The Adventures of Jordan and Loxley
A Bully in the Barnyard
By Linda Herren
With Jessica McRae
The Adventures of Jordan and Loxley
Bully in the Barnyard.
Copyright 2014 Linda Herren
Jordan and Loxley were best friends who grew up together on a farm. Jordan was a sweet, gentle Rottweiler and Loxley was a goofy coonhound. This is the first in a series of books about Jordan and Loxley and their life’s adventures and lessons.
Thank you to my friend Jessica McRae, owner of Jordan and Loxley. Jessica was my inspiration for Ms. Jess and her husband, Billy, was my inspiration for Farmer Bill.
Jessica is also the owner of the Walker Hound 3 Color’s All Riled Up, aka T-Rex. T-Rex was the AKC World Champion Treeing Walker Male at the 2014 AKC World Bench Show in South Carolina. T-Rex will be introduced as a character later in the book series.
Jordan and Loxley loved their life on the farm. They were born in the old barn in the stall next to Old Nellie. She was the mare who was mother or grandmother to all the horses on the farm. She was old, but everyone on the farm respected her because she was gentle and kind to everyone and often acted a teacher to the young ones.
Jordan and Loxley were not sisters; they were best friends. From the time they were puppies, they would run through the fields and forest, playing tag with the bunnies or swimming with the ducks. Their mothers had taught them to be kind and to not hurt other creatures, and they never did.
The people who lived on Jordan and Loxley’s farm were known as Farmer Bill and Ms. Jess. They were kind, hard working people and took good care of all the animals that lived on the farm. Farmer Bill always wore denim overalls and an old straw hat that was well worn from many years of hard work. Ms. Jess liked to wear plaid or checkered dresses covered by one of many aprons she had. She also wore her long hair in a bun, often covered by a bonnet to shade her face from the sun.
Jordan and Loxley had many friends on the farm and many more among the forest animals. One of the roosters who live on the farm was known as Red. His duty was to crow every morning to wake up Farmer Bill and his wife Ms. Jess. After doing his work every morning, he spent the rest of his days strutting around and pecking at bugs on the ground or in the grass. Everyone liked Red, who was well known for his funny jokes.
Each evening, after supper, all the farm animals would gather around in the barn near Old Nellie’s stall. They would talk about their day. Sometimes, the older ones would tell stories from their pasts. Red was always ready to pitch in a few jokes for a good laugh.
One evening, Grandpa dog Rowdy, told everyone he had heard Farmer Bill and Ms. Jess talking about bringing another rooster home to the farm. Red wasn’t sure what to think of that. He didn’t want to lose his place of authority. After all, waking up Farmer Bill and Ms. Jess was a very important job indeed!
Everyone told Red things would be fine, that he had nothing to worry about. But Red worried anyway. He worried so much that he didn’t go to sleep until late that night. That caused him to sleep late the next day and he wasn’t up in time to wake Farmer Bill and Ms. Jess. Thankfully, Jordan and Loxley, who woke up on time, sensed something was wrong and starting barking to wake up Farmer Bill and Ms. Jess. Red didn’t get in trouble that day, thanks to Jordan and Loxley. He was very grateful to them.
Later that morning, after the chores were done for the day, Farmer Bill and Ms. Jess took the old truck to town. The farm animals went about their business with no concerns. That is, they had no concerns until the old truck was coming down the long driveway to the barnyard. All the animals on the farm could smell the new arrival in the back of the truck.
Sure enough, just like Grandpa dog Rowdy had said, Farmer Bill and Ms. Jess had brought home a new rooster! All the animals were excited; they always liked making new friends. Everyone was happy, except for Red. He stood high up on the barn, looking down on the scene. Watching all of his friends greeting the new rooster, he didn’t know what to think.
Gloria, one of the hens, was the first to notice that the new rooster was much larger than Red. “Look how tall he is,” she clucked. “He’s so much taller than Red.”
“What’s your name?” Lucinda hen asked him. He began to strut around through the crowd as he replied “My name is Boris and I’ll be the head rooster around here, so you can call me Boss Boris. Yes, I think that will do just fine.”
“But Red is in charge of waking up Farmer Bill and Ms. Jess,” Lucinda said.
“Red? Who is this Red?” Boss Boris asked.
“Red is the rooster who has lived here for many years. He’s up there on the barn,” Lucinda replied, pointing at Red with her wing.
Right away, Boris flew to the top of the barn where Red was perched. Everyone gasped when they realized just how small Red was compared to Boris. Their eyes widened when Boris fluffed out his feathers and flapped his wings, causing Red to back away and slip off of the edge of the roof. But he could fly, so he wasn’t hurt.
