Some More Horse Tradin'

by Ben K. Green

  Frank and I ate most of their grub; it was getting late, so we told the gals good night. This Vermont maid walked out to the hitching rack with me. Frank was about half polite. He knew when to leave so he got on his horse and rode off. She and I stood there and talked in the moonlight. She told me she would hate to see me go back to Texas and all that stuff. Sure did sound good and I ate it up. And she told me that if I really was serious about wanting to trade for those mares that I could study about it. She would give both of them for the roan. I think that was what she walked out to the hitching rack to tell me instead of all the rest of that stuff that went on.

  Next morning, the whole class came down to our barn—eighteen head of gals and horses. They just covered the place like they always did, and we all saddled up and went into town. The Vermont maid rode the blue roan. It created a little excitement around town when all of us kids rode in there horseback, and I told the gals I would take them out on the town and buy them lunch. It was a little town and it wasn’t going to cost much. It was kinda early, and they called the old gal back at headquarters and told her not to fix them any lunch. You know that tickled her.

  They had one of those nice old New England hotels in town; so we went over there to eat. They served one of those boiled dinners. It was good grub, of course a little different from what I was used to. Anyhow, we had a big lunch and had a big time; and after we mounted up and rode out of town, I told my Vermont maid that I didn’t think we’d come up that afternoon. We needed to kinda clean that barn up and kinda straighten up a little bit.

  She said she would be glad to have us come up tomorrow; so the next day we rode up there. She brought the Morgan mares out and showed them again. They’d had a little time to work on these mares, and the gals had sure been working on them. The mares were getting in show shape, and the nicest mare was traveling a lot better. They had put shoes on her; she didn’t really need them because she had good hard feet, so they were getting her ready for something. She was sure showing off good, and I was liking both these mares. They actually weren’t worth as much as my blue roan horse. In fact, I thought they were worth about $200 apiece, and I thought he was worth about $600. I hadn’t decided to trade him for these two mares yet, but I didn’t know where else to look for mares. I didn’t have any way to get around much. Anyway, I thought maybe I’d better keep that Yankee money I’d got together and swap for mares instead of spending money.

  After all, there hadn’t been anybody around that wanted to give as much money for a horse as I wanted for this blue roan. And I just thought, With two Morgan mares and a Morgan stud, I could go home and raise a whole herd of horses. I would forget if there was any difference in value between my blue roan and these mares.

  We were going to ship out on Monday morning, so Sunday afternoon we went up to the girls’ horse show and stayed for supper. They showed me the Morgan mares again. Every time I looked at them, they looked better than the time before. And this older mare had the brightest head, the prettiest eyes, and carried her ears the nicest of anything I nearly ever saw.

  In the meantime, I sold the other three horses. Frank was still riding one of them, but the man was going to send for him the next day. The blue roan was the only horse I actually owned except for the stud; so I just traded with the Vermont maid for these two dark brown Morgan mares. We let them out of the barn after supper—excuse me, dinner—and I left the blue roan and saddled the nicest mare with my Texas saddle. She sure did ride good. I’d never had a horse feel better under me on the road. She traveled good and reached good and had a smooth way of carrying you—and still felt stout under you. I still hadn’t looked in her mouth to see how old she was.

  We led the four-year-old mare and went back down to our camp. Of course it was dark, and we didn’t have lights in our barn down there. We just turned the mares in the barn that night and went to bed. We lay there and talked about the gals and all the fun we’d had and how good we’d done on our horses—and that old Will sure did me a favor when he told me there might be a place up in New England where I could sell some horses. We had romped and played in the high meadows of the mountain country where the grass was green, the weather cool, and the female company delightful. It was a lot different from the searing summers a Texas cowboy usually spends handling wild cattle, bad horses, and eating camp grub thrown together by a mad, old, wore-out cowboy that had to turn cook because he couldn’t ride anymore.

