THE HORSES IN MY LIFE

THE HORSES IN MY LIFE

     My earliest memory of a horse is way back in pre-kindergarten days when we still lived on a farm northeast of Almond.

     I was all alone on the driveway during a hot summer day when I slipped through the door into the milk house.  It was cool and dark there.  Cold water pumped by the windmill flowed into a small milk cooling tank, then overflowed into a larger stock watering tank.  While the tank was inside the milk house, it was up against the wall along the edge of the lane leading from the pasture.  The building's side against the lane had a hinged opening which, when propped open, allowed the live stock standing in the lane to stick their heads into the milk house to drink from the tank.

     I knew I was in a forbidden place.  I was not allowed to be in the milk house alone, but oh what fun to strike the water and see it splash across the tank.  So engrossed was I that I didn't notice the approach of several horses until they were directly across the tank from me and let out a few raucous snorts.  Those huge lively beasts so close to me, disturbing my all-absorbing play, terrified me.  With the large tank between us, they could not possibly reach me, but I was ignorant of that, and guilt fed my terror.  This experience left me with a lasting fear of horses.

     Before I began attending school we moved to a house in the village of Almond, away from the farms where horses were the most common form of power.  In those days many homes in town still had small barns on their lots, relics from the days before automobiles when village citizens kept horses for their carriages, sleighs, etc.  I remember only one man, John Rath, who kept horses in town.  He had a business of delivering coal and/or ice to the houses, and of plowing and dragging gardens in the springtime.  In our house we had no ice box.  In hot summer days we carried any perishable food that we had into the cellar and placed it on the cool cement floor.  In the winter we burned very little coal, using mostly wood in our stoves, so no ice or coal was delivered to our home.

     We did have a large vegetable garden.  In the spring when it was time to plant garden, John Rath came with his plow, drag and horses.  He began at one end of the street and plowed each family's garden, moving from one lot to the next one down the street.  Each garden was plowed, the horses unhitched and re-hitched to the drag, that garden dragged before he moved on to the neighboring garden.  Horses prepared our garden for planting but I stayed away as far as I could.  We cultivated the garden by hand with a hoe and a small cultivator-like tool used in a similar manner as a hoe.

   
  I was quite young when Grandma, Grandpa, my sister Margaret and I went to visit Grandpa's sister, Francisca in Kewaunee.  She lived on a farm with her husband, their son and his family.  They too used horse power to farm.  They milked cows twice a day.  The evening milk was cooled in cold well water over night.  After the morning milking, the milk from both milkings was loaded on a cart.  The cart had a wagon seat toward the front while the milk cans were placed on the flat bed behind the seat.  Rollie asked if I wanted to ride with them to the creamery.  I didn't want to sit behind the horse, but the others encouraged me, and helped me up on the seat.  To keep me safe they had me sit between them; Rollie sat on my left and drove the horse, Raymond sat on my right, and we delivered the milk (or cream, I'm not sure which it was) to the creamery.  It was an adventure, but I was glad to get back and away from the horse.

     One day I got into an argument with a friend as to whether or not horses had horns.  I was sure they did!  About the only time I had seen horses were work horses when they were harnessed and wearing collars and hames.  It was the ends of the hames sticking up behind the horses' heads that I mistook for horns.

     When I was in third grade Mary Margaret and her parents moved to a house in our neighborhood.  We sometimes played together.  That spring they went to live with her grandparents on a farm near Bancroft.  In the summer they invited me to stay with them for a week to play with her, an only child.  It was during haying time when horses were used to cut, rake, turn and gather the loose hay into the barn.  We two girls walked out to the hay field, ran around and enjoyed ourselves.  When Mary complained about being too tired to walk back to the house, the men helped us climb up on top of the hay to ride back.  When Mary complained about the horses walking too slowly, her father let out a tirade about how hard those horses had worked in contrast to our useless seeking for our own pleasure.  Horses had feelings!

     There were always horses at Aunt Ada's.  They had a gentle horse named "Charm."  Allan and Robert could ride her or hitch her up to a "democrat wagon" and give rides to Margaret and Yvonne, but I was too small and too afraid to be included in their fun.  (A democrat wagon was a small, light wagon drawn by one horse.)

