CHAPTER XI
DEALIN' IN MULES
It must have been about the twentieth of April when I finished building.I started to "batch" and prepared to break out my claim. Having only onehorse, it became necessary to buy another team. I decided to buy mulesthis time. I remembered that back on our farm in southern Illinois,mules were thought to be capable of doing more work than horses and eatless grain. So when some boys living west of me came one Sundayafternoon, and said they could sell me a team of mules, I agreed to goand see them the next day. I thought I was getting wise. As proof ofsuch wisdom I determined to view the mules in the field. I followed themaround the field a few times and although they were not fine looking,they seemed to work very well. Another great advantage was, they werecheap, only one hundred and thirty-five dollars for the team and afourteen-inch-rod breaking plow. This looked to me like a bargain. Iwrote him a check and took the mules home with me. Jack and Jenny weretheir names, and I hadn't owned Jack two days before I began to hatehim. He was lazy, and when he went down hill, instead of holding hishead up and stepping his front feet out, he would lower the bean andperform a sort of crow-hop. It was too exasperating for words and I usedto strike him viciously for it, but that didn't seem to help mattersany.
I shall not soon forget my first effort to break prairie. There aredifferent kinds of plows made for breaking the sod. Some kind that aregood for one kind of soil cannot be used in another. In the gummy soilsof the Dakotas, a long slant cut is the best. In fact, about the onlykind that can be used successfully, while in the more sandy lands foundin parts of Kansas and Nebraska, a kind is used which is called thesquare cut. The share being almost at right angles with the beam insteadof slanting back from point to heel. Now in sandy soils this pulls mucheasier for the grit scours off any roots, grass, or whatever else wouldhang over the share. To attempt to use this kind in wet, sticky land,such as was on my claim, would find the soil adhering to the plow share,causing it to drag, gather roots and grass, until it is impossible tokeep the plow in the ground. When it is dry, this kind of plow can beused with success in the gummy land; but it was not dry when I invadedmy homestead soil with my big horse, Jenny and Jack, that first day ofMay, but very wet indeed.
To make matters worse, Doc, the big horse, believed in "speeding." Jennywas fair but Jack, on the landside, was affected with "hook-wormhustle," and believed in taking his time. I tried to help him along witha yell that grew louder as I hopped, skipped, and jumped across theprairie, and that plow began hitting and missing, mostly missing. Itwould gouge into the soil up to the beam, and the big horse would getdown and make a mighty pull, while old Jack would swing back like theheavy end of a ball bat when a player draws to strike, and out wouldcome the plow with a skip, skip, skip; the big horse nearly trotting anddragging the two little mules, that looked like two goats beside anelephant. Well, I sat down and gave up to a fit of the blues; for itlooked bad, mighty bad for me.
I had left St. Louis with two hundred dollars in cash, and had drawn adraft for five hundred dollars more on the Chicago bank, where my moneywas on deposit, and what did I have for it? One big horse, tall as agiraffe; two little mules, one of which was a torment to me; a sodhouse; and old wagon. As I faced the situation there seemed nothing todo but to fight it out, and I turned wearily to another attempt, thistime with more success. Before I had started breaking I had invitedcriticism. Now I was getting it on all sides. I was the only coloredhomesteader on the reservation, and as an agriculturist it began to lookmighty bad for the colored race on the Little Crow.
Finally, with the assistance of dry weather, I got the plow so I couldgo two or three rods without stopping, throw it out of the ground andclear the share of roots and grass. Sometimes I managed to go farther,but never over forty rods, the entire summer.
