They were kind enough. Or careless enough, depending on whom you asked, to leave the keys in the machinery. And we boys discovered this on Friday afternoon after the high line workers quit for the week. So here we had surplus army equipment just waiting for drivers. And fortunately enough, it was located on the back of dads property with no one around for a mile in any direction. So, together, we for the 6×6 and the tank converted to a drilling rig. As soon as dad left for a farm auction on Saturday morning operation Mennonite war games was put into action.

It was a year earlier when they stopped by. Men with clipboards, hardhats and a shiny new 4 wheel drive pickup. They were building a new power line, from Arkansas to St Louis, and would need an easement for a strip of land at the back of the property. Dad was hesitant, but when they told him they would convert woods into pastureland he capitulated. Anything to make his prized polled Herford cows happy brought him joy.

So the papers were signed and surveyors came by early the next spring, and we kids watched, mesmerized as they set up transits on tripods. They drove in thousands of red stakes and unspooled miles of pink tape to mark the boundaries. Of course we rolled up the tape after they moved on and used it to decorate our treehouse, but the stakes we left alone.

They brought in Bulldozers to clear the woods, d10 caterpillars with over 500 hp to topple the oak and pine trees. The raw power was astonishing to a farm boy. After all, the largest tractor we had, A Massey 135, topped out at 32 hp. They shoved all the trees into windrows at the side of the clearing and moved on to the north, to clear Mr Riggins woods. Dad and the 3 of us boys came back with chainsaws and axes to cut all that timber into firewood. But Paul, my older brother, saw a business opportunity, and set the wheels in motion for a timber heist.

You see Mrs Tincsher had over 500 acres of land that joined the back side of our property and had no use for the windrows full of logs the highway clearing crews had left behind. I can’t recall if we asked permission or not to borrow the wood , but it would have rotted anyway , so really we were doing her a favor. Now the wood would be cut up into 8 foot lengths,” and could be sold at Mizels, just a few miles up the road. They would turn the rough wood into fence posts.

The problem was, this all had to be kept secret from dad, otherwise he would want 90% of the gross income, and the operation would cease to be cost efficient. Fortunately, dad and mom had planned a trip to Iowa to visit his parents, and we 3 boys would be left at home to care for the livestock, and I would go to school. The only problem was, dad had written down a huge list of chores to be completed before their return. Things like digging a trench for the underground cooler, splitting 5 ranks of wood behind the barn, and cleaning out the chicken house.

So Paul delegated all the chores , in neat columns of yellow ruled paper, the evening before they left for their trip, and handed them out to Glen and I. Five minutes after that old Plymouth disappeared up highway 21, dirt was already flying from the trench as I swung the pickaxe into the hard clay earth. The sound of a splitting maul rang from behind the barn as Paul split wood, and the chickens scattered with annoyed squawking as Glen frantically scraped and cleaned the chicken house with a pitchfork and scoop shovel. By nightfall on the first day, all the chores on the punchlist had been completed, and Paul and I hooked the tractor to the hay wagon and parked it up under the pole light. As Glen milked our Guernsey cow, Paul and I loaded the wagon. Chainsaws, axes, gas cans , cant hooks, chains and log binders were heaped in a pile on the rear of the wagon.

They left the next morning, my brothers Glen and Paul. I had to go to school, but I heard the tractor as they set off back the field lane and wished I could play hooky and go with them. . I waited on the front porch until Levi Mast’s orange Opel came up the drive, and I rode silently with them to school.
Everything seemed to be going as planned, and by noon, they had cut enough wood, and began loading the poles on the wagon. They had the 3 point boom on the tractor and used that to grab each log and drop it on the wagon. A light rain began to fall and the ground became muddy. But finally the load was complete and they brought the tractor around and hooked it to the wagon, they prepared to head back, their day of labor coming to a close.
The first inkling of disaster came as they drove through a swampy area and the wagon quickly sank up to the axles. Before long the tractor was also buried in the mud, and even after unhitching the heavy load, was unable to move off the spot. So Glen was commissioned to run home on foot to retrieve our other tractor, a Farmal h. A tricycle tractor if you would, with the front wheels set close together. He raced the mile back to the wagon, throttle pushed all the way in. The tractor bouncing and weaving like a drunken sailor. They hooked up a chain and attempted to pull out the wagon without success. In desperation they hooked the chain to the rim of the Farmal and tried to use the 5 foot tall wheel as a winch. They weren’t getting anywhere, and the odds weren’t looking good at getting the logs sold without dad finding out and all hell breaking loose.

