Horse Tradin' Read online

  “I’m glad you appreciate good hossflesh, Ben. The Rebel Commandah is a direct descendant of the great horse Pilot Medium on his sire’s side. On his dam’s side he runs into Peter the Great.”

  I knew both bloodlines and commented on what good breeding he carried. He had a beautiful patent leather bridle on him with black patent leather blinds on it. They were drawn up tight, and the reflected light made his eyes just sparkle. He was truly a beautiful horse.

  Colonel Bob and I started walking back up toward the house, and I told him why I had come by. He said: “Ben, that is very thoughtful of you, but I have had my morning’s outing. I hear youah mules will be in heah this afternoon. Let me come by and see them in the mawnin’.”

  I said: “That’s fine, Colonel Bob. I’ll come after you.”

  “That’s a lot of trouble to you, my boy.”

  “It’s no trouble. It’s a pleasure, and I’ll be after you in the morning.”

  I was leaving the front steps and started toward the yard gate. As I glanced up, one of the most beautiful young ladies you ever saw was coming through that yard gate. She was blonde, as small and petite and cute as they come, and she traveled with more style than the Rebel Commander would ever have. She had long, wavy, naturally honey-colored hair, beautiful big blue eyes, and a smile that was very contagious. She glanced up at me and said: “Good morning, sir.”

  Colonel Bob turned around on the porch. “Mistah Green, that’s my granddaughtah, Baby Belle.”

  I grabbed my hat and told Baby Belle what a pleasure it was to meet her—that I had met her mother, I was very much impressed with her grandfather, I had met her Uncle Tom—and we had quite a little talk. The old man watched us a minute—you could see the half-smile that came over the corners of his mouth—and he turned and walked on back toward the back of the porch. Then Baby Belle said she was delighted to have met me and for me to come back to see them again.

  I thanked her and left, but for the next couple of hours I thought more about the way Baby Belle looked than I thought about how my mules were going to look when they got here.

  That afternoon when the train came in, I unloaded two carloads of good Texas mules: twenty-four to the car, forty-eight head in all. My men led them and drove them on foot down to the barn where we divided them into pens, put some of them in stalls, and got them separated where they wouldn’t be fighting and bothering each other. I got plenty of feed and water for them, and had them pretty well located by late afternoon when a number of townspeople dropped by to see them. Nobody said anything that wasn’t complimentary, and justly so because they were good, straight, sound young mules with plenty of size and plenty of flesh. They were the right kind to do a good job in that heavy land along the Mississippi Delta.

  By suppertime I was satisfied my mules were in good shape and they weren’t bothering me much—but Baby Belle was. I couldn’t get that doll off my mind—which wasn’t exactly normal for me. I had always attended to horses and mules and business a heap better than I had tended to social affairs. The general run of fillies didn’t upset me too much when they trotted by, but there weren’t very many of them moved like this one—and didn’t any of them that I’d seen lately have the style that she had. She moved about as nice as anything I’d seen since I sold my last race horse. She had a sweet, Southern-drawl kind of voice, a bright flashing blue eye, and smooth peaches-and-cream complexion. She was a Southern belle, if there were any left on this earth. Just from what I could see, she was away outgrown that term “Baby.” A belle—but she wasn’t a baby belle.

  I ate supper at the hotel like I had been doing, but as soon as I finished eating I didn’t loaf around the lobby to see what kind of smart talk the old people were going to carry on. I stepped out on the gallery, looked around a few minutes, and walked on down to the drugstore. I didn’t get in my car. I just thought I would amble around afoot a little bit and take in some fresh air. The air had begun to have that fallish feeling after dark—a cotton-picking time of year smell to it—and it was a very pleasant time of day.

  I walked in the drugstore. Nobody was there but the druggist and some man sitting at the back reading a magazine. The druggist and I got to talking a little bit, and he said that he’d heard I had some nice mules and folks felt like I was going to do well with them. I thanked him and told him I believed I would too, but I wouldn’t be ready to show them for a day or two—until I got some of the rough knocked off them and until they filled up and got over looking chowsed and drawn from shipping.

