My paternal
grandfather, Carl Crain, worked two dark-colored mules named Pete and Kate. They
pastured together and often pulled a 2-horse wagon. They slept in adjoining
stalls in a tin-roofed barn in rural Greenville, S.C., in the early 1950s.
I recall “riding”
Pete when I was about three years old. “Pa” (that’s what I called my paternal
grandfather) plowed with Pete one afternoon and brought him, at end of day, to
drink from a tin tub sitting under a spigot placed between Pa’s house and barn.
My dad set me on Pete’s back, and that was fine until Pete lowered his head to
drink. Fear of sliding down his long neck hit me, but I stayed on.
“He’ll let
you ride him,” Pa said, “but Kate won’t.”
I distrusted Kate
and thought she was aloof and mean. She appeared a little darker in color and
heavier than Pete. A few red hairs flecked Pete’s coat, and his peaceful face shaded
into gray-white around his muzzle. The pair did almost everything together –
grazing, drinking from the creek, and rolling on their backs in the pasture
after Pa took off their harnesses. Mules and horses roll after being worked in
order to ease the irritation of drying sweat. They dry the sweat with dirt, and
dirt also helps protect them from biting insects.
In the 1950s,
I thought poor people were “mule folk” and rich people were “horse folk.” That’s
how I perceived the “class system” in the rural South during the middle of the
20th century. But mules were highly valued in olden days. King David often rode
them, and the “kings of the earth” sent mules as gifts to King Solomon.
A mule, the
offspring (usually sterile) of a male donkey and a female horse, is said to
possess the strength of a horse and the endurance and surefootedness of the
donkey.
The
late Ben Crain, great-grandfather to L.S. Crain, is pictured with two mules and
a grandchild.
According to
mulemuseum.org (MMO), the U.S. boasted an estimated 855,000 mules in 1808. By
1897, 2.2 million mules populated the U.S. before cotton boomed in Texas and
numbers rose to 4.1 million. The U.S. Army last used mules in any great number
in World War 1, according to MMO. In that war, 6-mule teams hauled 2,000-lb.
wagons loaded with 3,000 lbs. of cargo. War wagons were useless in mountainous
country, so an Army train of 50 or more mules, each carrying 250 pounds, would
move in single file and cover 60 miles a day.
Ma (my
paternal grandmother) and Pa married and sharecropped before purchasing a small
farm. Pa worked as a carpenter and farmed “on the side.” Ma, a housewife, never
worked at a “public job.” They usually kept two mules, two cows, one or two
hogs, two beagles, a cat or two, and some chickens. Except for the hogs and
chickens, their animals had names and my grandparents formed bonds with them. Philosopher
René Descarte reportedly regarded animals as “mindless machines” programmed
with instincts. But, animals have feelings, and Pa and Ma believed righteous people
took care of their animals (Proverbs 12:10).
My family (my
parents, my younger sister, and I) lived near Ma and Pa, and I slept “many a
night” at my grandparents’ house. Pa wore brogan shoes and overalls, except on
Sundays or on Saturday mornings when he, driving his car, chauffeured Ma to
Greenville to sell a little milk and butter.
When Pa drove
his farm wagon, Pete and Kate pulled while I operated the brake if we descended
a hill. The brake was a wooden pole I pushed against one of the rear, metal-rimmed
wheels.
Pictured
is the late Homer Crain, son of Claude Crain (brother to Carl Crain), and a
dappled mule. Homer served in the U.S. Army in World War II and was hit by a
sniper’s bullet. He later became a pastor who walked with a limp.
I served as Pa’s
water-boy during spring planting when I was five. “Take this water to Pa,” Ma
would say as she dropped ice cubes into a quart-size Mason jar holding water. She’d
insert wax paper between the jar and the lid to make sure I didn’t slosh out water
as I trekked across the field. I’d walk under two tall pecan trees standing
near Ma’s kitchen and head out – bare feet on plowed warm soil, water jar hugged
to my torso. I’d see Pa and Pete (or Kate) plowing and planting – one man and
one mule, working, so that the man could “earn his bread by the sweat of his
brow.”
Pa would stop
the mule, doff his straw hat, wipe his forehead on one arm of his long-sleeved
work shirt, and drink. (The mule drank plenty of water at morning, noon, and
night.)
One spring day
each year during my elementary school years, I skipped classes to help Pa fertilize
a field for corn planting. Pete and Kate pulled the wagon as Pa and I set down 100-lb.
sacks of guano (powdered bird droppings used as fertilizer) at intervals across
the field. Pa then hitched Pete to a “distributor plow.” Using a bucket, I deposited
fertilizer into the distributor’s box as Pa plowed, dispensing guano into
furrows. As one guano sack emptied, I moved to another bag, as Pa continued
plowing row by row. Pa talked to Pete, guiding him and saying “gee” and “haw,”
as they traversed the field. According to “Wikipedia,” “Gee and haw are voice
commands used to tell a draft animal or sled dog to turn right or left … ‘Gee’
(pronounced ‘jee’) has its first attested use in the 1620s in Scotland; the
first known use of ‘haw’ was in 1777.”
The late
Pinkney “Pink” Parker is pictured with a mule and a child, standing near his
barn in Taylors, S.C.
I was in
third grade when Pa let Pete and Kate out of their stalls and into pasture on an
overcast winter morning. He put up three bars to the barn’s pasture-side
hallway. (The front side of the barn had no gate or bars.) Perhaps Pa reasoned
that his mules stayed outside and weathered rains during most months and would
be all right, or maybe he thought the rain would “hold off” until evening. He then
drove to his carpenter job. A cold rain began around mid-morning.
Seeking
shelter but blocked by the bars, Pete pushed through the barbed wire fence and
kudzu located to the left of the barn. Beneath the kudzu lay a deep gully, and
Pete mired up to his chest in that red-dirt ditch. I think he stood there for
hours, sinking further into the muck as he struggled. Kate stayed in the
pasture, perhaps sensing danger.
That
afternoon, Pa found Pete. My father and I soon arrived – neither family had a
telephone – to visit my grandparents. The rain had mostly stopped, but the sky
was still gray when I saw Pete. He stood, eyes pleading. About every 30
seconds, he flopped the right side of his neck against the bank sloping into
the gully. He had worn off the kudzu on that side of the ditch.
Troy Burrell,
a neighbor, stood near Pa. Before Dad and I arrived, they had placed a rope
around Pete’s neck and tried to coax him to free himself, but the mud’s suction
prevailed. Troy walked home and returned on a small tractor. They attached the
rope to the tractor and dragged Pete, by his neck, from the mire. He lay a few
feet from the gully on a flat, plowed field. He rested on his right side, with
stiff legs stuck straight out before him. He appeared to me to resemble one of
the plastic toy horses with unbendable legs that I often bought as a child at a
dime store in town.
They said the
circulation was gone in Pete’s cold legs. Hoping he would rise, they let him
lie there for a while. But he didn’t get up, and they decided to put him out of
his misery. I guess I was in Ma and Pa’s house or gone home with Dad when they dispatched
Pete. I don’t remember hearing the shot. Pa told me that a man from Greenville came
the next day and hauled away Pete’s body. I recall thinking it didn’t seem fair
that Pete died in such a tragic way. He seemed the nicer mule of the pair.
Perhaps
Pete’s partner wasn’t as devoid of kindness as I had thought. A few months
after Pete’s passing, Pa found Kate, dead. I asked him what happened to her.
“I think she
grieved herself to death,” Pa said.