Boris stayed perched up there on the barn for the rest of the day. After supper, when it came time for the evening gathering near Old Nellie’s stall, Boris came down and joined the others in the barn. The stories started like always, with Jordan and Loxley telling everyone about swimming with the ducks and playing chase with the deer in the forest. “Always be kind and be sure not to hurt the other animals,” Old Nellie told Jordan and Loxley. “Yes Ms. Nellie” they said at the same time. All eyes turned to Boris when he snickered at Old Nellie’s comment.
“Be kind to the other animals? What do you mean? They are dogs. Dogs chase things and catch them, its what they do!” Boris said
“Not on this farm they don’t!” Old Nellie said firmly. “They were raised right and they know better than to ever hurt another being.”
“Hahaha” Boris laughed as he strutted away.
The animals all took a moment to think about what had just happened. They did not understand why Boris seemed to think that it was ok to hurt other animals. After a few minutes, the story telling started up and Red told a few jokes and everyone went to bed.
The next morning the whole barnyard was awakened by the loudest crowing anyone had ever heard. Thirty minutes earlier than normal Boris was crowing from his perch on the barnyard gate. He had crowed only twice when Ms. Jess came rushing out in her robe to see what all the commotion was about.
“What’s all the noise for?” she called out across the yard. Then she saw Boris on the gate as he continued to crow loudly. “Oh my goodness” she said. “You’re crowing way to early! You’re supposed to wait another thirty minutes!” She rushed forward waving her arms at Boris to shoo him off of the gate. “Now hush up you silly rooster so we can finish sleeping.” And with that, she bustled back into the house.
At the correct time, Red thought it would be best to go ahead and crow just in case Farmer Bill and Ms. Jess had gone back to sleep. He crowed a couple of times when Ms. Jess came out and called him over to pet him. “Thank you, Red, for crowing on time. You’re such a good rooster!”
Of course the praise upset Boris beyond measure. He swore to himself that from that moment on Red would have no peace.
For the rest of that day, wherever Red went Boris followed him. He would call Red names like Shorty or Little Red. This continued all day and no one knew what to do about it. That evening at the gathering in the barn, Lucinda took it upon herself to tell Old Nellie what had been going on.
Old Nellie
was furious. She stamped her hooves and walked right on out of that barn and into the barnyard. “Boris, you big bully, you come here this instance!” Boris went to her to see what she was all upset about. “Yeah?” he said rudely. “What do you want?”
Old Nellie was even more furious at his rudeness. She stamped her hoof so hard, it shook the whole barnyard! She had Boris’ attention then! “WHY are you bullying Red the way you are?” she asked Boris.
“Should I bully him a different way?” he said smartly.
“Ohhhh you!” Old Nellie said, stamping her hoof again. “I may be old but I am the wisest one here. I’ve taught every young pup, kitten, chick and piglet on this farm what it means to be nice to everyone. And I’ll teach you too, whether you like it or not. You’ll have to learn to be nice to live on this farm because Farmer Bill and Ms. Jess won’t put up with bullying either.”
Boris laughed in her face and said, “You won’t teach me anything because I don’t want to learn!” Away he strutted and flew up to the top of the barn.
The following morning, Boris crowed too early again and spent the entire day being mean to Red. He would pluck at his tail feathers and hit him with his wings. Jordan and Loxley had seen enough and they asked Old Nellie’s permission to teach Boris a lesson.
With permission granted, they told their plan to a few others so they would have some help. While Lucinda distracted Boris, Jordan and Loxley snuck up behind him and began barking loudly! They frightened Boris so bad, he flew straight up to the trees and feathers went flying! Now it was his turn to be furious! No one was laughing, they were all just sitting a round looking at Boris.
“You don’t like that do you Boris?” Old Nellie asked. “You don’t like being picked on do you? It was only done to teach you a lesson. Since you wouldn’t listen me, there was no other way.”
“Why do you all hate me?” Boris asked.
“Nobody hates you” Nellie explained. “Red is our friend and when you were bullying him, we had to help you to understand how it feels.
Boris hung his head in shame. He flew down from the tree and walked over to Red and looked him in the eye. “I’m truly sorry for what I’ve done,” Boris said. “I didn’t realize what I was doing would hurt you so much. I only wanted to impress everyone. I thought they would welcome me if I showed them I’m tough. But now I see I was wrong. Can you forgive me Red?”
“Of course I can forgive you, Boris, on one condition” Red told him.
“Anything! “Boris said.
“You promise to help me wake Farmer Bill and Ms. Jess at the right time each morning!” Red said, laughing.
Everyone laughed with him, even Boris who said, “I’ll be glad to help out all I can!”