Some More Horse Tradin' by Ben K. Green Page A

kind that stand up on a stem—and poured it full of water. I noticed the old gentleman that I had sat down by, his glass was empty. I said, “And my friend would like another glass of water.”
    The old gentleman gave a quick sort of glance at me and said, “I thank you, sir,” in the clearest, best English speech that I had heard in a long time.
    I finished my supper and walked out on the street and back down to put my horse away. I realized then that I was going to have to figure out some way to water my horse. The mercantile store had turned on a dim light, so I walked in and asked if I could buy some feed for my horse, and where could I water him. The man said he had some oats and alfalfa, but that water was precious. At the back of the store he had a tank of water hauled up from the river. It wasn’t quite fit for a man to drink but it was all right for horses. It was a quarter a tubful.
    I said, “Well, I know my horse will drink a tubful.”
    He went to the back of the store to dip me some oats, and he got me two small chips of alfalfa hay from a couple of bales in a little lean- to on the back of the store. With the drouth, feed was scarce and money was scarce, and few people fed their livestock. They just changed horses and rode them on whatever they could find to eat—so, naturally, he didn’t have a lot of feed on hand. Then he reached over and turned an old wheel on a pipe at the back wall of the store, and a tub on the outside began to fill with water. When I looked outside, the tub turned out to be a great big old wood tub made of hand-hewn wood stays bound by two wagon tires.
    I unsaddled my horse and slipped the bit out of his mouth and just left one rein to go around his neck to lead him around to his tub of water. He drank about half of it, and I heard a sort of half-nicker from a horse in the small corral behind me. I looked up. The old gentleman that I had eatenbeside at the café was walking out to his horse, which was an unusual individual, just like the man who owned him. This was a horse of much substance with a good topline and good legs, heavily muscled hindquarters, and gathering muscles along his back and his belly that you might say were overdeveloped. He was a horse that showed to have had much use—and much care, too. His feet were in good condition, his mane and tail combed. He had been ridden hard. The hair was short over his loins where the saddle rubbed. The hair had been worn off on the side where his cinch fit him. No sores, no scars, no blemishes—just the hair cut away by constant use of the cinch. I couldn’t help but admire such a useful-looking horse—neither young nor old, but a horse in his best using years, something like ten or twelve years old.
    Of course he had nickered when he smelled that tub of water and heard my horse drink, and I said to the old gentleman, “I think my horse could learn things just standing across the fence from yours. There’s more water here than my horse will drink and I’d be glad for your horse to have it, if you would care to water him after my horse.”
    â€œIt is his thirst that causes me to accept,” said the old gentleman.
    He let down the drawbars and turned the horse loose to come to the water trough without a rope on him. The more you looked at the horse, and the more you looked at the man, the more you wondered about them. This was the darkest colored chestnut horse that you nearly ever saw. The man stood there beside him while he drank, a hand on his withers. I saw him pinch the withers, and the horse raised his head and stood there a minute—corrected for not having proper manners at the trough and drinking too fast. It was very noticeable to me that this man had complete control of the horse just with the use of his fingers on his withers.
    There was plenty of water, and when his horse finished, the man turned and walked back through this drawbar gate.The horse