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I remember a mule story my dad told. As a
young boy or man of about 15 or 16 he took a job working on a farm for
the state of Missouri. This place was a home for people who had
health problems. It is still operating at Mt.Vernon.
He had two mules to work; this went from
plowing to wagon work. Now the story goes when he went to work there
his two mules were thin, and starving for a few things, including
care. Now if you don't give a work animal things they need, the
amount of work you’re going to get isn't very much.
Dad figured out salt was one think
lacking, along with feed, and a daily brushing. He somehow got a
block of salt, might have bought it himself. He increased the amount
of feed, and started brushing and cleaning up his mules. Wasn't long
and he had two mules that were doing more work.
Now he said he noticed that one mule on a
start out on the pull was a bit slow. So he would have a few small
pebbles handy. Just before he would want to go, he would flip a small
pebble at the rump of the one mule, and yell gettie up. Both took
into the pull at the same time.
You know people are like that in lots of
ways. You have to figure some trick to get some into taking the pull
on many things. Also you don't get work out of people if you mistreat
them. I have seen this a few times.
Now he told one other story I remember.
One day a fellow with a wagon and team of horses took a short cut
across a field, and in doing so crossed in to a low place that was
muddy. The wagon became stuck. Here this fellow was yelling, cussing
his horses, and beating on them with a whip. The poor horses were
just worn out and couldn't pull the load. They were in the same shape
as Dad's mules had been. That is in need of things. Dad went that
way with his mules after unhitching them from the wagon they was
pulling. He got the horses unhitched, and hitched his two mules to
the task. Again the pebble, and the words, and no whips; the mules
pulled the load out. They pulled the load to the barn, were unhitched
and went back to their own wagon. Dad said he told the man, feed
your horses, care for them and talk to them, you will get more work
out of them, and throw the whip away. Whipping an animal only makes
them hate you.
Animals are smart in their ways, and needs. I can still see Tink, I
would tell him I was going to
give him a whipping. I would pick him up, and say whippie, giving him
a little pat on the rump
and he would say GRRR. You think I would whip my dogs, you got
another think coming. LittleGirl, she comes running when I say
something, and will never know the meaning of a whipping, not from me
anyways. I wonder if that might have been the reason she was said to
have been lost.
missourisage@yahoo.com
Tinker and Poo; The Boys Write
http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&isbn=0-595-35741-5 |
