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Lessons in Driving Horses Russell Herman: When they was logging up there, they come down over the ice in the wintertime and it saved a lot of ups and downs coming down through the woods. Of course, they never started up their sawmills till after Christmas. They'd start up but then Alistair pond was froze so they could get up and down. I understand some horses went through the ice up there at the Pisgah reservoir. Ed Squires drove that team. Well people has got an idea that a horse has got to be awful scared of ya to draw. They got there own idea there. Ed, he drove a team, yes, up there for a number of years but eh… he had this team, he always wanted to get a new team all the time, ya know. This was just a green team. And, he was going up across the reservoir that morning and eh…and well, Doug Bolton was with him and some other ones. Some other fellas was with him also so the horses stopped. Well, Bolton made a slash at his horses that really sang out Jump! And they'd make a lunge and go ahead. Well, what made them stop was, the ice was thin, they knowed it. And when they lunged he just made a jump and that was it. Both went in. He lost both of them, down went both of them. Well, they cut the ice and dragged them over across and drawed them up out of the pond and in the spring, when they layed there all winter, the spring splashed and I went up and buried them. And that's what they figure, that the horse, he's got to be scared of ya in order to draw, buit no, no…no,no, I'd seen that done and I told him, I said, "Your crazy when you think that." I says, "I see it done." Of course, three brothers in New York State was logging and they had a lot of horses. They go around to the fairs, they'd bring one good team there and they had an awful good team, a new good team. But there was a colored fella drove them and the boss he said to this colored fella, if you twitted him he had a bad mouth and he didn't want that so, he drove em' himself. Well, they come in there and those horses where on a dead run and he was a slawin' them and a hollerin' and this two fellas on lever one on each side, they swung em' around and two fella grabbed the horses by the heads and they had to do that 3 times before they could hitch them on the boat. And then, the last load he only drawed them 18". So the colored fella come in after it was all over and he said, "You should have got that boat out." He says, "They done all they could." He says, "I know a damn sight better. They didn't do all they could." He says, "I could pull that boat out 6'. That's what they could of done." Now, he says, "I'll bet you a dollar that I can draw that boat out 6" So, he gives him the dollar and he says to the fella, "Pull it back to the post there." The fella pulled it back, there was another fella that picked up lever and he swung him around and hitched em' on, he drove it out 6'. Now, he says, "For $5.00 I'll draw a team through that gate out there." (Laughs) He says, "No, you done enough." That shows ya that the horse won't draw if he's real scared. He'll make a lunge and come back. Well, that's the way Squire's team has always done. |
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