A True Friend

by George Toms of Bedford, VA

It was the spring of 1967. I was young and newly married. Even though I had a public job, farming was on my mind and I had gotten into pulpwood cutting on the side. Cutting pine on the old family farm, which my father had inherited, but was letting it revert to woods as he did not farm, I had soon cut all the easy wood to get to.

“Honey, if I had a horse I could drag out all the wood that I’ve got time to cut.” Money being pretty short in those days I figured I’d better feel out the madam on what for us would have been a major expenditure.”

“Well, all right, if you feel like you really need one, go on and find one. You know what you’re doing – I reckon.” Good deal, my plan was coming to order.

“Daddy, if I had a horse I could drag pine off the ridge and out of the hollow.”

“A horse? Son, you don’t know nothing about working a horse.”

“Well, you could show me, and besides, I remember watching Granddaddy.”

So the conversation went. My father said he’d be on the lookout for me, and I would do the same.

A few days later my father gave me a call.

“Boy, I found you a mule.”

“A mule! Daddy, I don’t want no mule. They’ll kick you at the first chance they get and I always heard they were so contrary you couldn’t do nothing with them.”

“Well, I ain’t heard of any good horses for sale, have you? Besides, this mule is supposed to be right. We never worked any mules on this place when I was coming up so he’ll be a first. We can at least go look at him.”

Since my luck at finding a horse hadn’t been so great, I gave in.

The mule belonged to a local dairyman who occasionally worked his garden with him. As we drove up I didn’t know what to expect. I had heard all kinds of war stories about mules. What we found was a big, old gray mule standing in the lot next to the milk parlor. His mane was a big, old bushy mess, untrimmed, and his tail, untrimmed, looked like a horses. He looked anything but intimidating. We estimated his weight at about 1350 lbs. and I soon learned he took a 20-inch collar.

“Boys, this mule is right, he ain’t nothing but a pet,” said the dairyman, walking up to greet us. Picking up an old bridle he proceeded to bridle the mule, walk him over and tie him to the fence. “There ain’t no harm in him,” said the dairyman as he proceeded to walk up tight against the mule’s hindquarters and rub back and forth. “I’ll crawl under his belly if you want me to.”

Daddy spoke up, “That won’t be necessary, we’ve seen enough, we’ll take him. Well, son, it looks like you’ve got yourself a mule.”

That was the start of an eight-year relationship with one of the truest, smartest, most faithful, good-natured, draft animals I have ever owned. You couldn’t hitch him wrong, and believe me I mean that, literally.

Ole “Whitey” had a personality all his own. He never could bray like most mules. He’d start out like a bray and end up in a poor example of a horses whinny. He seemed to enjoy being around people, as much as being around other livestock. Whether pulling a plow or dragging a tree, he managed to start on his time when you spoke to him to come up, and when you said whoa he always seemed to take one extra step. When hooked to a large pine and asked to come up, he would lean into the collar and if the load didn’t slip he would stop and look back at you to see if you were going to make him pull it. I never hooked him to more than he could pull and Whitey was true, he never balked.

I soon found out that Whitey knew more about dragging pulpwood than I did. So, I quit driving him in the woods. I would drive him on the first drag and from then on I could turn him loose and he would take every drag to the first one. I would be cutting and limbing while he was on the way to the landing with his drag. If he got hung up on the way, he didn’t panic. I’ve watched him get hung on a stump. As soon as he realized he was hung, he’d swing right, if that didn’t work he’d try left. All this without being guided and me not even close. Working with an animal that smart it doesn’t take long to drag out a truckload of wood.

Whitey never got too excited or rattled. Once, when mowing waist-high orchard grass with Whitey and a small mare mule I unknowingly mowed into a small marsh caused by a wet weather spring. I couldn’t see the problem but all at once the mules started walking real fast and the wheels started dragging water. The next thing I knew the mower had sunk up to the tongue and the mules had sunk past their knees. The mare mule started thrashing about but old Whitey just started grazing. If a friend hadn’t showed up about that time I don’t know how I’d a got out of that one.

This story does not have a happy ending. I wish to goodness it did. Coming home from my public job one afternoon I harnessed ole Whitey and worked out a quarter acre patch of tomatoes. He never did learn gee and haw but he walked so steady a 6-year-old could have cultivated with him. Finishing the field, I took him to the barn and unharnessed and fed him. That was to be the last time I saw Whitey alive. It seems that during the night the old boy wandered up a cow path in a particularly rough section of the farm. He stuck his head in a fox grape vine and somehow started twisting around and around. The poor old mule ended up hanging himself. I lost the best animal, horse or mule, that I have ever owned, and a true friend.