January 16, 2014
-
Bernard's Book Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5: HORSES
Father bought his first pair of horses, Harry and Queen, a white horse and a dapple-gray mare from Wesley Watson in 1923, the year that I was born. In the spring of 1925, he bought the black horses Nig and Lion. Father described the pair, “They were what you would call green broke, they wouldn’t turn good at first." When I was five, I would ride Harry and sometimes Nig to unload hay with the horse fork. They knew pretty much what to do, all I had to do was hang on to the hames. When they had gone as far as they could, I would turn the horse and they’d go back to the barn. Before I was elevated to this job, Mother or Molly had to do it. They would walk and drive the horse with long reins.
In addition to his black horses, Father also bought a bay team called, Dan and Maud. There were like a pair of cats. They were the only team that could go up a pinnacle on the mountain to get the wood. This was rough pulp; some that was cut late in the summer, too late to peel. Father was using a drag dray, probable fourteen to sixteen feet long. He put on about a cord and a half on the dray and dragged two bundles, a quarter of a cord each, one behind the other with a bridle chain on each runner. Down the mountain he went, quite fast at first, I watched and caught up after, when he undid the bundles. He placed them beside the road to be picked up later, when the road got better from further use.
The bay mare, Maud, stepped on a piece of wood. It left a splinter in her foot and caused an infection. She got lame. Father treated her for months. Her foot grew out like a stump and made that leg longer than the other three. She wasn't used for regular work, so I used her as my driving horse. Maud could go very fast and in the wagon it didn't matter that she went up and down. One day I went up to call on the Bishops, which was located across the road from Amos. Old Maud was going at a good clip. I was standing up for some reason and when I turned in I pitched out, landed on my belly, and got dragged a ways. Joe was in the yard and grabbed old Maud’s head, while I got to my feet. I never let go of the reins, so there wasn't any damage to anything except my pride.
One day Father decided to get rid of Maud. He took her up in the woods with a pole ax in his hand. We didn’t know what had happened. We kind of laughed to ourselves as Maud appeared dragging the halter rope. Father never took her back to the woods. In addition to her bad foot, Father said Maud’s wind was bad. He talked with Wesley Watson about him selling her for him. Father asked me to ride her down to Watson's Pasture on the Skowhegan Road. I had never ridden in a saddle, but I heard that Helen Pease had one. I told Father if he would borrow Helen's saddle, I would do it. Mother called Helen and made arrangements for Richard, Helen's son, to bring it over in their boat. It turned out to be a ladies side saddle with an up and down ride, but I made it to the pasture and let her loose.
Father said, “Every time I went by the pasture, I looked to see if she (Maude) was still there. One day he went by and she was gone. Father went over to the stable and said to Wesley, “It looks like you sold the mare.” He said, “I did, but all he could get was $75. Father said to him, “Did anyone around here get her.” Wesley said, “No, she has gone a good long ways and I don’t even know the man’s name.”
My father told me that his grandfather, Benjamin F. Hilton, called BF, bought our pony, Don, as a foal. When they first got him, Don was kept for a short while behind the kitchen stove, to keep him warm. He was a pretty dapple-gray when young. He came from a farm in Emden, I think where the Piper farm is today. Father said B F. Hilton had his own blacksmith shop where he made the pony cart. It had springs under the seat. Father said that one of the springs broke, but soon his Grandfather Hilton drove in with a new spring he had made. Father wondered how he knew, for he didn’t think anyone had told him that it was broken. Eben Miller’s children Robert and Elizabeth had Don for a time, until I was old enough to ride him.
Ellen and I drove Don up to the Butler Place to catch the school bus for a time. It was difficult for me to get on his back. He wouldn’t stand near anything that I could get on. I discovered that if there was grass to eat I could straddle his neck and he would throw up his head and I would be on his back, then I would turn around. One time us kids decided to visit Uncle Benny’s family. There were four of us: Caroline, Louise, Jennie, and myself. It was a good load, but no problem for Don. It was Sunday and the Yeatons were not home, so we decided to go to visit Uncle Harry instead, just about a mile further up the road. Uncle Harry was really surprised to see us and very happy about our visit. He insisted that we unhitch, Don put him in the barn, and feed him. Aunt Gussie and son, Donald, were there and had us playing games. We were having a great time, but we stayed too long. When we got home, Father was fit to be tied and I had to be punished. When we rode or drove old Don a lot, he would leave home and go up to the neighbors. He would be gone for several weeks, but as the kids there began to ride him, he would soon come home.
Father told me he had a great feeling of love and respect for his Grandfather Hilton. He spoke about the day his grandfather made a visit on his way to Mercer to see Uncle Allie. It was shortly after the death of his son, Charles, Father’s father. Grandfather Hilton stopped by to cheer up Kate, but Father said he couldn’t help thinking that his grandfather needed cheering up as much or more than his mother did.
One Sunday, Father and I went up to the Yeaton Place to see Uncle Benny’s new pair of horses. When we got there it seemed that the whole neighborhood had turned out to see them. They were a real nice pair of black mares. They were backed out of their stalls one at a time and everybody admired them. When they were turned out, each horse rolled over 5 or 6 times. Some old fellow hollered out, “They’re worth 100 dollars each time they roll over!” Later in the barn, a new Farm Mall tractor was demonstrated. It could turn in a fifteen and a half foot radius. I went back into the horse stable and Uncle Ralph Yeaton said to me, “Those tractors will never replace horses will they?”
I made two trips out West to buy Belgium horses with Father in the late 50’s. The first time we got Lula Bell a big mare and a two year old stud at an auction in Indiana. The last time we bought horses, we went to Toronto to the Winter Royal Fair for a couple days. We slept in the back of the truck and enjoyed the fair very much. Father bought two horses from somebody he had corresponded with, one was a nice two year old mare. He raised quite a number of good horses. Father gave me a dark sorrel mare he didn’t like, called Lady and sold me a blonde mare, named Bonnie.
I am going to close this chapter with a couple of stories that shows Fathers love of horses. Lion, the off horse of the black team and the oldest, died at the farm. Nig, the nigh horse, lived on and one day Father traded him. On a trip to the Starks pasture, after removing a young jersey bull, we were walking along the line fence and we spotted a man cultivating corn with a pair of horses. One of the horses was black. Father said, “Wait here I want to speak to that man.” When Father came back he was nearly in tears and said “Poor Nig has to work for somebody else. I never should have sold him.”
I haven’t written anything about Tom and Prince. Father used this team for everything, before the war, during the war, and after the war. He planted the corn, he sprayed the corn for weeds, and he mowed the hay with Tom and prince. One day Father went to the Wood Farm to get out some cedar he had cut for fence stakes. The horses were getting old and when they turned, Prince got his feet caught in the brush and broke his leg. Father got Erland Peterson, a neighbor, to shoot Prince to put him out of his misery. Erland offered to get his tractor and haul Prince down to the interval to bury him, where it would be easy digging. Father said, “No, he would get another horse to hitch with Tom, and haul Prince down. He wanted Prince to be hauled with horses, not a tractor. The family told me that Father dug a hole with the help of his tractor loader. He built a box for Prince and buried him. A few years later Tom died and he was buried at home behind the barn. Father didn’t like the idea of one horse buried at home and the other horse three miles down the road. He wanted the horses buried together. So, Father dug up Prince at the Wood Place and trucked the horse up the hill and buried him at home beside Tom.
Next Posting: Chapter 6 Farm Life
