Free Horse Tradin' by Ben K. Green

auction. The trucker unloaded the mule in Fort Worth at the horse and mule barn, put a number on her, and turned her in the pen with thirty or forty others. There was a long cement trough along the side of the pen that was filled with oats and shelled corn, and there was plenty of prairie hay in the hay rack.
    I walked into the horse and mule barn on Mondaymorning about an hour before the sale would start. I saw a whole bunch of horse and mule traders and “sweaters” about halfway down the barn in the middle of the alley. Everybody was watching some sort of show, so I walked down to see what the attraction was. There my mule sat on her hindquarters like a dog, swelled up about three times the size of a normal mule, and slobbers and foam pouring from her mouth.
    John Yount, who was a partner in the old Burnett and Yount horse and mule barn, explained to me that the mule had eaten some corn and oats and had taken a severe case of colic. He also told me that this mule had been in the barn before and was a chronic “colicker” and could not eat grain. He had called the barn horse doctor for me, and the horse doctor had given her a dose of medicine that had caused her to froth at the mouth in an effort to get rid of the gas. He said that the horse doctor’s services would cost me $3, which had already been charged to my account in the office. He explained to me in a very firm and understandable manner that the mule would not be able to go into the auction ring to be sold—and that the last time he sold her, a snide horse trader had bought her.
    Well, for a young horse trader with most of his capital tied up in one colicky mule, that was sad news. I said to Mr. Yount: “What can I do with her?”
    Sitting on top of the fence was a man who spoke up: “I give ten dollars the last time I bought her, and I’ll give ten for her back.”
    Much to my heart-sickening surprise, it was Homer—the man that had told me he had lost his crop, and that “Maw” had begged not to sell their last mule.

N ubbin’
    One spring some
horse buyers were shipping several carloads of mares from far West Texas to the Fort Worth Horse and Mule Market. Their shipping permits ran too long since the horses had been unloaded, and they were forced to unload for feed and water at Weatherford, Texas, just thirty miles from their destination.
    As I remember, there were three carloads of mares, neither the best nor the worst kind of range horses; however, therewere some breedy-looking riding-type mares in the shipment. The water troughs in the stock pens weren’t more than half big enough for that many horses, and there was quite a scramble and a fight at the water troughs.

    Soon after these mares were unloaded, one of them had a filly colt. I was a thirteen-year-old boy, riding around horseback, and of course I found this stockyard full of horses to gaze at and wish for. When the men came down to the stock pens and found they had a baby colt on their hands, they were unhappy because they didn’t have any way to partition off a place for the colt—and they knew it would get trampled to death in the car with all the mares. I heard them talking about it, and I spoke up and asked them what they would take for the colt.
    One of the horse traders saw that I had boots and spurs on and saw my horse standing outside. He asked: “What do you know about watering mares?”
    I replied right quick that this watering arrangement wouldn’t do nothing but get a bunch crippled. He told me that these mares were to be shipped out when the train ran early the next morning, and if I would stay down there and get a stick and keep some of the mares whipped back from the trough and just let a few of them drink at a time, he would give me the colt. I said I’d do better than that, I’d get a whip and ride my horse inside and hold them back and let them come up to water like they ought to.
    But first I