From the critters near home . . . . to the wildlands beyond.

Tabby Tales are small, gentle stories — meant to be read in a few quiet minutes, enjoyed with a smile, and written and shared simply for the fun of it.

By the time Tabby discovered Mr. Wilks’s pasture gate needed fixing, she and Big Muddy, the giant Duroc boar she rode everywhere, had already passed it.

They might have kept going if the gate had kept quiet.

Instead, it gave a long wooden creak, followed by a scrape and a clunk.

Tabby turned on the folded blanket across Big Muddy’s broad back.

A brown-and-white cow stood behind the gate with her nose between two boards. A bell beneath her neck clanked softly as she pushed. Three more cows waited behind her. Farther up the pasture, others had begun coming down the worn path.

The brown-and-white cow pushed again.

Scrape.

Clunk.

“That doesn’t look good,” Tabby said.

Big Muddy stopped walking. He had discovered a tuft of grass growing beside his front foot and was willing to consider the matter from there.

The gate hung crooked between its posts. Its outer corner rested in the dirt, and the wooden latch caught only the very edge of its keeper.

One more good push might do it.

Tabby looked toward Mr. Wilks’s barn. Nobody stood in the yard. No hammer sounded from the shed.

“Well,” she said, sliding down from her blanket. “Somebody ought to do something.”

Big Muddy finished the grass.

Tabby took this for agreement.

She approached the gate and laid a hand on its top board.

“You ladies just wait a minute.”

The brown-and-white cow breathed warmly over her fingers.

Tabby lifted the low end. The gate rose an inch, and the latch settled properly into place.

“There. See? It only needs holding up.”

A short block of wood lay beside the fence post. If she could slip that beneath the corner, the gate would stay level.

But she needed both hands to lift it.

Tabby looked at Big Muddy.

“Come here, Muddy.”

He came.

“Beside the gate. Right here.”

She guided him along the lane side of it, his broad shoulder close to the boards.

“You keep it steady. I’ll do the lifting.”

Big Muddy stood patiently.

Tabby lifted the sagging end and nudged the block toward it with her boot.

Almost.

She pulled a little higher.

At that moment, Big Muddy noticed a fallen apple beneath the fence. He stepped forward, pressing his shoulder against the gate.

At the hinge post, the upper iron pin shifted in its hole.

Tabby did not see it. She was watching the block.

The gate moved sideways in her hands.

She gave a quick upward tug to keep her grip.

The loose upper pin pulled free of the post. As the gate tilted, its lower hinge strap slipped off the remaining pin.

Then the whole gate leaned toward her.

“Oh!”

She held tight to the outer upright while the hinge end dropped into the pasture with a thump.

Big Muddy continued toward the apple.

Tabby stared at the hinge post. One iron pin still stuck up from it. The other lay in the grass, beside the fallen gate.

Behind it, four cows raised their heads.

The brown-and-white cow stepped forward.

“No, ma’am.”

Tabby pulled on the gate. It dragged sideways a few inches.

The cow took another step.

“Muddy!”

Big Muddy crunched.

“Muddy, I need you over here.”

He swallowed, turned, and came back. Tabby pointed into the opening.

“Across there. Sideways.”

He understood sideways. There were several comfortable ways to stand in the world, and sideways was one of them.

His enormous body filled most of the gap.

The brown-and-white cow stopped, a puzzled look on her face.

Tabby leaned against the gate and let out her breath.

“Thank you.”

Big Muddy gave a low grunt.

While he held the opening, Tabby inspected the hinges.

Nothing appeared broken. The gate’s straps were whole, and the loose pin had simply pulled out of its hole.

“All we have to do is put it back.”

She lifted the hinge end.

It rose a little.

She lifted harder.

It rose a little more.

The far end remained firmly on the ground.

Tabby lowered it again and considered.

A short length of fence rail lay beside the post. She fetched it and laid it across a stout stone, with one end beneath the gate. When she pushed down on the other end, the gate rose.

Tabby smiled.

Then Big Muddy caught the scent of another apple.

This one had rolled beneath a clump of grass several feet down the fence.

He turned his head.

“Muddy,” Tabby warned.

He turned his shoulders.

“Muddy.”

The brown-and-white cow moved into the space opening behind him.

Tabby dropped the rail and hurried into the gap, spreading both arms.

“Whoa!”

The cow stopped with her broad nose almost against Tabby’s shirt.

Behind the first, a second cow leaned forward to see what was taking so long.

“You have to stay in.”

The brown-and-white cow advanced one foot.

Tabby stepped back.

The cow advanced another foot.

Tabby stepped back again.

“No. That isn’t what I meant.”

A black cow began edging toward the other side of the opening.

Tabby stretched her left arm out farther.

The brown-and-white cow lowered her head to inspect Tabby’s right elbow.

For a moment, Tabby wished she had been made wider.

“Muddy!”

He had found the second apple.

“Muddy, you come back here and help me this minute!”

He raised his head at the sound of her voice.

Tabby stood with her boots planted in the dirt, arms spread, facing several hundred pounds of increasingly impatient cows.

Big Muddy slowly ambled back.

She pointed beside her.

“Here.”

He stepped into place.

The brown-and-white cow backed up.

Tabby waited until the opening was full of pig again before lowering her arms.

“We are keeping them in,” she told him. “That’s the job.”

This time, she checked both sides of the fence for apples.

There were none she could see.

