Fifteen miles east of our place is way out of my travel line. I seldom go that direction for any shopping, visiting or sightseeing. The country is filling up with lots of aliens, you know what I mean, Yankees, and they bring funny hats and ways with them. They seem to love the Southern ways but not enough to shed their old ways.

Well, they are welcome to come and get rich like the rest of us! Sure, we encourage them to try and make it with two pigs, two cows and a bull, and maybe fifty or sixty head of sheep, goats and kids!Some of the folks, the ones I have met, are sure enough good people and I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was against their moving in, but they are a tad different and you gotta admit that!

Sam Witherspoon and I were drinking coffee and visiting the other morning at the feed store. He was telling us fellers, six or seven of us, about a feller over there that could handle a herd of forty cows like a flock of chickens and do it without a dog or help of his kin. Well, I thought I’d been doing that for years until he describedthe breed of cattle. Sure got my attention.

I call them Brammers, my Pappy called them Brammers, and so did his Pappy. We saw many a Brammer bull bucking, all the bulls packing a big hump and lots of leather under and over, and never dreamed the word might not be accurate. Then we were informed by the educated cowboys that we should refer to the breed as Brahmas.

It won’t make a nickel’s worth of difference to the cattle what we call them, but to the aforementioned folks who are now in our area it might. Sam and I talked about the nasty attitude of the few Brahma cattle we had known personally and laughed at the wrecks we had witnessed ourselves. Granted, they could paw deeper in the dirt, tear up more fence, blow snot farther and knock cowboys higher than anybreed we ever knew of. I just needed to see this special herd of cattle and the feller who could handle them.

We, Sam and me, loaded up in his truck and headed east. The trees got scrubbier and thicker within ten miles of our haunts and we had to stop at the little feed store and station on the highway for directions. It wasn’t hard to describe to the proprietor of the business who we were looking for, just had to mention Brammers and he knew exactly who we were looking for.

We pulled into a well worn driveway and dismounted. A feller with a dandy little cap appeared and offered his hand. He laughed when we told him why we were there and offered to show us his deal. Sure enough he had the most gentle herd I have ever seen, other than milk cows. Delightful, that was what he called working with them.

It is my opinion, and everyone has one, some fellers can train lions and tigers, bears and bobcats, and that is a talent. A real talent is God given and that feller and his cows seemed to be tuned in to the same station. I can’t guess how he did it and he didn’t share, but I saw it with my own eyes. Not that they, the cattle, saw Sam and me, we had to hide in the loft of the barn and lay down on our bellies to watch.

The whole herd filed into the lot by the name he called. They all stopped to nuzzle the man. By name, mind you! One miracle a day is enough for me, and I can give you directions if you want to see it for yourself!

Bill is a pen name used by the Gravette author of this weekly column.

Opinion, Pages 6 on 04/13/2011