     They had a team of western broncos imported from the west and trained to work in harness.  They were very strong horses needing a good, strong horse-man to handle them.  Uncle Push, a big strapping man who had once been a lumberjack near the Hudson Bay, usually drove them.  The combination of him and the broncos could out-work any other neighboring man and team around.  I remember being out in the hay field near the end of day with Margaret and Yvonne.  The men wanted to send the horses home but still had some work to do.  They asked Margaret and Yvonne to lead them back to the barn yard, warning the girls that the horses knew they would be going back home and so would go as fast as they could, but the girls should hang tightly to the halter and keep in front of the horses they were leading.  As I walked, or rather half-ran along the side of them, but a safe distance from them, I was afraid for my sister and cousin.  There was probably little chance that the horses would act up because they had worked all day, were tired and were looking forward to a rest and something to eat.

     Yes, I had a few experiences with horses but in a distant and incidental way.  In 1944 I married Charlie, a man who loved horses and had worked with them.  He had had his experiences, the worst being kicked in the chest with a horse.  He had been in a field approaching a horse who was not immediately aware of his coming, when the horse lashed out, catching Charley at the end of the kick.  Charlie remained standing.  The men who had seen the incident from a distance came up to congratulate him for being beyond the range of the kick, then they realized his breath had been knocked out.  His ribs were broken, his chest caved in.  He laid all night in the doctor's office.  The doctor and Maggie, his mother, waiting at his side, wondering if he would live through the night.

     Before Charlie and I were married, his brother John had asked Charlie to join him in buying their father's farm.  Their father had heart trouble, and was physically unable to farm as he had most of his life.  The farm had been leased to Charlie's sister and her husband.  That lease ended October 1, 1944, four months after our marriage.

     That summer John worked at a munitions plant in Ripon.  Charlie worked as a farm manager at Maplewood Farm, and I worked as a waitress for Maplewood Hotel.  John and Charlie looked forward to occupying their own farm in October, making plans and buying the needed farm machinery and equipment.

     During depression many families had lost their farms.  Those who survived had continued using their old horse-drawn equipment, using binder twine and ingenuity to keep it running.  As the depression lifted some forward-looking farmers began buying tractors and more modern equipment.  Maplewood had a tractor, a baler and a few other modern machines.  It also used some horses.

     As war activity increased and the military had to be fed, farm prices increased.  Farming became profitable, but equipment was worn out.  Older farmers who had expected their sons to farm with them, lost those sons to military service or to defense plants.  Many of those who were too old to farm without help were forced to sell.  Machinery companies converted from making tractors and farm machinery to tanks and other defense equipment.  It was a time of great and drastic changes.  Even old out-dated farm machinery was in great demand.

     The government formed the OPA, Office of Price Administration.  It set price limits on farm machinery as well as other things.  John and Charlie watched for farm auctions selling needed machinery.  It was usually John who gathered the information and attended the auctions.  He took special notice of the prices which the OPA set.  If the auctioneer opened bids on something John wanted to buy, John would call out the OPA price as quickly as he could.  That stopped all bidding as it was against the law to sell for more than the OPA price.  Auctions were not nearly as much fun as they had been when bidding was freely up to the highest bidder instead of the fastest yeller.

     We moved on the farm October 1, 1944.  In buying farming essentials, the Shikoski brothers bought two teams of horses, plus a single horse, Bud.  The men took care of all livestock and farming operation; I took care of the house.  It became clear that one of the teams they had bought was a "runaway team."  If not watched carefully they would take off at the slightest provocation.

     One day when Maggie was with me in the house we heard the "runaways" running.  Maggie hurried outside on the driveway.  John, who was driving them, brought them under control, but he scolded his mother for coming out, endangering herself.  I had stayed in the house wanting nothing to do with any horses.

     In the spring of 1946 Charlie bought John's interest in the farm including all the livestock and equipment.  I was now part owner of five horses.  I began to help Charlie as much as I could.

     The barn had two double stalls for the teams.  Bud had a manger and shared a wooden wall with one team, but his other side was open to the area next to the door leading from the driveway.  If Bud was in the barn, even if he were tied, I was afraid to enter the barn past him.  Charlie assured me it was safe for me to pass, but I should make sure the horse was aware of my approach by speaking or singing.  He told me that horses were safer than cows because a horse, if able, would step over or around a person on the ground, whereas a cow wouldn't care if she trampled someone or not.  This observation was not very reassuring to me.

