James H. Cagle
Not only did we have chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys, and a cow; when I was growing up, we also had horses. I had a pig for a short while. I got him from my Uncle Billy. I asked him if I could have my own pig to raise. He said sure and gave me a small pig that I took home. I wondered why he didn’t charge me anything for the pig and why it seemed to me that he had a grin on his face when giving me the pig. It didn’t take me long to find out why, though.
I put the pig in the lot with the horses and thought he would stay put. But after several times having to go through the woods after school to find him, I gave him back to Uncle Billy.
In the woods was a big Cyprus head that held a lot of water. There was actually a pond that had fish in it. When it rained really hard this pond would overflow and run out into the ditches. When it did, we would go cooning. We would work our way along the ditches and, like a raccoon, stick our hand in the water under rocks and around ledges to find crawfish, or a bream, or maybe even a catfish.
We also had six horses. We had a Shetland pony named Trigger, a Welch pony named Thunder, and a Morgan horse named Buster. My oldest sister Marlene had a Buckskin or Dun that she bought. Diane had a Tennessee walker that had a foal that was always sick.
We could ride Trigger, Thunder, and Buster anytime we wanted but we had to ask our sisters before we road their horses. Trigger was the most fun to ride. You could even ride him without a bridle. To turn him, all you had to do was grab his mane and pull him around. He seemed to enjoy the rides as much as we did. We would ride through the fields or down the road to see Robert or down the Lightsey road. Thunder and Buster were also good horses to ride. But before we rode Buster, we had to walk him out to the plowed field to mount him. The reason was, he had to buck and throw someone before he would cooperate and participate in our riding plans. After he threw someone, he didn’t buck anymore. We took turns at getting thrown off.
Diane’s horse didn’t ride well unless her foal came along with her. But the foal had a hard time keeping up and couldn’t go very far before it was worn out and needed to turn back. If you pinned her foal up and left it at the house, she was hard to manage when you rode her. Once I rode Diane’s horse and left her foal at home. She was hard to manage but I was able to ride her for a few miles down the road without much trouble. But when I turned around to go back to the house, the front cinch broke and the saddle swung under her belly on the rear cinch. I fell off and she began running for the house, to her foal, with the saddle under her belly. Thankfully my foot did not get caught in the stirrup or I would have been dragged all the way home. But I did have to walk all the way home.
If our horses got worms, Daddy had his own way of getting rid of them. He would by a package of chewing tobacco, wad up a fist full of it and put it behind their tongue, so they would have to swallow it. Within a few days the treated horse would have no worms.
Sherry was friend of ours that bought a horse named Big John. She kept him in a stable up town and rode him in a riding park. But Big John was hard to ride because he was a “hot horse.” He thought that anytime a rider got on him he was supposed to run as fast as he could. Sherry wanted us to take her horse out to the farm and bring him down a notch or two, so she could safely ride him.
One day Sherry rode Big John from town down Forrest Street to the corner of Knight’s Academy Road. There I took Big John from her and rode him to our house. I had to hold the reins back hard and tight to keep him from running. Big John was the biggest horse I ever rode. I rode him several times without getting him to slow down and relax. He always wore me out because I could never slack up on the reins or he would take off running.
One day a friend of Diane’s came out to ride one of our horses. At the same time, I was riding Big John around the back field. When Diane’s friend came running her horse past me, Big John broke loose from my grip and took off in racing mode. I still had the reins in my hand, but I could not rein Big John in and slow him down, much less stop him.
As I came up to the fence that separated the field from the house, I still couldn’t slow Big John down, so I turned him to circle the field. I circled the field several times. The first time I called out for help. Everyone came out of the house to the field and watched me circle the field on a now, wild horse. Daddy was there but there was nothing he could do. No one in their right mind would step in front of a horse as big as Big John and try to stop him.
After I circled the field about three times, I still couldn’t slow Big John down. I decided I would ride him under the barns overhang, which was how you got into the field, and then run him into the other barn. So, when I came around again, I pulled hard on the reins and got Big John turned. Then, I leaned way over in the saddle because if I sat upright the tin roof on the overhang would cut my head off. I then ran Big John into the barn and as he hit the barn, I jumped off. The horse was not hurt, and neither was I, just badly shaken up. Mother later said she almost fainted when she saw me go under the overhang, because she just knew I was going to get killed.
