Home For Thanksgiving:
A Story From My Childhood

Let me tell you a story about the winter. After my father brought his sheep down out of the mountains in late October, he and the sheep-herders trailed the sheep up around the north end of the Great Salt Lake past a place called Corinne and on out into the Utah Nevada Desert to the winter range lands.

"You'll have to Stay with the Sheep"
One cold Sunday afternoon after church in early November, when I was about 12 or 13 years old, my dad said, "The sheep should be out in Corinne about now. Would you like to ride out with me to see how they were getting along trailing the sheep?" I said, "I would love to."
Dad and I drove out to Corinne and found the sheep. When we got out there, the sheepherder came hopping over to us on one foot. Something had happened to him. I don't know what it was. But he said to my father, "Mr. Marriott, I've got to go to town. I'm really sick. I've got to go to town and get to a doctor." "I'll take you in," Dad told him. Then he turned to me "Russell, you'll have to stay with the sheep."
I had been with the sheep and knew a lot about the sheep, but I did not know how to handle the sheep by myself. I did know that sheep have to have water and we needed water for the camp. But out on the western desert beyond Corinne, there were not many places where we could find water. Dad drew me a map of sorts, showing me how I should follow a little range of low mountains toward the range lands, There was this small mountain—it was a hill, actually --that went all through this area west of the Great Salt Lake. Dad marked on the map where I'd find springs of water along the way.

"He Wasn't Worried At All"
So Dad took the sheepherder back on in and just gave me the sheep. It was just I and a camp jack, that took care of the camp. Dad told me to trail the sheep and to trail them slowly. And he said, "I’ll have this man back out here in about two or three weeks. Just trail the sheep along and let them graze as you go along and don't trail them fast." He wasn't worried at all. He gave us things to do from time to time when we were just boys that grown-up men would have had a hard time doing. Well, he just figured that we could do it, and that's what he did.

"I Heard the Bells"
We were getting out toward the desert the first night and it was nearly dark when we stopped the sheep there. There were about 3,000 head of sheep. A herd of 3,000 head of sheep is one herd in the wintertime, but two herds in the summertime. I rounded them up like a sheepherder would do, but I didn't know that the sheep liked to bed down at night on a hill. Instead, I bedded them down on flat ground. Then I went in, got in the sheep camp, and got ready to go to bed. After I was in bed, I heard the bells. We had bells on about half a dozen sheep and I heard the bells. I got back up and got my clothes on and ran out. The sheep had gone over to this little hill and bedded themselves down for the night. I left them there on the little hill and they stayed there all night.

"Those Sheep Were Thirsty"
The next day we started to travel again. After one more day, we got through to the first place where, according to Dad's map, we would find water. And sure enough, there was the spring, right where it was supposed to be. We drove the sheep up and they got water. From there, I just let them graze around and, for the next four or five days, I just traveled slowly to get to the next spring. Well, sheep like to have water at least every couple of days. The sheep got thirsty and so at night time they would be up running around all night and I'd have to get up and round them up and stay with them and I got very little sleep. After about five or six days we got down to the place where there was supposed to be another spring. We were up on the side of a hill and I ran the sheep up there and they didn't seem to find any water. So I rode up there and rode all over this field, up and down, but there wasn't any spring. I was beside myself, because those sheep were thirsty and they just needed water. So that night, I said to my friend, the camp jack, "Let's you and I sit down and offer a word of prayer, because I don't know anything else we can do to find water." And so we kneeled down and had a word of prayer and prayed to God to help us. And when we got through praying, we got into bed.

"An Answer to Prayer"
I was so tired that I didn't wake up until 6:30 the next morning. And when I woke up, I said, "Oh, my gosh, those sheep will all be gone!" I jumped up and put my clothes on and ran outside and there they were, all bedded down. And what do you think happened? It snowed that night! This was the first part of November and we sometimes got snow in November and it snowed that night. I guess we got snow because of our prayer—our prayer to God. We got this snow and the sheep ate the snow for water. And it was nothing unusual for them. So I had no problem.

