Footloose in America: Dixie to New England (19 page)

The day after Thanksgiving, I went into downtown Madison to apply for a job driving a horse-drawn carriage in the historic district. The owner, Jim Macke, asked, “Where did you learn to drive a horse?”

Back home in Hot Springs, I owned and operated a tourist business called “The Mule Line.” With teams of mules, we gave tours of the city and national park on twenty passenger wagons that looked like 19
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century trolleys. When I told Jim about that, he said, “That sounds great!”

Then he paused for a moment. “Say, you’re the guy walking across the country with a mule–aren’t you? I read about you in the paper. I’d like to hire you, but I’m looking for someone for next spring. I shut this thing down after Christmas. You’ll be on the road when I’m ready to reopen.”

Jim operated a large carriage company in Cincinnati. He had fifteen carriages there, but just one in Madison. He wanted someone to run the Madison business so he could concentrate on Cincinnati. It took a couple of days, but finally I talked him into letting me run on the weekends through the winter.

It was a Cinderella carriage pulled by a big white horse named “Belle.” When I asked Jim about using Della, he said, “A mule pulling a Cinderella carriage? That would look weird.”

“She is one classy mule.”

A few weeks later, Jim was in front of the Fudge Factory when Della trotted up with his carriage full of passengers. I had on a full length black faux fur coat that I bought for four bucks at the Salvation Army. On my head was a second hand top hat with a piece of red garland for a hat-band. Della’s harness was decorated with gold garland, red ribbons and sleigh bells. After the passengers got off and went into the Fudge Factory, Jim walked up and said, “You’re right. That is a mighty classy mule. You guys look like a million!”

After I went to work for Jim, we moved Belle to the farm where we lived. When I suggested it, Jim said, “I don’t know. Belle doesn’t get along very well with other horses.”

But Belle and Della were fast friends. Whenever I took Belle out of the barnyard to go to town, Della would stand at the gate and call to her. And Belle would do the same when Della left. As a pair, they were like Mutt and Jeff. We called her “Big Belle.” Not big as in tall–big as in broad. She was at least six inches shorter than Della, but she probably outweighed the Big Sis by two hundred pounds. Belle’s legs were short and squatty, with long white hair that hung down over her hooves.

The barn closest to the house was built into the side of a small hill. It had a stone basement with doors that opened out to a small pasture at the bottom. I repaired that fence and cleaned out the barn so we had two stalls. But unless we closed them up separately in the barn, we usually found the girls together in the same stall.

When not in use, the Cinderella carriage was parked in front of the Fudge Factory on the west side of downtown. Jim Macke had a buckboard that we drove the horse, or mule, back and forth between the farm and town. It was a three and a half mile trip on State Highway 56. The first mile and a half to town was the descent from the top of the ridge into the Ohio Valley. It began at our driveway and was a beautiful route that traversed the face of the bluff in long graceful turns. In a couple of places the roadway cut through rock with high rugged limestone walls with cracks that wept water on both sides of the highway.

Usually we drove to town in the middle of the afternoon and returned late in the evening. Both the Cinderella carriage, and buckboard, had
headlights and flashing red taillights. For the trip home I attached the flashing yellow beacon from our cart on the back of the buckboard. I wanted to be sure we were seen.

The downtown tour was a nostalgic and romantic thirty minute ride. At night, it was exceptionally romantic as clip-clops echoed through the old neighborhoods on our way down to the river. We would wind our way along dark narrow streets past 19
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century homes at a 19
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century pace. Homes with flickering gas lights in their yards and bay windows that glowed with parlor lamps. On the pavement at the intersections, street lights would cast silhouettes of mule ears, top hat and the pumpkin carriage And as we rolled through the intersections, those shadows would float beside us.

At the corner of Second and Vine I would rein the trot in. Slowly, as we made the left turn, I would growl, “Take me to the river, girl.”

While we ambled down Vine Street toward River Front Park, my passengers would gawk at the Lanier Mansion on their left as I told them about it. Completed in 1844, it’s a two story Greek Revival house with four massive thirty foot white columns on the portico facing the river. At the time it was built it was considered the finest home on the Ohio River. James Lanier was a native of Madison and a self-made millionaire. He made his fortune as a lawyer, banker, merchant and railroad financier. He was so rich, that during the Civil War he loaned the state a million dollars to keep it from going broke.

At the river front we turned left, and the equine of the night would trot along Vaughn Drive as it paralleled the Ohio. Unlike the residential streets, the water front was well lit and there seemed to always be people in the park–regardless the hour. Floating at the shoreline was the Wharf Restaurant, which had been built on an old barge. Across the street from River Front Park was Kiwanis Park, whose basketball courts always had at least one game going on.

The trot along the Ohio was extra special when there was traffic on the river. Lights from the boats would shimmer across the water as grumbling motors propelled them along. From the coachman’s seat, no matter how many times I saw the barges and tugs, I always got excited. While we
cruised along at a trot parallel to them, I always felt this nostalgic glow. Like I had done this before, and it was good to be back.

Over the years in my travels and enterprises with horses and mules, I’ve often been asked, “Do you feel like you were born in the wrong century?”

I’ve never had to contemplate my reply. “Hell no! This is the perfect time for me.”

