Some More Horse Tradin' (17 page)

My Vermont maid went to telling me that if we were going to ship to Texas that she sure would like to buy or trade for that blue roan. I told her he would be awful high, even to her, and she could buy him cheaper than anybody. Of course that was good conversation.

She said, “How would you trade him for some Morgan mares?”

“Well, that would be about the only thing that would get this horse. I don't think I'd swap him for United States money. I've already got a bunch of this Yankee money—more than I ever thought I'd get when I shipped up here—and I'd rather have some Yankee horses instead of more Yankee money.

She thought this was kinda funny, and so did the three or four girls who were listening. This was all happening one night at the supper—excuse me—dinner table. She said that she had two or three Morgan mares in a pasture on the back side of her place, up on the mountain, and that she would bring them in so I could see them. She just felt that I would like them.

I told her it would take about a pastureful to get this blue roan, because he was so good and I thought so much of him. The girls thought that was real funny. All these gals were
always laughing at the way Frank and I expressed ourselves. They thought we talked real funny. We didn't. They were the ones that talked funny.

Of course these gals teased us a whole lot about how much horsemanship they had taught us Texas cowboys. We were always hurrahing them about how they wouldn't have learned anything at that camp if we hadn't come up there that summer. All that kind of stuff went on all the time. And once in a while I would tease them about not being able to ride old Quickie. I'd tell this Vermont maid that it was too bad she didn't know how to trade horses as well as she knew how to teach young ladies to ride. This went on all the time—it got to where didn't anybody pay too much attention to it. Just every now and then something would come up about horses that they had never heard of before, and either Frank or I would say, “Well, you just put that down as something else you learned from Texas cowboys.”

About the middle of the week I let the news out that we would try to ship out Monday. I had already been down and told the railroad agent that we would want an immigrant car (that's what you call a car that carries livestock, equipment, furniture, and so forth—instead of just straight livestock). He had to order one from somewhere; they didn't ship any livestock up there by carloads. A carload of livestock going in or out of there was so unusual that you had to order a car several days ahead of time.

So I had told the gals that I thought we ought to stay over one more Sunday. They were going to have another of those Sunday horse shows. I knew it would be fun, and I wasn't worried about these last four horses we had. I knew I could sell them if I had or wanted to, and I was still kinda of the opinion that I would take this blue roan back to Texas with me.

We rode up late one afternoon to watch the gals in their late afternoon class. We were figuring on getting an invitation to stay for supp—I mean—dinner and get some more of
that female cooking and conversation. That all goes together, you know. This Vermont maid said she had her Morgan mares in the barn and if we would just wait out there by the riding ring, she would bring them out. I thought that would be all right, and directly she came out on a nice, brown, typical Morgan mare—good feet and legs, a beautiful head, and a nice, short back. She rode the mare and showed her, and this mare traveled nice. Of course, she was just out of the pasture and wasn't in real good shape, but they had put the groom on her. She had every hair in place and was slick and bright and pretty. She had her fetlock trimmed and her mane and tail combed out, but other than that, she was a little out of shape, just like a grass mare would be. But she was a real nice young mare and I liked her and liked the way she traveled, and thought, “Now that will be one to take home with that stud.”

As the Vermont maid started to ride the mare to the barn, she told us, “The show is not over. Wait and I'll bring out another one.”

This second mare she brought out was a much better individual—a dark, dark seal brown with black feet and legs and not a white hair on her. She just traveled on and was the best mannered thing. Oh, she was nice to look at with this gal aridin' her. They cantered and figured-eight, and it sure made a pretty picture. I just thought, “That's the kind of mares I need to start a band of Morgans with. If I can just trade for them without that gal finding out how bad I want them.” So I said out loud, “She's a nice mare. How old is she?”

“She's a little older than the other one.”

Well, we weren't too paper-minded in those days. We hadn't learned a lot about registered horses—or I hadn't. She told me the young mare had papers, and this one didn't, but she was a true-blooded Morgan mare. That you could see at a glance. This was such a nice mare, and this favorite girl friend of mine was showing her—so I just didn't think it
would be polite to walk up and pop the mare's mouth open to see how old she was. Anyway, she was a bright-headed mare that carried herself beautifully, and she couldn't be too old; so I didn't let it bother me.

She put the mare back in the barn and came out and said, “How did you like my mares?”

I said, “Well, they are sure nice. If you had about half a dozen more like that, I'd trade the blue roan horse for them.”

The girls were all listening—seemed like they knew this horse trade was up—and they hooted me pretty bad when I said that. The Vermont maid rolled those big blue eyes at me and said, “You'll be lucky if you get either one of them for the horse.”

Of course I knew that wasn't so, and I had a big haw-haw about that. We went in to eat, and as the evening wore on the girls were telling me how lucky I would be to get one of these mares. Everybody was trying to have a horse trade, and they were trying to trade me out of that blue roan horse for just one mare. I told them that just wouldn't do at all. They worked on it so long and so hard that I finally said I would trade for both of them. They thought this was funny—that I would say my horse was worth both mares. Of course this was all light conversation, and it looked like I wasn't getting very close to a horse trade.

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!”