Plow Horses

When I was growing up on the farm before we ever got a tractor, we
had two plow horses one named Mike the other Bill.I watched as my Uncle
plowed the field with these horses.When I think back I realize
how much better it was when I got big enough to work in
the cotton fields.

We had a John Deere, tractor and
other equipment to get the work done and it was a very hard life.
Imagine having to work with horses, and a plow you had to guide by
hand, making sure the rows were straight and even. I used to walk along
beside him on the freshly plowed ground barefoot of course the cool
dirt felt so good on my feet. It didn't take long for the sun to dry
the ground out and the dirt turned into clods which were really hard to
walk on.

I felt so sorry for those horses, because
they had to work so hard not thinking about how hard it was on my
Uncle. &;quot;Do you have to yell at them like that all the
time&;quot; I asked him? &;quot;You have to tell them what their
supposed to do&;quot; he said. These horses were mean and would bite
you if you got close to them when they were in their pen. One day we
had the horses, and the next day we didn't.

We moved
from the place we were living,Dad bought our farm equipment from my
Grandpa,who was retiring from farming.We didn't need the horses
anymore. The man who took them away was big, and ugly I asked if he was
taking them to his farm?  he said &;quot;Naw these horses is
all done farming they're going to the glue factory&;quot; I cried
for weeks for these poor horses that lived on our farm and worked so
hard for us just to wind up in a glue factory. Why they were going to a
glue factory, was a question nobody answered, when I asked so I knew it
wasn't good.

Everything changed at once I had to
start first grade, new place to live, No horses to help feed and water.
It seemed to me that nothing would ever be the same again.There were
new things that had to be learned about farming with the right tools
and my Dad loved it. I got a new job, and a new tool of my own I was
the grease monkey.

Daddy bought me a grease gun that
you stuck down in a big can of grease pulled a lever and it sucked up
grease until it got full, screw the top back on and it was ready to
go.There are several places on farm equipment that have to be greased
Daddy, called them alimites. They are over, and under and in places
that he just couldn't get to that's how I got the job. The tip of the
greece gun fit over the alimites,you squeezed the handle to fill them.
When he came in from the fields and parked the tractor I was standing
there with my grease gun.I also had to climb up on top of the tractor,
and fill it with gasoline from the big tank that stood on tall legs. A
big gas truck came and filled up the tank when it was running
low.

All this work bought me free rides on the
tractor, when I brought Dad water pumped off cool in a fruit jar. He
would let me ride a couple of turns, then I would jump down and walk
back to the house,thinking how lucky he was to get to drive that
tractor all day.