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Show sexes rather than specific names. Jack was larger, more powerful and he could be spurred to a trot or even, briefly, a gallop. But only if Jenny came along for company. If I saddled him with my "Monkey Ward" mail order saddle and tried to ride him off without her, he protested. He even bucked a little. Or resisting my efforts to pull him away-his mouth was tough as boot leather-he'd angle off toward the closest barbed wire fence to drag my thigh against the barbs. He ripped a couple of my jeans and some skin that way. I got Jack and Jenny when I was ten, and I learned a good deal from them. They were about as devoted a couple as you could imagine. Harnessed together to wagon or harrow, they were completely contented if not ever very energetic. They were inseparable when browsing free on the range. They often went along with the cows in a companionable fashion but those two were always close together. Once I rode Jack on what might be called my first date. We were being annoyed by a pair of stray burrows that had come out of nowhere and attached themselves to the place to snatch a bite of hay or anything else edible when they could get it. Technically they were "wild" but actually they were too tame to frighten off. What they most relished, of course, was water at our well, and we couldn't deny them that. So Father conceived the idea of my driving them to Hot Springs two miles northeast to leave them where there were pools of water and grass to eat, My problem was Jack's sulky refusal to leave Jenny. So I invited Janie Lou, the 11-year-old daughter of the current teacher at our one-room school, to ride Jenny. Janie Lou was willing to ride bareback on Jenny while I used the saddle on less gentle Jack. That worked out fine. And the "wild ones" trotted mildly ahead of us. At the Springs I showed Janie Lou the "House made without a Saw." It was a weird, paintless ragtag-and-bobtail relic of the time when the Springs were a |
