Sunday, December 21, 2008

Henry Pratt's Memories XX

Here's the rest of Henry's rememberance of the horse Puss.
 
Puss deliberately organized a runaway for me once. I had her hitched with two other horses on a wide harrow. She always disliked field work, and when she beagn to feel tired she would always stop and would refuse to start unless you had a whip along.
 
This time she simply decided to go to the barn.  I stopped them for a rest and walked over to talk to the hired man who was working another team. When I looked back Puss had her ears laid back and was moving forward. The other horses stepped forward to ease the strain she had put on their harness. I immediately started running and yelling at her, but, her ears still laid back and watching me, and as the other horses stopped, she again stepped forward and they came up with her. She kept moving forward and in seconds had them at a walk, then a trot. Running like mad I almost rached the end of the lines dragging behind the harrow when all three broke into a run. The harrow was strung in sections along the half mile to the barn, and when I arrived, my father was grimly picking up pieces of harness in the yard. The horses were in the barn, Puss, no doubt, feeling it had been her finest hour".
 
Personal note: As I sit here, an old man hunting and pecking on a computer keyboard and chuckling, I am visualizing Henry in the old homestead, still in his sixties, hunting and pecking on a manual typewriter and grinning as he recalls Puss' antics. I am grateful to Henry for telling about the old times, grateful to Linda who, I suspect, nagged him into doing it, and I am grateful that I am still here to share it with you all. 

(July 24)

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