Horse Tradin' (10 page)

As I approached his wagon with my mule and saw that big fat bull tied to the back of his wagon, I wondered if his education was entirely complete. Riding very slow, but without stopping, I said: “What are you going to do with that bull?”

“I would ship him to Fort Worth or I would trade him for that mule,” he answered.

The mule was so classy that anybody would like her at a glance, and most anybody in those days could tell she was a young mule without looking in her mouth.

I reined up my horse, and he stopped and began talking. He said the bull was fat and would weigh two thousand pounds and bring five cents a pound, which would be $100—that was all my mule was worth and we would trade even. I knew that bull didn't weigh but fourteen hundred pounds and wouldn't bring more than four cents, but I also knew enough about my mule that I considered it a good trade. I said: “We'll have one more trade,” as I stepped down off my horse and tied the mule
to the back of the wagon. He went to complaining about having a new lariat rope on the bull and he wouldn't let me have it—but, of course, he wanted the halter that was on the mule. I didn't think it was best to let him get close enough to that mule to smell the chloroform, and I didn't want to be fooling around the mule's head taking the halter off. I didn't want to chum around with Mr. Milkman long enough for me to change and take his rope off the bull and put mine on; so I reached over, untied the bull, and turned him loose.

I said: “I'm a cowboy and horseback. I don't need a rope for just one bull.” I stepped on my horse, started driving the bull off toward the shipping pens, and Mr. Milkman turned around and started home with his mule.

This good gentleman had been known to sing awful loud in church and frown disapprovingly at cowboys who didn't attend meetings, but I heard from reliable sources that he almost lost his religion over that mule. I never bothered to ask what actually became of that crazy mule.

One bright fall
morning, with the weather nice and brisk but the sun still shining, I was walking through my horse-trading barn trying to make plans for how to sell the horses and mules I had bought. It was early in the season, cotton picking had just started, and the horse and mule business had taken on new life following the summer lull.

I had a beautiful five-year-old chestnut sorrel mare of good conformation and disposition, and she was well broke to work. She was about fifteen hands high and weighed about 1,325 pounds. In selling work horses there was much to be gained by having your teams well matched in age, size, color, and disposition. A really matched team would bring $50 and sometimes $100 more than the two horses sold separately. This beautiful
chestnut sorrel mare had no mate, and I had bought her cheap because the man who sold her had not been able to match her.

I had her in the back of my barn, and I was sure none of the other traders had seen her because no one had mentioned her. She was a good mare that a trader would have to had made some belittling remark about.

I started walking off down the trading alley where there was a number of other horse traders. I found a trader named Dave in his barn brushing and currying a twin to my good mare. I didn't think he knew that I had one that would match her, and the conversation went about like this: I said “Dave, that's a good mare. It's a pity you haven't got a mate for her. A pair like that would bring a lot of money.”

Dave was a-brushing the flax mane and tail of this dark chesnut mare. He didn't stop brushing, he just answered: “I've been tryin' to find another one as good as her for three months, and she's been standin' here eatin' her head off. I guess I ought to sell her for a single and forget about matchin' her.”

“I wish you had a pair like her because I've got an order for two, but one wouldn't do me much good.”

“What'll you give for her and you try to match her?”

“Nothing. I want a team,” I said.

“Would you give $125?”

“No. I'd give $90.” I had started out of the barn and I kept walking.

Dave called: “Don't be in such a hurry. Come back and lead your mare off. I've fed her as long as I want to.”

I tried to keep a straight face and keep from showing my glee, because I knew she was a dead-ringer for that
mare in my barn. I paid him, took the halter rope, and started leading her up the alley thinking about how much money the pair would bring. I tied the mare in front of my barn and started in the barn to bring out the mate and see how they would look together.

Dave and his Uncle Bob were partners, and Uncle Bob had been looking for a mate to that good chesnut sorrel mare, too. As I started toward the back of my barn, Uncle Bob came along and saw the mare that I had just bought from Dave. Uncle Bob originally came from the deep South and had that Southern drawl and also a little bit of a stutter in his speech. He said: “Ah, Benny, ah, thet's a pu'ty nice marh yuh got theah. What'd yuh tek fo' huh?”

I suddenly realized that Uncle Bob didn't recognize his mare, and I thought it would be funny to sell her back to him; so I answered: “Uncle Bob, she ought to be worth $125.” I thought putting in that “ought to be worth” would induce him to bid.

He replied: “I can't give you thet fo' huh, but I'd give yuh $110.”

I could have made $20 right quick, but I would have liked to make more and make a better story to tell in later years; so I said, “Uncle Bob, I'll split the difference with you”—which was a common practice.

He walked around the mare, looking at her, and said: “I'll raise muh bid $5.”

I was holding my breath, so to speak, afraid he was going to recognize the mare after a second look; so I said: “That's too cheap, but since we're good friends I'm going to sell her to you.”

Uncle Bob paid me for the mare and quickened his
step as he walked off leading her toward his barn, anticipating his delight in telling Dave, his partner, that he had bought a mate for their mare. In a few minutes you could hear Dave all up and down the trading alley. Some of the other traders gathered around him, and everybody was having a big laugh. I didn't go down to join the party—I might not have been welcome.