     In our first year of farming all five horses were hitched to the plow together.  Spring plowing after a relatively inactive winter was hard on the horses, and Charlie had a love and concern for his animals.  The first days were hardest when the shoulders of the horses were not hardened.  I watched Charlie as he treated their sores with a special salve made just for that purpose, and cleaned the blood, sweat and dirt off their shoulder pads, trying to make them softer against their shoulders.  Hot sweaty horses were not allowed to fill up on cold water when they came from the field.  He allowed them a short drink, a chance to eat something, and when cooled down he led them to water again.  They always got increased oats when they worked.  If there was a lot of work for them to do, like plowing, he would hitch up and work them right after milking.  When they started to tire, he would tie them up for a rest while he went to finish his barn chores.  He sensed when they were reaching their limit of heat or exhaustion and treated them accordingly.

     Spring turned into summer.  One day while our twin children and I were outside with Charlie, he wanted to go out to the back field.  He had hitched the horses to a wagon equipped with a corn box, a narrow rack that had sides about two feet high.  Wanting us to go out with him, he had helped us up into the box.  As we started going down the lane, the horses bolted.  As we careened down the lane Charlie hollered at me to jump out.  I was expecting another child, and not being very athletic anyway, I could not bring myself to try to jump out of the careening wagon over the two foot end gate.  Charlie kept yelling at me to jump.  He did manage to bring the horses under control, then asked me why I hadn't jumped.  I told him I hadn't wanted to leave the twins.  He said he planned to throw them out of the wagon before he jumped, but he wanted me to jump first.  He told me in no gentle terms that next time if he said "Jump" I was to jump!  There never was a second time!

     That spring and summer Charlie started exchanging help with Willis Brightman who was renting Maplewood Farm.  Willis hired a high school lad named John.  One day while Charlie was at Maplewood, John had been sent with our better team and side delivery rake to rake hay in our field next to the woods.  The twins were outside playing on the driveway when I heard the noise of running horses.  I looked up to see John and the horses cross highway 23 without stopping.

     I grabbed the twins and dumped them in their cribs just as the horses ran past the shack, past the closed barnyard gate, barn door, and down the lane.  I started running down the lane to render help if I could.  They reached the back forty and disappeared over the hill.  Running down the hill and up the next one, I wavered between trying to recall all the first aid I had ever learned, and praying that I would not find John dead or crippled for life.  As I topped the hill, out of breath, I saw John down in the draw, still seated on the rake, horses standing still.  When he saw me he called out, "Where's my hat?  Did you see my hat?  It's the best straw hat I have.  Did you find it?"  I had been praying for his life! and all he was concerned about was a straw hat!  I was so disgusted with his shallowness that it never occurred to me how generously my prayers had been answered.

     Then I saw Charlie coming across the field from Maplewood.  From there he had seen John in our back forty and wondered what he was doing there when he was supposed to be on the opposite end of the farm.  When I saw Charlie coming I turned back up the lane.  Agnes Bierman, a neighbor, was at the head of the lane, having come over when she had seen the horses run past her house.

     John was fairly inexperienced as a horseman.  He had left the reins lax and the horses, sensing their freedom and knowing they were heading home, picked up speed.  With the barn doors closed when they got there they simply kept on going.  Charlie expressed surprise that the horses had pulled the side delivery rake between the stone foundations of the barn and granary without any damage to the rake.  John cockily said, "You have to know how to drive."  Charlie replied, "Man, you weren't driving."  The horses had often before pulled machinery through that space and knew at just what angle to head for, and then when to swerve back, in order to pull the awkward rake safely through that particular place.  Horses are intelligent animals and remember experiences.

     One day Willis came to ask Charlie if he could borrow our runaway team for mowing hay.  When Charlie consented Willis said he would send Bob Brightman after them.  Charlie hesitated.  He had expected Willis to drive them, and was concerned whether Bob could handle then.  But Charlie knew Willis was a good horseman and thought his brother Bob, being raised with him, would be too.