"I Looked Up to the East"
Well, the next thing that we had to do was to travel over a low place where the Union Pacific railroad came through. It came through that area and it was in kind of a low place. There was water in the low area along the tracks—about six or seven inches of water. And we had to trail the sheep across this water. When they got through the water and up onto the railroad tracks, they wouldn't get off the tracks and go back down through the water on the other side. You see, the tracks were up above the water and the sheep were out of the water as long as they stayed on the tracks. I ran our sheep dogs into them and I did everything I could think of to get them to move, but I couldn't get them off that railroad track.
While I was busy doing that, I looked up to the east and, far off in the distance, I could see a passenger train coming toward us. And I said, "Oh, my gosh, what are we going to do? I can't get these sheep off the track. What am I going to do?" So I said, "I'll run up the track and see if I can flag the train down." And so, that's what I did. I ran up the track toward the train. As I ran, I pulled my hat off and I waved it and waved it and waved it! But the train didn't slow down one bit. Finally, I said to my-self, "Oh, boy, they're going to run into those sheep and the train will go off the track! I'm going to get out of the way or I'll get killed!" So I ran out of the way as far as I could go. Evidently, the engineer or whoever it was that was running the train—evidently he saw the sheep just before the train got to them and he threw on his brakes and threw out steam, like they shoot out steam in the station when the train comes to a stop--they shoot steam out. Anyway, the engineer shot this steam out and threw on the brakes. The train ran into four or five sheep and just knocked them off the track. That was about all. None of the sheep were killed and it didn't hurt them real bad. Then the train just keep blowing steam and it frightened the all the sheep off the track and we got them over onto the other side of the tracks and up onto dry ground again. That was an answer to prayer, too!

"I'm Going to Stay Right Here!"
From there, we drove the sheep for about two or three days and we came to another spring. When we got to the spring, I said, "I'm going to stay right here and let the sheep graze. When Dad's sheepherder comes back from town, he'll come on the train and I want to be close. I'11 just stay nearby and let the sheep graze." By this time, it was about three days before Thanksgiving. I said, "I am going to be home for Thanksgiving!" Thanksgiving was the time when Dad and Mother had all our relatives and people came to our house for Thanksgiving dinner and we had a great time. We had to work so much that there were only a few days in the year when we had much fun and. Thanksgiving was one of those days. I said, "I've got to go home for Thanksgiving!"

"You Be There At 10 O'clock"
So. I got on my horse and rode back to the railroad track. I'd seen a telephone there that the people that work on the railroad use. And so I rode back to the railroad tracks and, sure enough, there was the telephone. I used that telephone and called into Ogden and got my father on the telephone. And I told him, "Dad, I'm coming home for Thanksgiving. If you don't get the sheepherder out here," I said, "I'm going to get on this train and come home and just leave these sheep out here and let them take care of themselves." And Dad said, "Well, you be down there on the railroad track tomorrow morning and I'll have the sheepherder there at 10 o'clock." And then he said, "You be there again the next morning" That's Thanksgiving Day. He said, "You be there the next morning at ten o'clock. A train comes through there and you just go out and flag it down. They'll stop," he said, "and give you a ride into Ogden and I'll pick you up and take down to our place."
So I did exactly what Dad told me to do. The next morning I rode my house back to the railroad tracks. I was there at 10 o'clock and picked the sheepherder up when he got off the train from Ogden.

"It Was a Wild Horse!"
Then, the morning after that, Thanksgiving morning, I had to get back to the railroad track again by 10 o'clock. I couldn't ride my horse this time, because I couldn't leave it at the railroad track. But this is what happened. There were some wild horses that had been coming around our camp. I had fed one of them a little grain that we had, and I patted it on the neck and it became very friendly. And so on Thanks-giving morning, I went and got that horse, put a halter on it, got on it, and rode it on in to the railroad track. It was a wild horse! But I had that horse trained. It liked me so much because I gave it that grain and I'd pet it and do other things to it. And so I just got on it and rode it right on in to the railroad tracks. Then I took the halter off it and let it go so it'd go back to the other horses again. And it wasn't long until the train came. I flagged it down, got on the train, and rode into Ogden.

"Dad Was There to Pick Me Up"
It just happen that the conductor of this train was on the same train that almost ran into our sheep. And he asked me, "Do you happen to be one of the guys that I al-most ran into?" And I said," "Yes, I am." And I said, "You should have been looking out! You shouldn't have got so close to them! You should have been watching where you were going!" He never answered me. And so I rode on into Ogden and my dad was there to pick me up and we got home for Thanksgiving. And I got to be with all my friends and got back to school.

Russell told this story during a videotape interview conducted by his nephew, David C Marriott in March 1996, at Camelback Inn in Scottsdale, Arizona. The transcript was prepared and edited by Mark T Ballstaedt.