  I moved over to the fountain and asked him to draw me a big coke. I was just sitting there, wondering how to pass off the time of night, when I glanced up in the mirror and saw Baby Belle bounce in through the door with another beautiful young girl. These kids were three or four years younger than I was, but they hadn’t noticed it and I wasn’t going to bring it up. After all, they were grown girls and I was a grown boy, and they were far the most interesting people I had seen around. Mule business could get kind of dull if that’s all you had to do. So I stepped up real quick off my stool, turned and took my hat off, and spoke to the ladies. Baby Belle introduced me to her friend Charlotte. Charlotte was a real nice young girl. She didn’t have near the style that Baby Belle did, but she was good company. Of course I asked them to join me in a drink, and we moved over to one of those little tables where the seats swung out from under the glass-case tabletop.

  We carried on a lot of light conversation. Baby Belle told Charlotte I was the mule man from Texas that was using her granddaddy Bob’s barn, and so on. I asked them what they were doing out in the night air, and they said they had started to the picture show. I didn’t waste any time telling them I hadn’t known there was one in town and that I liked to see a picture show. I wondered if I could come along. You could tell they were kind of sparring for that, and we didn’t have much argument. I got up and paid for the drinks and we all went to the picture show.

  After it was over and I was going to walk the girls back home I said: “Why don’t we go by the hotel and get my automobile?”

  Baby Belle answered: “I’m just dying to ride in that car, but I dasn’t to tonight.”

  “Dasn’t to—where did you get that?”

  “That is good Southern English, I’ll have you to know!”

  “Well,” I said, “then why dasn’t you to?”

  “I haven’t asked Mamma Belle.”

  I said: “I know how we can fix that. It’s kind of early yet—let’s go get the car and we’ll go down and get Mamma Belle and we’ll all go riding.”

  That turned on a good note. She said: “That just might work.”

  We drove up to the house, and she called her mother to come out to the car. I said: “Don’t be hollering at your mother. Let’s go up to the gallery.” So I got out and opened the door for her like a gentleman.

  Sure enough, when we got up to the porch Mamma Belle was standing in the front door listening to the commotion. I pled guilty and told her it wasn’t Baby Belle’s fault that she had ridden in the car without asking. I told Mamma Belle we had just come by to get her, and that seemed to please her. So Mamma Belle and Baby Belle and Charlotte and I, we all drove around a while and made light conversation and told some cute little things. Mamma Belle entered into everything, but finally she suggested maybe it was about time we had better go home.

  We took Charlotte home, and then we drove up to Daddy Bob’s house where I said my good-byes. I thought I’d had a pretty good day. I’d got my mules unloaded, put in the barn, and fed and watered. I’d got to take Baby Belle to the picture show, and Mamma Belle when I left them that night had said: “Mistah Green, you feel free to come callin’ any time.”

  It looked to me like I was getting off to an awful good start in the town of Dixon, Mississippi.

  I was down at the barn by daylight the next morning. My helpers were already there, and we started brushing and currying and cleaning off mules. Later I got in my car and went after Colonel Bob. The old gent
leman had just finished his breakfast. As I stepped on the porch he was coming to the door, and he said: “Ben, my boy, I heah you have some good mules.”

  I said: “Colonel Bob, I don’t think anybody could tell quite as much about that as you could. I would value your opinion. Will you go down with me to the barn and look at my mules? Of course, I’ll bring you back.”

  “Oh, that will be fine, Ben.” And he reached over on the hatrack at the side of the door, got his old black Southern hat, and pulled it down over his eyes. He reached over again and got his walking cane and started out to the car with me.

  Just as I opened the car door for Colonel Bob to step in, Baby Belle bounced up from somewhere. She came dashing out of the yard, ran between Colonel Bob and me, and sat down in the car seat. She flopped those long golden curls and rolled her blue eyes at her grandfather and said: “Daddy Bob”—the way she said it, it fairly jingled—“Daddy Bob, I want to go, too.”