From the river, we turned left on Mulberry Street where the one pulling the carriage picked her own pace up the hill. On Mulberry were a couple of taverns with a winery around the corner on Second Street. So people were usually milling around in front of those 1830’s buildings as we passed by. It was slow-going up the hill, so there was enough time for an exchange of chatter between those on the sidewalk and us in the carriage. Always there was laughter–always it was fun.

At the top of Mulberry, when we turned left on Main, suddenly we were plunged into a flood of light. Street lights and neon for the eateries, taverns and other Main Street merchants. When we made the turn, my voice would echo off the buildings. “Come up girl! Show them what you’ve got!”

Sometimes when we trotted onto Main Street, people on the sidewalk would clap as I called out to the equine in front of me. Every once in awhile, when Della pulled the carriage, someone on the walk–always a man in a group of folks–would start he-hawing. I’d point to him and yell, “Hey Della, there’s your daddy!”

(A mule has a mare horse for a mother, and a jack ass for a father.)

The Madison tour was wonderful, but it wasn’t an adventure like the trip back to the farm at night. Especially as we got further into winter. I kept adding layers of clothes and was always on the lookout for warmer gloves. When we plodded up the hill to the farm, many times my feet hurt so much from the cold I would climb out of the buckboard and walk up the hill beside either Della or Belle to get my circulation going.

But no matter how cold, or wet, or maddening the night traffic would be, I always felt a thrill and sense of pride when headlights projected our shadows upon the face of the bluff. The high-spoked wheels of the carriage,
the steed in front of me, my huge fur coat and of course the top hat–it all looked very Charles Dickens. I loved casting that shadow.

One day, in early January, Patricia rode into town with me. That night, as Big Belle pulled up the hill toward the farm, I handed Patricia the reins. “You drive home.”

At the top of the hill, a biting westerly started pelting our faces with frigid rain drops mixed with ice pellets. Belle’s nostrils blasted mighty plumes of breath that in the carriage lights looked like steam from a locomotive. Patricia pulled on Belle’s left rein and guided her into the driveway as she shivered and said, “I can’t wait to get in the house and have a cup of hot chocolate.”

But first there were chores that had to be done. After Patricia stopped Belle at the hitching post, we climbed out from under the carriage blanket and went about our jobs. Mine was to unhitch Belle, strip the harness off her and carry it into the enclosed porch on the house. Then I rubbed her down with a towel, while Patricia went in the house to mix the feed. I lit the kerosene lantern, then with it in one hand and Belle’s lead rope in the other we headed for the paddock and the barn.

Every night, when we returned from Madison, the ritual was the same. At the paddock gate, the animal who didn’t go downtown would be waiting to greet it’s barn mate. No matter which one it was, I’d have to negotiate her away from the gate, so I could get the one I was leading into the paddock. Then, we three would stumble down the hill over frozen mud ruts to the barn basement. The equine that didn’t go to town would get ahead of us and go into the stall of the one I was leading. So I would have to chase that one out before I could lead the other one into her stall. Then I would have to chase the other one out again and close the stall door–it was always confusing. But we always worked it out.

That’s when the bobbing glow of Patricia’s flashlight would appear at the other end of the basement. While she made her way down the stairs with the feed buckets, the barn sprang to life with knickers and the shuffle of hooves in straw beds. My wife would sing out, “Hey girly pies, look here. Mom’s got supper for you. Who’s hungry?”

Wooden stall boards would bang with blows from bodies and hooves. The racket always crescendoed until the rattle of corn and oats poured into their feed bins. Then, the old stable would settle down to a gentle cadence of grain being chewed by giant jaws.

I have always found something sweet and satisfying in the sound of a large animal eating. Maybe because that’s one of the greatest pleasures they know, and I’m the one who brought it to them. Or maybe it’s the peaceful expression that’s always on their faces as they chew their feed. Probably it’s a combination of the two that made those moments in the soft lamp light so romantic. The four of us, in that old barn basement–man, woman, horse and mule–were more harmonious in those moments than at any other time. “Gently satisfying” best describes the feeling I had at feeding time, when we came home late at night in the carriage from Madison.

It was around 9 p.m. one night in early January when I turned Belle and the empty carriage onto Third Street. At a trot, we were headed for the east side of town. Third was a dark residential street of 19
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Century row-homes, and half way down the first block someone had laid a Christmas tree beside the curb. It wasn’t there the last time we passed by, and when we got next to it Belle suddenly stopped, turned toward it and snorted. Then, in one motion, she leaped from a standstill to a full gallop. She paid no attention as I pulled back on the reins and yelled, “Whoa, Belle! Whoa!”

She ran as fast as her stubby legs could go. We flew along the dark narrow street with the carriage fish-tailing back and forth. I tried frantically to rein her in and keep the carriage from side-swiping the cars parked curbside. Finally, I found the brake pedal. But when I stomped on it, the back wheels skipped across the pavement and the whole carriage began to buck up and down with a horrendous clatter. It sounded like the whole back end of the thing was coming apart. All of this only made Belle run faster.

I took my foot off the brake and quit yelling. The only thing I could do was ride it out and guide her so the carriage didn’t hit anything. Thank God the street was one way, and Belle was running in the right direction. We had already run the stop signs at both Vine and Elm Streets–and Broadway was dead ahead. It’s a three-way stop that’s usually busy because it’s the main route to the hospital.