Scurrying along to keep up with his grandfather, 4-year-old Zack Scott stopped abruptly when he saw the 1,000-pound bull.
But it was just a matter of seconds before he took the pail of com from “Pa” and stood nose-to-nose with the white Charolais, gleefully watching the bull munch the sweet corn.
Zack and his grandfather, 63-year-old Ernest Hall of Hartsville, Tenn., are buddies. Wherever one goes, the other is close behind. It’s been that way for two years, since Zack’s mother went back to work, leaving the boy in his grandfather’s care during the week.
The arrangement suits them just fine. Zack, who is fond of saying he’s ”Pa’s boy,” rises at dawn with his grandfather to begin the daily chores. They feed goats, chickens, dogs and cats behind Pa’s house before heading to Lafayette to check on the goats there.
Zack is always quick to tote the extra pail, mix feed, or add water.
“He’s the workingest little 4-year-old I’ve ever known,” said Mary Rushing, 60, Hall’s girlfriend and a partner in the goat business.
Most of the days are spent on Rushing’s Lafayette property mending goat-broken fences, clearing land, or fixing up the old house next door. When Pa kneels down to pull nails out of a baseboard, Zack is right beside him, hammer in hand.
Zack doesn’t beg for attention. When he tires of hammering, he romps around with the neighborhood dog or just leans back to watch. At lunchtime he sits on the floor, helping mix Pa’s fried cornbread and, without a word from anyone, pulls up a chair to wash the dishes at the kitchen sink.
“I think he sees everything’ s such a mess around the house that he needs to help me,” Mary joked.
Zack doesn’t say much, but Pa exclaims over Zack’s fine help and teases him about girls. Once in a while, Pa leaves his hammering to “steal some sugar” from Zack’s neck, while his grandson squirms away in typical boyish fashion.
In the midst of a mini-tickling session, Pa asked whose boy Zack is. Zack’s proud shout was loud and clear: “I’m Pa’s boy!”