     The plan was that both Bob with our team and Marcie driving Kutchin's team would cut hay in the same field.  When Bob came after the team, Charlie gave him strict instructions warning him about the team being known for its running.  He told him that they would walk faster than Kutchin's team, and so would come up behind Marcie, but Bob should tell her to turn out to allow him to go ahead.  He should not follow behind her!  Also he was not to ever drop the reins and leave them loose.  If he had to stop for anything he was to drive the team into a fence and tie the team to the fence before leaving them.

     Exactly what happened no one knows.  Both Bob and Marcie had their backs to the team when it happened.  Barney saw it from a fence line but was too far away to see the details.  The runaways came up behind Marcie, Bob dropped the reins and headed toward the fence.  Marcie heard the racket of running horses and tuned to look up just as they rose up over her.  The pole between them hit the support holding the seat she was sitting on, the seat broke off, she fell on the ground.  She said she saw so many hooves flying above her she thought both teams had run over her.  Bob turned around at the racket and started toward her to assist her.  She called out that she was okay, that Bob should go catch the horses.  Then she looked down and saw that the mower had cut her leg, she could see her bone in the gap.

     Dr. Leininger drove his car out to the field where she lay and took her to Berlin hospital.  Gangrene set it.  Everyday the doctor cleaned away the dead tissue.  It was his constant care that saved her leg from the necessity of being amputated.

     This accident happened sometime in late June or July.  She was still in the hospital when my son Dick was born on August 27th.  By that time she could get around in a wheel chair.  She wheeled herself into my hospital room to visit me.  A nurse came, horrified to think she was in my room with the possibility that the infection in her leg would spread to my baby, who, however, was not in my room at the time.  In October after being home for awhile Marcie gave birth to her daughter Jane, whom she had carried all the time during her accident and recovery.

     When we bought the farm we also bought into the local threshing ring which owned a threshing machine.  Each member had to help the other members during harvest.  The men worked hard threshing and had to get their regular farm chores done before and after being away all day helping to thresh.

     One evening in 1946 Charley was late getting home.  He had left that morning with a team and wagon.  The cows had come home for milking.  I had let them in the barn, closed their stanchions and put the milkers together.  Still Charley hadn't come home.  The twins played on the driveway and I paced, beginning to worry.  A man drove in and asked me how Charley was.  I answered, "Oh, he's fine."  He said he was glad to hear that.  Then we talked about the weather, crops, etc.  Finally he said he had to go, he only stopped to see how Charley was.  I told him again that Charley was fine, that he had gone threshing that day.  He gave me a strange look and asked if he had not yet come home, saying that was why he stopped in.  Charley's horses had run with him, and he wanted to know if he had been hurt very badly.  I must have gone into shock because I let him drive off without asking for any details.

     What was I to do?  We had no telephone so I couldn't call for help or information.  I felt like hiking up the road to find out what happened, but the twins were too big to carry and too small to hike down the highway with me.  I couldn't leave them.  It was dark, the maple trees lining the highway arched over the road making it impossible to see anything.  I paced between the twins and the highway where I listened for any sound of Charley or the horses.

     Finally I heard the clip clop of horses far up the highway.  Were they our horses?  All the other farmers had work horses.  As I listened I noticed that they were coming nearer.  How far up the road were they?  They were farther away than our near neighbors, but they kept coming closer and closer.  They sounded as if they were beyond the Berger and Zuehlz farms.  They passed those two farms.  If they also passed the Sherwood farm, they were probably our horses.  No one owned horses between our farm and town except Kutchins, and I knew Kutchins' man had gone threshing with a tractor that day.  They approached nearer, and yes, it was Charley walking the horses home, no wagon.

     The walk from the farm at the extreme end of the threshing ring had not entirely quelled his anger.  He had driven up to the threshing machine to unload the oats he had gathered, and was told not to go out to the field for another load, as the men tending the machine wanted to quit for the day.  It was Saturday and they wanted to go to town that evening.  Charley didn't want to quit that early.  He wanted to get the threshing over with.  He felt that he had just as many chores to do as any of them.  If he could work longer they could too!  He went back to the field and picked up another load.  He pulled up to the machine just as the driver ahead of him pulled away.  The threshing machine was shut down with him already in place, ready to unload.

