ‘We fa sl all the annals on our ranch and we wanted tos the Sisters Bogethen They mening mt way than oe We wate tho go sone Who would ove hem ke wedi and te tig them togsthe We pt an adn the apes nS HP Me thought it as an ane to ue hopes when aman galled and tod ws he wanted to buy our cows for breed ing He tld my mom that he ould ony py es hundred dolar forall f them, but tha Re het et crs tof pasta and ng an hat alternoon, my mom ay seters aT went to his place tok alread we were ha thea had found the right home for the Sisters B. He locked right a8 my ster, Aden, and to her Ta che a Bootie anytine and iat he would ake spencer My mon tl i once agai that we mead sad he cov to him ihe woul esate cowsaaan ‘them for meat, and he promised us that he would not Thenest day it was my oto elp pa tease in the tle for delivery tote new ove Toy us and waned to plese uo much that they ena into the tale without even a tas My sce nh teas on thirfacesand I oul ft tus ange ee to, Bul enined mye tha the sites Heed eof in ther ne home and Desdes tay 80 with us when we moved. anaes ‘Aweek ltr, we we were having our moving sale ‘one of our neighbors came up to my mom and told her that she had almost bought my "big red cow” before the ‘cow went {0 auction. My mom said she had to be mis: taken and asked who was selling the cow. When our neighbor told us who it was, I fell sick. We had trusted | him, and just a week ater he was selling Belle away from, _ er baby and from the rest of her family. He had led us "My mom piled ws inthe ear and we drove to his house "When he answered the door, my mom told him what the neighbor had said and he shut the door right in our faces ‘My sisters were really crying now, and my mom was beg. ging him to tell us where the Sisters B were, and to sell them back to us. Mom was crying too, but he wouldn't ‘open the door. Thave never seen my mother so determined in my life. She told us she was going to find out where the cows were. She started calling a lot of auctions and finally found one that had a record of our cows, and told us that the cows would be auctioned off the next morning at 800. That night I couldn't sleep. kept thinking, How could someone do something like this? Finally, the sun started to come up and we were on our way. We arrived at the aue- tion at 700 in the morning When we got there, we found the coves in a pen, They. looked pretty bad. They had cuts all over them and looked thin, but we were just thankful that they were still alive. Belle saw us first, and came right up to where we were standing, They were just a8 glad to see us as we were tosee them. Just thena man came by who was there to buy stogk, and he said it would cost us about three thousand dollars 40 buy our cows. I coulda’t believe it! ‘That's why wold been deceived: the man who bought the ‘ows from us had just wanted to make a prof I suggested to my mom and sisters that we get busy praying. We didn't know what else to de; we sure didn’t* On asaty have three thousand dollars to buy back ourcows, and we dlida’t even know how to bid at an auction, We prayed really hard for God to show us the way, hen Alana had an idea, She had brought some pictures ofthe Sisters B with her from our showing atthe county fair. Every time someone arrived at the auction, shy ‘would hurry over to them, show our photos and share one story. The man who had Bought the Sisters from us was watching Alana, and when he realized that people were talking about him, and what he had done, he got al red in the face and left in a hurry. Most of the men that Alana falked to said that they wouldn't bid on our cows when they came out for auction, and that’s when we got ‘excited. Maybe we did have a chance, afterall ‘We waited until almost 11:00 before we Saw the fist of ur cows. If was Brandy. Because we didn't understand the bidding process well Alana didn’t hold her number "up fast enough and the men bidding on Brandy didn't see Alana, The price went up too high and we lost her. But then we understood how it worked, Every time one of our cows would come into the ring Alana would rise her number, and no one would bid on the cow. At one point the auctioneer stopped the whole auction and yelled that this had better stop, but everyone ‘gnored him. Alana kept holding up her number, and the men resisted bidding on our cows, By 5:00, we had bought back all ofthe cows, except for Brandy, for twenty-ta hundred dollars. Bell, her mother, kept mooing for her baby, and we were all sad to lose hee. Mom used the eigh, feen hundred dollars we had from selling the cows, and ‘we had to use our moving-sale money to make up the dif ference, bt we had done it. We had them back! Some friends of ours gave the Sisters Ba new home. At first, we didn’t get any money for them, but money wasn’t ‘8 important to us as what could have happened to our cows. Recently, our friends sent usfilteen hundred dollars “forthe cows, Afterall we had sacrificed, it was. really nice Nfamily needs to love an protec family, and they were ox fay No whe weg 1 Sey thy ae thvaystogether—jat ke my mom my ster and me What happened ous was hard bt we survived and wwe learned bt Akhough there are dshonest people the work there are also many kind people who ae wil © ing to elp you, even they dont know you ut the best “pit is that we did i together. Together, we can do "anything rod Larson, sien