  You could see that it delighted the old man, but he said: “Baby Belle, honey, you are a nuisance I seem to enjoy. Come on, we’ll try to …” and he looked at me. “Young man, I’ll try to not let my granddaughtah get in the way of the mules or cause you too much trouble.”

  “Colonel Bob,” I said, “we won’t bother about her.” Of course I caught his eye off and gave her a short wink after I said it.

  We got to the barn and Colonel Bob got out and Baby Belle bounced out over the steering wheel on my side, and we started down the hall of the barn. I showed the Colonel several matched pairs that I had stalled off to themselves. He found another pair, and still another, that he wanted to see. He called Jake, and he called Munroe, and had them bring out the mules so he could walk around them. You could tell the old man just reveled in having that barn full of mules and hollering at Jake and hollering at Munroe. He was living a lot of his horse and mule business over again at my expense. But it wasn’t an expense, really, it was my pleasure.

  The old man said: “You won’t have any trouble selling these mules, young man. Are you going to take in trade, or are you going to have to sell for cash?”

  I said: “Why, Colonel Bob, I didn’t know you could sell mules straight out for cash. I’ll trade for whatever they have to offer. Of course I’ll want to draw enough boot in between to assure that I can sell what I take in at a profit.”

  “Oh,” he said, “I understand that, Ben. These are the kind of mules my customers will appreciate, and I feel suah you will get them sold to an advantage.”

  I thought it would be a nice time to put the old gentleman on notice, so I said: “Colonel Bob, I would like to trade for some nice kind of saddle mares to take back West—some nice fox trotting, gaited mares, and even a driving horse or two. Of course, I’ll trade for the old mules and fat mules and things that farmers want to trade off. And,” I said, “I just wonder what the policy of the bank would be—I haven’t discussed it with Tom—if I want to take some notes and mortgages on these mules. Would the bank consider discounting and buying the paper?”

  “That’s what ouah bank enjoys, Ben. We would be pleased to buy the paper you take on any of our customers around heah. There might be a few that are not too good, but you can discuss it with Tom. I think you can reach an agreement with him.”

  By this time Baby Belle had been all up and down the barn and was back in the car waiting for Colonel Bob and me. We started out and Colonel Bob said: “Now if you care to, we’ll go by the bank and discuss this with my son Tom.”

  I said: “Colonel Bob, needn’t to bother. I haven’t got any paper yet. I may not even take in any.”

  “Well, if you do, I think it can be arranged so we can take care of it at Tom’s bank.” The old man never laid any claim to the bank’s being his. He always mentioned it as “Tom’s bank.”

  The old man was wise, and when we got back to his house and he had thanked me for coming after him and bragged on my mules he said: “Ben, don’t let Baby Belle go back to the bahn with you. I think her mother wants her in heah aftah while for something.” He winked and walked off.

  Baby Belle sat long enough for me to ask her for a date that night. She seemed delighted and said there was a party out at somebody’s house—that I didn’t know and, of course, didn’t care—and she would like for me to escort her to that party. I thought nothing could be nicer than going to a Southern party with a Southern belle, and I told her so.

  Anyhow, that set things off good for the day, and I started back to the barn to see about my mules. By dinner I had sold two spans of mules—one for cash, and I took a pair of big fat old mules in on trade for the other. I just charged the man what my mules cost for boot and cleared his team, which was sort of the custom with horse and mule dealers in those days. Anyhow, I had gotten off to a good start. I had sold four mules the first half-day I had them ready to show.

  That night there was a man came to the hotel to see me about buying four more. I was trying to get away from him because I had a date with Baby Belle, but he didn’t seem to be interested in leaving. He wanted me to tell him about the wonders of Texas, build up my mules, and so forth. I told him it seemed to me it would be to his advantage for me to describe the mules and tell him about them in the daylight when he could be looking at them—and long about now I had some other things to tend to.

  He kind of got the hint, and I got up and got loose from him and went on out to Colonel Bob’s home. I went in and waited around for Baby Belle to get dressed—visited with Mamma Belle and Colonel Bob and told them about my mule trades for the day. He mentioned several people that ought to be interested in some mules—told me which direction from town they lived, and that kind of stuff. I thanked him and told him I would be by in the morning and take him to see the mules I had traded for.