  Our car was at the railroad station and we were ready to load out the next morning. Of course there were no shipping pens or anything like that in a little New England town. We were going to lead our horses up on the dock to load them—our Morgan mares and our stud—before the train pulled out about nine o’clock that morning. The fellow that had rented us the meadow and the barn was going to take his little pickup truck and haul our saddles and feed and other plunder that we had to load to the boxcar.

  It was early morning, but we couldn’t help but look back up the road to see if some of the gals were coming to see us off. We’d said our good-byes the night before, but we were hoping some of them would show up. I had my money in my pocket, and we were riding down to the depot. I was on the good mare, and Frank was riding the stud and leading the four-year-old. I was kinda adding up how good we’d done and how much fun we’d had—and there I was, going back to Texas with the purest of Morgan blood from the country Morgans started from. This all added up pretty nice, and we weren’t saying anything much—just riding along.

  I just noticed that this mare I was on never had let her ears down a time. Every time you looked at them, they were standing straight out looking down the road. That was a little odd. A mare ought to flop her ears back and forth a little once in a while. But that didn’t bother me a whole lot. We rode up on the shipping dock, got our horses inside the boxcar, and started to build a stall in one end of the boxcar for the stallion so he wouldn’t cause too much trouble. We hammered and fixed and put him back in this stall. We had a place to tie the two mares in the other end of the boxcar. It wasn’t like that Palace stock car we came up in, but it had a big tank for some water for our hourses and a place to keep our feed and everything like that. We were getting pretty well fixed up. The old man had unloaded his truck, and we had paid him all we owed him. I guess he was glad to get rid of us. He’d had an awful lot of excitement around that outfit that summer.

  I don’t know how come me to do it—but for some reason or another I rubbed my hand up over that mare’s ears. I wondered why they were standing up so straight. It hit a little hard something way down at the bottom of the ear, bedded down under the hair where you couldn’t see it. I ran my hand down the ear again, and I hit it again. Then I turned and reached over and ran my hand over that other ear. It was the same way. This old mare let her head down like her ears might be hurting her. When she did, I got to looking real close. There were several strands of real fine, hard brown silk thread—just the color of that mare’s head—wrapped real hard and tied real tight around the bottom of her ears to keep her ears sticking up straight. The thread was pulled so tight that the cartilage was wrinkled a little bit in the ears and set them forward—and they just set there. She couldn’t have let them back if she had wanted to. I said, “Frank, lookee here.”

  He ran his hand over her ears and said, “What is it? I don’t see nothin’.”

  I said, “I didn’t either, but you can feel it.”

  He felt it, and he said, “Well, I’ll be damned!”

  I got my pocketknife out and I worked real careful. This mare’s ears had gotten pretty sore, and they were touchy. I cut that silk thread, unwound it off of that ear, unwound it off the other ear—and you never saw the likes of thread! It took a whole lot of it. And those gals had worked that thread in there to where it didn’t even show. They had that hair so bright and slick, and it lay over that thread that was so tight—but when I turned it loose, both ears just flopped every which way. That old mare had the laziest ears you ever saw—and it sure d
id change her expression—and mine.

  While we were working around these ears, I noticed my hands turning a dark shade of brown. I knew they had that old mare cleaned off; but the palm of my hand was a little sweaty, and I just rubbed it right hard over her head. All kinds of color came off on my hand.

  That old mare was mossy-headed. You never saw as much white hair show on a mare’s head, and the more I rubbed, the whiter it got. It got white down around her eyes: she was so old that she was grey-headed before those gals painted her head.

  I opened her mouth. Her teeth were as long as a pencil—well, maybe not, but they sure were long.

  Old Frank just fell down in that car and just lay there where we’d broken open a bale of hay and just laughed till he hurt. I was kinda sick about the deal—yet it was funny to me, too. I wasn’t quite in the humor to laugh, so I finally kicked him in the ribs with my boot toe and told him to get up there and put up the bars on that boxcar door. I had heard the train whistle, and I was kinda glad it was coming. I wanted to get out of that country before I found something else wrong with my mare.

