Mud Between My Toes

Mary Belle Duncan never imagined shed be gathering eggs, making homemade ice cream, helping milk the family cow, or churning real butter with her grandmother. Shed never picked strawberries, tomatoes, or green beans fresh from the garden. Shed never woke up to the sound of a rooster crowing or cows mooing in a ranch pasture. And she had never heard of feather beds, down comforters, or homemade quilts. These were only a few of the new experiences facing her when she joined her grandparents for the summer on their Oklahoma ranch. Add fireflies, honeybees, croaking frogs, baby calves, skunks, and the adventure of fishing for the first time, and she was about to have the experience of a lifetime.