So off they roared, 2 miles through the woods to the Troyer farm, where they were able to borrow a 530 Case tractor. Twice as powerful as the Massey Ferguson, they had no doubt that they would soon have the situation sorted out. By alas the ground was still too swampy. And the Farmal once again roared off to retrieve a 50 foot cable . Almost an inch thick, it hung on the eaves next to the tractor shed and had never been used before. No one even remembered where we got it. It was just always there. The cable was stretched from the Massey to the Case and with a huge sucking sound the muddy clay gave up her hold on the tractor and before long the trailer was also drug from the soggy grave and hitched up to the case for the ride home.

I got home from school and did the chores. As I milked the cow I could hear mysterious noises coming from the high line but has no idea what was going on. It was long after dark before I saw headlights coming up beside the barn and the weird procession ground to a halt in front of the shop. Huge chunks of mud littering the driveway. They set off to return the Case tractor to the Troyer’s without stopping to say hi.

I threw some hamburgers in the skillet and got out potatoes chips, pretty much taxing the full range of my cooking abilities. They pulled in the drive finally. And between ravenous bites, filled me in on the details. They may have embellished the facts a bit, but the chunks of mud in the driveway gave credence to their tale .

Tomorrow they would hook up the trailer with logs to the flatbed dodge, Glen informed me. And Paul would run them to the charcoal plant. Glen would be responsible for retrieving Farmal tractor. By afternoon, the wagons and tractors were washed and the mud cleaned off driveway. Paul weakly suggested making another trip, but Glen refused to participate, claimed he could make easier money raising and selling earthworms. They managed to walk away with a profit of just under $45. And fboth agreed they were lucky with that amount.

The very next week, the much anticipated day of the auction arrived and Operation Mennonite war games was put into action. As soon as dad was out of the driveway, the 3 of us boys piled on the Massy Ferguson tractor, and headed back the farm lane. The mud flew off the tires in glorious arcs as we bounced along , Throttle pulled back all the way, in high gear. We skidded to a halt beside the converted tank, and Glen and I threw open the hatch and climbed inside. Within 5 minutes we had the engine running and Glen headed for the steepest hill he could find. Suddenly a 6×6, a giant 3 axle truck roared up beside us, Paul grinning from ear to ear from the driver seat. Now the race was on, The tank was no match for truck , but we discovered it was great fun to climb right over stumps and logs , the tracks flexing and creaking, and the diesel engine screaming . We raced and bounced and yelled until we were hoarse. Around noon, we figured the odds of dad getting home before we did were getting higher, so we carefully parked the tank back in the exact same spot where we found it.

We all piled into the 6×6 for one last glorious run around the clearing, and when we got to the far end of the clearing, up beside Mr. Riggins fence, She just died. Not a sputter, no whimper, just silence, Deathly calm silence. The starter wouldn’t even engage, “we’re going to jail”, kind of silence. Glen ran down the hill to get the tractor, thinking we could pull the truck back down to where we started. But alas, A 3000 lb tractor is no match for a 25000 lb truck, and it wouldn’t even budge. In desperation, Paul got underneath the dash, and by a stroke of luck found that a wire nut had come off, possibly due to 2 hours of bouncing across the rough clearing. He taped them back together and the truck roared to life.

We eased that beast back down at a snail’s pace, and parked it beside the tank, breathing a huge sigh of relief. The ride home was mostly silent, as we realized how close to discovery our crimes were. I’m pretty sure the High Line workers knew about our prank. But they never mentioned it to us, and we never attempted to start the equipment again. But for one glorious Saturday morning, We were a part of the 133d Tank brigade, just off Highway 21 , in Carter county Missouri.