  About the time the train hooked on to our car, a station wagon drove up. It was loaded with those gals, and they were awavin’ and ahollerin’. I squalled at this blue-eyed, black-lashed Vermont maid and said, “What did you color that mare’s head for?”

  “Why, honey,” she answered, “you thought that color was so beautiful on my eyelashes and eyebrows! I didn’t think you would mind it on that nice mare’s head.”

  Frank and all the gals just died laughing. But as the train pulled out I squalled at them right loud again, “Anyway, it took eighteen New England maids to cheat one Texas Cowboy.”

  MULE

  SCHOOLIN’

  I had been to Granbury and spent most of the day doin’ more loafin’ than business, and was on my way back to the ranch. I was ridin’ a good horse named Dan and it was still the heat of the day, so I was lettin’ him take his time when one of those little quick summer thunder showers built up and got me and him wet in the matter of a few minutes and then passed on and the sun came out. Well, ridin’ along in the heat of the summer and gettin’ a quick shower never bothered a cowboy; you wouldn’t even think about changin’ clothes because when the sun came out, they’d dry on you in a little bit.

  I rode up to Davidson’s store at Thorp Springs to break the ride home and stopped for a little local conversation and refreshment. Davidson’s store was a small country mercantile sort of place with groceries and dry goods and a small amount of shelf hardware. As I ate my bar of candy and drank my Coke, Mr. Davidson set in to sell me a dry change of clothes. And I told him that would be kind of foolish, that the ones I had on would be dry in a few mintues.

  I put up considerable argument that I wasn’t interested in buyin’ clothes every time I got wet and he pulled out a good pair of black-and-white-stripped duckin’ britches and a blue duckin’ shirt that would come near enough to fittin’ me and told me that I could put on a change of clothes for a dollar bill. Well, that sounded like a bargain and I went in the back of the store to change clothes.

  Some of the grown men of the community were sittin’ up in the east door discussin’ the problems of farmin’, which didn’t sound too entertainin’ to a cowboy that wasn’t interested in turnin’ the grass bottom side up, so I didn’t pay a lot of attention until I heard the Professor. A university professor that wasn’t nearly old enough to quit teachin’ had moved into the community and had said that he retired from teachin’ in order to live on the land and enjoy farmin’. He was full of brilliant ideas and well impressed with his vast knowledge of general subjects and his particular knowledge of farmin’ and was generous in explainin’ his views. He always brought up the fact that education took time and money and it was a pity there weren’t more well informed men engaged in farmin’. Well, you could tell by his conversation that he was more than willin’ to share his vast knowledge with us ignorant people that had been makin’ a livin’ off the land while somebody had been payin’ him to learn their children readin’ and writin’.

  While I was changing clothes, he began to expound on the matter of fertilizer. He had just put out some fertilizer and was glad to see this little shower melt and send it into the ground. I asked Old Man Davidson what kind of manure would melt. And he said, “Now, Ben, you ought to be smarter than that. The Professor is referrin’ to ‘commercial’ fertilizer that is ground up from mineral rocks and then spread on the ground.”

  I said, “Well, that might be a daintier way to enrich the soil, but I doubt if it’s ever gonna take the place of good fresh stall horse manure.”

  I didn’t break into the conversation that the older men were carryin’ on. I just made my respectful howdies and went on about my business. I tied my had-been-wet clothes on my saddle and they were nearly dry by now and as I rode off toward the ranch, I wondered why I had let old Davidson talk me out of that dollar.