     Charley wanted them to thresh out the oats he had loaded so he could ride his empty wagon home, but they refused, saying they had told him not to go after another load.  He couldn't very well take his wagon home with him; it would be taking the owner's oats away from there to Charley's own farm.  Sometimes when a situation like this occurred, the driver would ride a neighbors wagon while leading his team to trail behind, but all the neighbors had already left.  The farmer being threshed told Charley he could use an old wagon frame of his.  It had no bed or rack on it.  Charley borrowed it, riding it by sitting on the frame.

     He had not gone very far when something on the old wagon frame broke.  The horses were startled.  Charley had almost brought them under control when he realized that the frame would hit the horses in the rear.  He jumped off before it hit them.  The horses ran!  Down the highway, then along the side of the highway.  When they came to an electric power pole the two horses took opposite sides of the pole.  They struggled until they broke free of each other.  One of them had enough.  He let Charley catch him and tie him to a fence.  Charley managed to catch the second horse near Lawsonia, and led him back to the first horse where he tied them together with baler twine.  In those days Charley always kept a wad of twine in his pocket to temporarily hold parts together when old equipment broke or came apart.  Then he gathered the wagon parts together, dragging them back to the owner.  Finally he had to walk the horses all the way home, which was quite a walk because we were on opposite ends of the threshing ring.  Man and horses were glad to get back home, but Charley, extremely late for milking, was still angry because his neighbors had refused to unload the oats that he had gathered.

     When the war was over farm prices were high.  Horse power was moving from the horse to the tractor.  Defence industries switched back to making farm machinery.  As used tractors came on the market, Charley acquired a large one for heavy work like plowing.  He still used horses for lighter work.

     In late summer Charley made marsh hay, loading it on the wagon loosely.  He had pulled the wagon on the barn floor to unload the hay, intending to use the heavy hay fork which ran on a track in the peak of the barn.  He asked me to lead Bud who was attached to the rope which pulled up the hay fork after it had been stuck in the loaded hay.  I was very nervous about doing it but Charley worked hard trying to keep the farm afloat, and I wanted to help as much as I could.  The routine was for Charley to stick the fork into the hay laying on the wagon.  Bud was stationed near the barn, facing away from it, and headed down toward the driveway.  When Charley had stuck the fork into the hay and was ready for it to be lifted up, he would call out as a signal that I was to lead the horse away from the barn.  As Bud walked away he pulled the rope attached to the fork, lifting the fork until it locked into its track.  Then I was to lead the horse back to the starting point for a repeat performance.  I soon found out that as soon as Charley called the signal, Bud, on his own initiative, would start; at the click from the track he would stop; and then, neatly stepping over the rope trailing on the drive, he would return to the starting point and turn around facing away from the barn.  Meanwhile Charley would pull the rope back into the barn for the next forkful.  I told Charley that that horse knew more what he was supposed to do than I did.  Charley agreed but replied that he would still feel better knowing there was a human mind around in case something did go wrong.  My "human mind" was never needed.

     In 1952 Charley sold the last two horses still around.  He missed the horses.  He had never owned a riding horse though he had attempted to ride work horses.  After about twenty horse-less years he bought a riding horse, and then another one.  I had gotten comfortable in our horseless environment, but as long as he didn't ask me to ride with him, or have anything else to do with the horses, it was all right with me.  Instead he encouraged our two youngest children to ride with him.

     But then Charley bought Cully.  When he bought her he was told she was an unbroken three-year-old.  Soon after her delivery he noticed that she limped.  Thinking she had gotten injured while being transported, he was unconcerned; she would heal.  Later he learned that instead of being "unbroken" they had tried to break her and had botched the job.  Among other things she had fallen into a well which was the cause of her limp, a limp which remained all the rest of her days.

     She was of a mixed breed, but had the long legs and speed of a racing horse.  Charley trained her to saddle, and for a short time allowed his daughters to ride her, but she was skittish, needing a strong handler, and Charley no longer allowed the girls to ride her, saying they were not strong enough to control her in certain situations.  She turned out to be a "one-man-horse" and Charley was "It."  He often rode her when out riding with one of the girls who rode another horse.