  “Nevah mind, Ben. Wait a few days until you have moah in.”

  But I repeated that I would like to trade for some saddle mares to take back to Texas.

  About this time Baby Belle showed up and we went off to the party. She was getting to be a delightful habit with me, and I enjoyed her a lot. She was fun and never complained or grumbled about anything. If we went somewhere to eat, it was always better than she had expected. And if we met somebody, they were always nice. And she just didn’t complain about anything or make fun of anybody or criticize anybody’s clothes or say anything unkind. That was different from a lot of the snooty little fillies I had known, and I really began to appreciate Baby Belle.

  By the time I had been in town ten days, I had sold more than half of my mules and traded for a few. I had traded for two nice saddle horses, a chestnut and a bay. In the meantime I had discovered that Baby Belle had a saddle horse, and we had been riding horseback in the late afternoons. Charlotte and some of the other young people in the town had saddle horses, and we had all been out on some moonlight picnics ahorseback. We’d had parties and romped and played and had fun just about ever since I got there. Besides that, I was doing a thriving business selling my mules.

  Nobody complained too much about the prices on them. Some farmers did want to trade in old, fat mules and get rid of them at too high a price—but I had bought my mules the year before and summered them and I owned them worth the money. They were sure doing me a lot of good. About this time I had gathered a little paper on some of them—took in some mules on trade and sold some on a credit with me holding the mortgage. I mentioned this one day to Tom in the drugstore.

  “Why come on in the bank, Mistah Green. We’ll see what we can do.” So we walked on over and he said: “Now, we’ll discount this paper about ten dollars a mule and buy it from you.”

  He looked for me to fight him a little over that, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. I said: “About five dollars a mule?”

  “Well,” he said, “make it seven and a half.”

  “Make it six.” I didn’t want him to think I was too easy.

  He said: “Well, that will be fine. Discount it six dollars a head a mule, and since you are writing these mortgages for eig
ht per cent interest, it will be all right. The bank will get the interest and the six dollars a head. Now,” he said, “I suppose you want to send this money to some bank in Texas and apply it on the mules?”

  “Apply it nothing,” I said. “That money’s mine. If I sell a mule, I deposit it if I want to—and I can deposit it in your bank.”

  He brightened up considerably. He thought I had borrowed money to buy those mules. Well, I have borrowed money to buy thousands of mules, but it so happened that I owned these two carloads. And when I went for a coke the next day, Mamma Belle was a lot nicer.

  That weekend there was fall fair and Old Settlers reunion coming up. They were going to have it down on the creek, close to town in a big grove of pecan trees, and the town was busy getting ready. They were going to have a big program—speakin’s, dinner on the grounds, games, something for everybody—come one, come all. They were going to have some horseback riding, horse showing, and some harness racing. I had been hearing about this for several days.

  About two days before the reunion, Baby Belle asked me if I would enter a horse in the horse show. I had traded for some nice saddle mares and had been riding one of them around with the rest of the young set, so I told her I would enter the five-gaited class. That morning I went by horseback to get Baby Belle. She rode a beautiful chesnut mare—stocking-legged, flax mane and tail—that was a real jewel and a real saddle mare. Baby Belle looked good on her, and they moved off together like they should. We spent all day at the Old Settlers reunion.

  Visitors had come from far and near, but I was kinda different. I had on boots and a big hat, and of course I was by that time telling them a lot about the Lone Star state. It seemed like everybody was getting a big kick out of my conversation. They had a big feed on the grounds, and I bragged on their cooking. I bragged on their cake and their pies and their chicken. Everything they shoved at me, I would try a batch of it—and directly here would come another nice old Southern lady and say: “Mistah Green, I would just like for you to taste a bite of this …” And I just kept a-tasting, and I bragged on all of it. I guess I ate more cooking from strictly secret Southern recipes at that Old Settlers reunion than you ever heard of at any other gathering in the world.