Old Dandy by Grant Leavitt written April 2003

Old Dandy

The summer I was 19, I worked on the farms again. We used “Old Dandy” to do about everything. It was easier to ride her from one end of the farm to the other to change water than walk. Uncle Wesley brought some of his horses up that summer and put them in the pasture. Old Dandy was easy to catch if she was alone but with the other horses she’d run when they did. One day all the horses walked out into the lower hayfield by Joe & Ida’s. I walked down with a sack of grain. I walked right up to Dandy, she liked grain.

I took off my belt and put it around her neck. It didn’t quite go all the way around so I just held it together making her think she was caught. About this time the other horses took off. Old Dandy raised her head. She was a big horse and when she did that I wasn’t long enough to reach the ground. I did hang on for a while. When I lost my grip, I rolled out through the Alfalfa. I resolutely got up and headed for the house. It was close to a half mile walk and my mood didn’t change much with the walk.  When I walked in the house, I looked for the guns we always had hanging on the wall. I asked Mom where the guns were and she just said “you’re not going to kill that horse!” It seems like mothers can read minds. She and Aunt LaVerde had been watching the whole event. I suppose they laughed on my trip to the house. I think Aunt LaVerde was still smirking.       

The irony of the whole thing is that a couple of days later, the dog run into a skunk down where the horses were. They came thundering out of the pasture to get away from the smell and right into the corrals by the house. I didn’t have to walk the rest of the summer. If Mom hadn’t hid the guns, I would have.