     One day she raced pellmell across the field with Charley, an activity both of them loved.  Her leg hit a foot-deep hole.  Horse and man went flying!  Before, whenever a horse had thrown Charley, he had gone sailing over the rump.  This was his first experience of being thrown over the head of a horse.  He sailed through the air, his head hanging down, looking back.  He saw Cully rolling after him.  Being afraid of her landing on top of him, he tried to roll to one side as soon as he felt the ground hit him.  Horse and man landed side by side.  Charley reached over to grab her bridle even before he tried to rise, but she was too quick for him.  She was on the far end of the field by the time he arose.  A week later Charley rode her out in the field, but when he realized how much she still hurt, he walked her back to the barnyard, saying she was hurt much worse than he was.

     One Sunday after mass Charley took Cully out for a ride.  She threw him as they crossed the road.  He came back to the house with a big gash on his hand, asking me to bandage it.  He objected when I told him he should go for an emergency treatment.  When he told me to just bandage it up, I told him I thought it required stitches.  He asked me what would happen if he didn't get any stitches that might be required.  I told him that if it didn't heal properly from a lack of stitches, he could have trouble grasping things for the rest of his life.  He went to the hospital emergency!  Later he was billed for two doctors.  When I asked him if he had been examined by two different doctors he couldn't remember.  "I might have.  There was another doctor walking around."  Neither could he tell me how many stitches he had been given, nor later tell me how many stitches the doctor had taken out.

     Charley's health declined.  He no longer rode horses, and he wouldn't let his children ride Cully.  He told me to call the rendering company to get her.  His daughters objected.  To save her from such a fate they found a buyer for Cully.  Charley was so glad that someone would pay good money for such a "stupid horse".

     Charley's health improved and he again became active and interested in life.  One day he saw a horse advertised in a shopping paper, and decided he wanted to ride again.  The horse advertised turned out to be non other than "that stupid horse, Cully."  Charley bought her back again.  He went with a horse trailer to pick her up.  She smashed the trailer and would have smashed his car if the rope on her had been long enough for her to reach the car.  Charley then decided to ride her home on Sunday.  Her owner warned Charley that she had not been ridden in a long time.  Charley suspected that no one had been able to ride this one-man horse.

     On Sunday after mass and dinner our daughter took her father over to get Cully who was west of Ripon.  He told me he should be home not later than two o'clock with her.  Two o'clock came and went.  Two-thirty came and went.  I became increasingly worried about him.  It was a bitter cold wintry day.  Where were they?  Finally after three o'clock they got back home, chilled to the bone.

     Cully had been cantankerous, at first trying to throw Charley off.  When she failed at that she was skittish, trying to bolt, often in the opposite direction of what Charley wanted her to go.  Along came Marion, a locally well known horse-woman, driving a truck.  When she saw how much trouble Charley was having, she offered to let him tie the horse to her truck.  She would lead her to our place.  Charley told her that that horse couldn't be led, and if they tried to lead her, she would smash up her truck.  Marion told Charley that she had had plenty of experience with horses, and had never known any horse that couldn't be led.  Charley told her he had known more about horses before she was born than she knew now.  Both Marion and Charley told me their side of the argument and it sounded like quite a row between two assertive people.  In the end she left him with his cantankerous horse.

     Eventually the rendering company did get Cully, but Charley still wanted to ride with a daughter.  Two other riding horses were bought and lived in our barn.  When God called Charley home to Him, they were still here in our barn and barnyard.  I had never cared for any horse.  I knew nothing about their care.  Our daughter who lived in town came out once or twice a day to care for them, and paid for their farrier and vet bills.  Eventually she took them to her own farm which she and her husband had acquired.

     While I have never cared for horses, I have benefited greatly from their work, from the wealth they earned for my grandfather who raised me, and later from our own farming operation.  They gave my husband and daughters a great deal of entertainment and enjoyment.

     After Charley passed away I had a dream.  He and I were going to move, taking all our possessions to some other place.  He was on a loaded wagon, horses hitched to it, with the reins in his hand, waiting.  Behind him was a team and wagon waiting for me to finish loading it.  I was still carrying some articles, loading them on the wagon which I was to drive.  Charley was waiting for me to finish before pulling out; I was to follow behind him to reach our destination.  I understood this dream to mean that he has completed his life, but he is waiting for me to finish the work which God has assigned for me to do in this life.  When I am finished we will pull out together, moving to our future destination with God.