Instead, I went to the back of my barn and caught my chesnut sorrel mare, led her up, and tied her in front of the barn. In a few minutes, when Uncle Bob came stomping back up the trading alley with blood in his eye and was about to give me a good cussing—before he could get started—I said: “Uncle Bob, I've got another mare here you might like.”

Uncle Bob blustered: “Plague tek yuh, Benny, I oughta tek yuh ovah mah knee and give yuh a good spankin'.” (I was seventeen years old, and Uncle Bob was seventy.)

While he was catching his breath to start over, I calmly stated: “Uncle Bob, I've got the mate to that mare.”

His anger began to subside as he went to walking around this mare of mine. He asked in a still irritated but interested tone: “How much fo' huh?”

“$125,” I replied.

Uncle Bob turned around and in a loud, bull-like voice called to his nephew Dave to lead the other chesnut sorrel mare out in front of the barn. Dave led the other mare out. Several traders were standing around watching as Uncle Bob looked down the alley and saw Dave holding this other chesnut sorrel mare. Uncle Bob turned around and bellowed at me: “I'm fo sho this is a different one, and I'm goin' tah buy huh, plague tek yuh, Benny!”

When I was
a wild, rough young horse trader, I rode into Mineral Wells's trading square on second Monday. A building was being constructed adjoining the trading square, and a rockcrusher was crushing rocks to put in the foundation. On the off-side of the rockcrusher, out of the way of the men working on the building, there was a big, black, mealy-nosed mule tied to its wheel. He was a good stout mule, and his hair was in good condition. He was standing there perfectly gentle in spite of all that noise and the fog of dust that was being made by the rockcrusher.

I had an old horse-trading friend that I was partnerin' with, and he had brought a bunch of horses and mules into Mineral Wells the night before by leading them behind a wagon—which was the custom of the day. Among them was a nice little fat brown mare. She would work and ride, was gentle, and she looked good. I had traded for her a little while back; after I got her, one day I rode her pretty hard and discovered she had a pretty fair case of the heaves. I fed her some wet bran and turpentine, and put bluing in her water, and used all of the other well-known and respected remedies that good horse traders used. This little mare breathed perfectly normal as long as you didn't run or trot her or try her wind.

As I rode up to the wagon—where the horses we were going to trade on were tied—I glanced around. There were lots of other horse traders' wagons with a good many horses tied up, and it promised to be a fair day for swapping.

A long, tall snuff-dipper walked up to the wagon and looked around and picked out the little brown mare. We talked about her good and bad points; he looked in her mouth and didn't ask her age, so I supposed he could tell—and it was no use my telling him unless he asked. He said he had a boy going to school that needed a horse to ride, and he had brought a mule to town to trade for the mare. I started following him afoot to look at his mule, and I said to myself that I'd sure found a sucker. He must be some farmer who didn't know enough about horse trading to untie the little mare and run her to try her wind. We went up to the mule that was tied to the rockcrusher. I was afraid to untie him and try him for wind,
because that might cause the man to go try my little brown mare.

He asked me $25 boot, and I offered him $5. We finally traded by me paying him $10. The mule, from all outward appearances, was worth about four head of the little mare, and I said to myself that I was making a real horse trader.

We went back to the wagon, and he untied the mare and started leading her off. I sent my old horse-trading partner to get the mule. As soon as the mule was a little away from the rockcrusher, you could hear him making some strange, loud, sickening noise when he breathed. The sound coming from that mule had begun to scare all the horses tied to the wagons that he passed. He would wheeze and whistle when he breathed, and a strange rattle came from his throat. The farther he got away from the rockcrusher, the worse he sounded. The horses we had tied to our wagon began to shy and try to break loose as he got closer.

I walked out and stopped my old friend that was leading him and said: “What have I got?”

“He's a rattler,” he answered.

“I can tell that,” I said, “but where did he get it, and what caused it?”

Of course, my old horse-trading partner didn't know any more about the anatomy of a horse or mule than I did in those days, but he tried to explain that this mule's windpipe had been injured and that he would never be any better. The reason he was so nice and fat was because all he did was eat and drink water and stand around. My partner asked: “What do you think we ought to do with your new stock?”

I thought a minute and told him: “Take him back and tie him to the rockcrusher!”

Later that afternoon I traded this mule for two old wore-out, mossy-headed, buck-kneed, big-ankled, bog-hocked, cow horses—both worth about as much as the $10 boot that I had paid. And my almost-good little brown mare was gone, gone.

During the worst
cold spell in the now historical depression that occurred during the thirties, I went into a country store a few miles out from Weatherford, Texas. I had a pasture leased nearby and had been out to feed my herd of heifers. I had gone broke in the big-steer business and
had been buying, trading, and working for some little bitty, sorry, cross-bred, various-colored heifer calves and yearlings. I had about fifty of these little heifers; there were no two of them alike, their value was low, low, low, and I had a pretty low feeling every time I poured out feed to them. Money was scarce, and feed was hard to pay for.