Horse Tradin' by Ben K. Green Page A

Fort Worth will ever get them mules gathered so he can get his pasture back to where he can put cows in it?”
    â€œI don’t know. How come him with those wild mules?”
    Then my storekeeper friend related the story of how, about three years before, the Fort Worth lawyer had staked a would-be-rancher nephew to buy yearling and two-year-old mules to stock a section pasture—640 acres. After the mules were turned in the pasture, the nephew had lost interest in them and decided to be an automobile salesman or something in town. The mules had kept the grass bit down close, killed a few calves that had beenput in the pasture—which mules will sometimes do—and the judge wasn’t too happy with his nephew or with the “stock” in his pasture.
    All of this time I had been sitting there peeling pecans and eating them and hitting the door of the stove with a few of the hulls. I closed my pocketknife, stood up and shook the pecan hulls off, and started toward the back door. The old storekeeper said: “You must have run out of conversation. Come back when you get recharged.”
    I got on my horse and jogged up the road. The weather was cold and the wind was high. My little heifers were
pore
, the grass was short, my spendin’ money was getting awful low, and I just thought to myself that from a promising young rancher—before those steers went down—to pouring out feed to those sorry, bad-colored heifers, I sure had slipped since I quit the horse and mule business. It was time for me to take a fresh start.
    It was thirty miles to Fort Worth, horseback or on the bus. You could ride horseback for nothing; it cost ninety cents to ride the bus, so before daylight next morning I counted my money and rode horseback. I left my horse over at the Burnett and Yount Horse and Mule Barn, rode the streetcar to town, and went way up in one of them tall buildings to this lawyer’s office.
    As I entered the stiff-looking legal establishment, a very precise, not too young lady glanced at my saddle-marked britches and unshined boots. As she sized me up, I took my hat off, and my head didn’t show that it had been exposed to a lot of brushin’ and curryin’, and I could tell by the tone of her voice that she didn’t think I was a client of the honorable attorney. In a crisp business voice she asked me who I wished to see. I told her I wanted tosee the lawyer. She had her note pad in her hand, asked me my name, and said: “What do you wish to see him about?”
    â€œHe may want to see me much worse than I do him, ’cause I might help him with his mule troubles.”
    I didn’t much more than get the word “mule” out of my mouth until the judge was standing in the doorway of the next office looking at me and saying: “Come in, come in.”
    We shook hands and I told him who I was. He smiled and said: “Have a seat over there.”
    He motioned to one of those big soft chairs, and I kind of sat on the edge of it rather uneasily as he said: “What do you know about my mule business?”
    â€œI know about your mules, but I wouldn’t call it business—the way you’ve been handling them,” I replied.
    He showed a weak smile, but he didn’t seem to think my remark was very funny. It was about noon, and he said: “You could probably talk better over some food.”
    I didn’t hear grub called food very often, and it took me a minute to answer; but anyway we went to a nice place that had linen tablecloths and napkins and real silver to eat some dinner. The judge ordered up a batch of stuff and along with the meal we discussed his mule business. He explained to me that he knew how to handle cattle and could hire people who could tend to them, and he would like to get rid of these mules. I told him I had a bunch of heifers I’d trade for his mules, and that I’d gather the mules and then deliver the heifers. This