  The next time I ran on to Professor Know-It-All was at a Sunday afternoon singin’ at the country church. A bunch of men were sittin’ out under the big oak trees where they could hear the singin’ and still get in some visitin’ and have the privilege of smokin’ their pipes after the big dinner that had been served on the grounds. Professor Know-It-All took advantage of a pretty fair gatherin’ under them trees to explain how he had irrigated his garden by usin’ the law of gravity to flow the water from the windmill zigzag and cross-ways down the hill and what a great advantage it was to have enough education to be able to take proper advantage of the angles that it took to flow that water with so little fall to the ground because he had such a complete knowledge of the law of gravity. Well, I had heard something about this gravity business and when he looked up at me with his all-knowing smile, looking as though he expected some sort of favorable comment, I said I wished they would modify them damn laws of gravity so when an old bronc threw me, I wouldn’t fall so fast and so hard.

  The neighbors all laughed and Professor Know-It-All said, “Ben, you will have a greater appreciation of knowledge as you grow older and try to learn the important things of life.”

  I decided the singin’ in the church house would sound better at closer range and there might be some of them young fillies sittin’ close enough to the back where I could move into a better class of company and smell a little perfume instead of that smoke comin’ from them pipes, so I left that bunch of brain-bustin’ and went inside.

  I was out of circulation for a week or more workin’ cattle before I got back to town. I went to the meat market where they had tables in the back and you could eat all the barbecue and bread and onions that you wanted for a quarter. I sat down on one of them long benches at the table after I had filled my plate, and who walked in but Professor Know-It-All. He got his meat and bread but said he would “decline” the onions. Then he walked over and made me move up the bench and he sat down on the end by me.

  We carried on a little light conversation while the Professor minced around with his meat and I had my mouth full. Directly somebody got up off the far end of one of them benches and the man on the other end like to have fell on the floor. After the laughin’ and hurrahin’ was over and the people got through chokin’ on their meat, the Professor set in to explain the law of physics and the balance of weight on that bench, and he stressed the importance of education and the knowledge of these complicated doings that could be simple. Of course, he touched on the fact that education was expensive and he couldn’t expect everybody to understand what he was talkin’ about. When I finished my barbecue and started to leave, I told him I thought physics was a dose of medicine and he sure had enlightened me.

  The next time I stopped at the store, Mr. Davidson told me that Professor Know-It-All was havin’ trouble with his mules. One day when I was ridin’ up the road, I met him drivin’ his mules to a wagon. We stopped in the middle of the road and he told me he was havin’ an awful time workin’ that team of mules and felt that Mr. Bennett had taken undue
advantage of him and had sold him an unbroke pair of mules. Well, I glanced at the mules and I had seen them many times before. The Professor had adorned them with a new set of leather harnesses and you could tell by the looks of the mules that he was takin’ extra-good care of them.

  I consoled him a little by tellin’ him that I felt he and the mules would finally get used to each other and they ought to work out all right because if Old Man Bennett could work ’em, a man of his vast knowledge and education shouldn’t have any trouble with ’em. This made him feel good and you could see him strut a little even though he was sittin’ in the spring seat.

  One day I passed the farm that Professor Know-It-All had bought and saw him drivin’ his team of mules to a cultivator. The rows ran out to the road fence and turned, so I just thought I would wait for a little of that smartenin’ up in the shade of a tree since he wasn’t more than a hundred yards away. As I watched him comin’ down the row, I could see that this nice pair of sorrel mare mules had sweated until they were breaking out in a lather and they were nervous and looked like they were tryin’ to cross their heads across the tongue and were both walkin’ on the middle bed.

  Professor Know-It-All pulled them up at the end of the row and walked over to the shade of the tree. He was wearin’ new work clothes, which most farmers saved and wore to town a few times before they went to the field in them. He set in to tell me in very properly phrased English how disgusted he was with the way his team of mules were acting that day as he tried to cultivate his corn crop. He said that they had tromped the young corn down on the middle row and in their twisting around caused him to cut down some corn with the cultivator plows. He added that he believed he was going to be forced to sell them and probably get a team of horses since he knew they were more intelligent than mules. There was just too wide a spread between what he knew and what mules knew for him to be able to work them satisfactorily.