I took another course in horse trading or mule trading, which almostcame to be my undoing. I determined to get rid of Jack. I decided that Iwould not be aggravated with his laziness and crow-hopping any longerthan it took me to find a trade. So on a Sunday, about two weeks after Ibought the team, a horse trader pulled into Calias, drew his prairieschooner to a level spot, hobbled his horses--mostly old plugs ofdiverse descriptions, and made preparation to stay awhile. He had onlyone animal, according to my horse-sense (?), that was any good, and thatwas a mule that he kept blanketed. His camp was so situated that I couldwatch the mule, from my east window, and the more I looked at the mule,the better he looked to me. It was Wednesday noon the following week andold Jack had become almost unbearable. My continuing to watch a goodmule do nothing, while I continued to fret my life away trying to bepatient with a lazy brute, only added to my restlessness and eagernessto trade. At noon I entered the barn and told old Jack I would get ridof him. I would swap him to that horse trader for his good mule as soonas I watered him. He was looking pretty thin and I thought it would beto my advantage to fill him up.
During the three days the trader camped near my house he neverapproached me with an offer to sell or trade, and it was with manymisgivings that I called out in a loud, breezy voice and David Harummanner; "Hello, Governor, how will you trade mules?" "How'll I trademules? did you say how'll I trade mules? Huh, do you suppose I want yourold mule?" drawing up one side of his face and twisting his big red noseuntil he resembled a German clown.
"O, my mule's fair", I defended weakly.
"Nothing but an old dead mule," he spit out, grabbing old Jack's tailand giving him a yank that all but pulled him over. "Look at him, lookat him," he rattled away like an auctioneer. "Go on, Mr. Colored Man,you can't work me that way." He continued stepping around old Jack,making pretentions to hit him on the head. Jack may have been slow inthe field, but he was swift in dodging, and he didn't look where hedodged either. I was standing at his side holding the reins, when thefellow made one of his wild motions, and Jack nearly knocked my head offas he dodged. "Naw sir, if I considered a trade, that is if I considereda trade at all, I would have to have a lot of boot" he said with animportant air.
"How much?" I asked nervously.
"Well, sir", he spoke with slow decision; "I would have to havetwenty-five dollars."
"What!" I exclaimed, at which he seemed to weaken; but he didn'tunderstand that my exclamation was of surprise that he only wantedtwenty-five dollars, when I had expected to give him seventy-fivedollars. I grasped the situation, however, and leaning forward, saidhardly above a whisper, my heart was so near my throat: "I will give youtwenty," as I pulled out my roll and held a twenty before his eyes,which he took as though afraid I would jerk it away; muttering somethingabout it not being enough, and that he had ought to have hadtwenty-five. However, he got old Jack and the twenty, gathered his plugsand left town immediately. I felt rather proud of my new possession, butbefore I got through the field that afternoon I became suspicious.Although I looked my new mule over and over often during the afternoonwhile plowing, I could find nothing wrong. Still I had a chillypremonition, fostered, no doubt, by past experience, that somethingwould show up soon, and in a few days it did show up. I learnedafterward the trader had come thirty-five miles to trade me that mule.
The mule I had traded was only lazy, while the one I had received in thetrade was not only lazy, but "ornery" and full of tricks that she took afiendish delight in exercising on me. One of her favorites was to watchme out of her left eye, shirking the while, and crowding the furrow atthe same time, which would pull the plow out of the ground. I tried tocoax and cajole her into doing a decent mule's work, but it availed menothing. I bore up under the aggravation with patience and fortitude,then determined to subdue the mule or become subdued myself. I wouldlunge forward with my whip, and away she would rush out from under it,brush the other horse and mule out of their places and throw things intogeneral confusion. Then as soon as I was again straightened out, shewould be back at her old tricks, and I am almost positive that she usedto wink at me impudently from her vantage point. Added to this, thecoloring matter with which the trader doped her head, faded, and she
turned grey headed in two weeks, leaving me with a mule of uncertain anddoubtful age, instead of one of seven going on eight as the traderrepresented her to be.
I soon had the enviable reputation of being a horse trader. Wheneveranybody with horses to trade came to town, they were advised to go overto the sod house north of town and see the colored man. He was fond oftrading horses, yes, he fairly doted on it. Nevertheless with all mypoor "horse-judgment" I continued to turn the sod over day after day andcompleted ten or twelve acres each week.
The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer Page 12