Hurrying to Mr. Wilks’s shed, she found a coil of rope hanging from a peg and a stout block of wood beside the door. She carried both back to the gate.

She pushed the loose hinge pin into its hole, tapping it farther in with the block.

Then, working with the rail, the stone, and much effort, she raised the hinge end of the gate. She propped it with the block while she lined up the straps.

It took three tries.

At last, the gate dropped onto both pins.

Tabby stood still, breathing hard.

Big Muddy flicked an ear.

The brown-and-white cow pushed.

The gate sagged, and the upper pin began working outward again.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Tabby warned.

She wedged the first block beneath the dragging corner. Then she threaded rope around the gate’s upright and the latch post.

She pulled it tight.

The gate held.

She added another turn.

The brown-and-white cow pushed harder.

Tabby added a knot.

The black cow crowded closer.

Tabby added another knot.

For good measure, she used the remaining rope to lash the hinge end to its post, too.

By the time she finished, the rope passed around both posts, between two boards, over the top rail, back between two lower boards, and twice through a place that defied explanation.

But the gate was upright.

The latch was seated.

The cows were in.

Tabby dusted her hands.

“There,” she sighed. “We did it, Muddy.”

Behind her, someone cleared his throat.

Mr. Wilks stood in the lane carrying a toolbox, a small jack, and a new length of timber.

He looked at Tabby.

He looked at Big Muddy.

Then he looked at the gate.

“I fixed it,” Tabby explained, pointing to the gate, now firmly secured in a tangle of ropes and knots.

Mr. Wilks set down the timber.

“I see you’ve been working.”

“It was dragging, and that latch barely held. Then the cows started coming.”

“They surely did.”

“The hinges came off, but nothing broke,” she said proudly.

Mr. Wilks examined the hinge post.

“That upper pin’s been working loose. Came out altogether, did it?”

Tabby nodded.

“I put it back, but it wouldn’t stay. So I tied that end, too.”

He followed the rope with his eyes.

“I see.”

“And Muddy helped.”

Big Muddy had settled beside the fence. One hind leg stretched comfortably into the lane.

Mr. Wilks rested a hand on the top board.

The brown-and-white cow promptly put her nose through beneath it.

Tabby nodded toward her.

“That one’s been trying the hardest to get out.”

“That’s Bess. She’s my bell cow. The lead cow of the herd. Where she goes, the others follow.”

“She’s very determined,” Tabby said.

“She knows where she’s going. Or where she’s supposed to be going, anyway.”

Tabby glanced down the lane.

“Where’s she going?”

Mr. Wilks pointed toward an open gate farther along, beyond which a fresh pasture spread green beneath the November sunshine.

“Over there. This grass is about grazed down. I came to move them this morning and found this gate dragging so badly I couldn’t swing it clear.”

Tabby looked at his tools.

Then at the rope.

Then at Bess.

“You wanted them out?” she asked, puzzled now.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“All of them?”

“That was the plan.”

For a little while, the only sound was Big Muddy breathing through his nose.

Tabby studied her knots.

“Well,” she said at last, “they’re all here.”

Mr. Wilks rubbed his chin.

“They certainly are.”

“And nothing broke,” she reasoned.

“No,” he agreed. “Nothing is broke. Tied up a little. But not broke.”

She looked up at him.

“I could help you fix it so it opens.”

Mr. Wilks smiled.

“I’d be obliged, and thankful for the help.”

Getting the rope off took longer than Tabby expected.

Mr. Wilks held the gate steady while she worked backward through her knots. Twice, she had to stop and discover which piece of rope belonged to which loop.

Bess watched everything very carefully.

With the rope finally coiled, Mr. Wilks set the jack beneath the gate and showed Tabby how to raise it just enough. He reset the loose upper pin securely, then together they fitted the new diagonal brace and fastened it in place.

Tabby handed him nails and held the timber where he marked it. When he asked for the hammer, she had it ready.

At last, he lowered the jack.

The gate stayed straight.

He lifted the latch.

It swung clear of the ground.

Tabby swung it back again, just to see.

Then she opened it wide.

Bess walked through immediately, glancing back at her with a look only a disgruntled and hungry cow could give.

The others followed with the steady purpose of cows who had been ready for quite some time.

Tabby stood beside Mr. Wilks as the last one passed.

“They really were hungry.”

“Yes, ma’am. They were indeed.”

“I thought they were escaping.”

“Looked that way from your side.”

She considered this while the herd turned into the fresh pasture. Bess put her head down and began grazing without another glance behind her.

Mr. Wilks closed the repaired gate, lifted its latch, and opened it once more.

“A gate’s got two jobs,” he said. “Keeping in, and letting out.”

Tabby nodded.

She knew both of them now.

Big Muddy rose when she came to fetch him. He lowered himself enough for her to climb onto the blanket, then waited while she settled.

Mr. Wilks picked up his toolbox.

“Thank you for stopping to help out and keep my herd safe, Tabby.”

“Thank you for helping to get it fixed right.”

They waved, and Big Muddy started down the lane.

At the bend, he stopped beside another fallen apple.

Tabby looked back at the green pasture, where every cow had her nose in the grass.

Then she patted Big Muddy’s broad shoulder.

“All right,” she said. “Take your time and enjoy this one.”

A note about images — Original artwork throughout The Front Porch has been created from my concepts and creative direction with the assistance of AI.  

Why do I write these? Aw, I don’t know. Just thought it might make you smile.