The Old Grey Mare

Korero (AEWS), Volume 3, Issue 9, 4 June 1945, Page 22

The Old Grey Mare

tBY ‘Mil

Funny how you meet people. Now, if both our tractors had been working, and what with old Joe and Prince our two horses, we could have brought the wheat into the mill in good time ; but, blow me, if the pistons of one of the tractors don’t go phut on us just the day the mill arrives. We were going to carry r on with the one tractor and two horses till the boss of the mill heard about it. No show, he says, he wasn’t going to have the mill idling while we fellows brought in the wheat from the paddock way down the terrace. So we scout around the countryside to borrow a tractor, or at worst, a horse and dray, then we find old man Blackmore up the road has an old mare he borrowed from Jimmy Styles, and when we ring Jimmy he says we can borrow his mare, for what it’s worth. Well, when you’re stuck, as we were, any horse is a horse, so we thank him, and we guess old • man Blackmore is

listening in on the party line so there’s no need to ring him especially to tell him we’ll be up for it. That evening, while the mill hands were strolling about smoking and yarning with the boss, I set off on my bike to pick up the old mare from Blackmore’s. That’s how I come to meet Matilda. When I see her I wonder what I’ve struck. She’s an old white horse, a dirty white, and 1 don’t think she’s ever been groomed, and her back sags way down in the middle as though she’s too tired to hold herself up, and I wonder if at any moment she won’t collapse altogether. But she’s mighty quiet, and when I go up to her and throw a piece of twine round her neck she calmly follows me out of the paddock and into the yard, where I harness her and back her into the dray. Going home she walks along as though she’s no idea where she’s going nor why, a real dejected walk, so that I don’t like to crack her with the reins, but just speak kindly to her. " Come on, Olga, old girl,” I say, or “ Just a little faster, Bette,” but all to no avail. And I can’t whack her —she looks so sad. So when it’s really dark and I should be sitting by my fire having a good hot cup of coffee, there I am in the stable undressing her while she snorts and blows away at the chaff I’ve put in her box. She stayed with us for two days. She was a good mill horse, the noise of the engines didn’t disturb her in any way ; she just stood quietly as we forked the sheaves on to the feeder. The only trouble was that she wasn’t much more energetic when I drove her out to the wheat-field. I cracked her with the handle of my fork once, but she only looked round at me in

a sad sort of way, then slowly plodded on. In the end I gave it up ; I let her go as she liked and almost where she liked. So long as I brought in a drayload of sheaves once in a while I didn’t worry. Then one morning the sun shone through the blue-gums on to a high straw stack, and the stooks had disappeared from the paddock, and all that remained was the short stubble marked by the tracks of dray wheels and tractor tires. So I harnessed the old mare to go back to Jimmy Styles’, where she belonged. Going the half-mile down our drive she just dawdled along with her head hung down. Still, it was a lovely morning, and with the hard day’s work behind me I quite enjoyed the funeral pace, being in no hurry to get back and start on some other job. We passed through the gateway that leads on to the public road, then I let her stroll along on the grass at the side of the road till we came to Jimmy Styles’. Here I said, “ Whoa, Matilda,” so she whoaed while I jumped down to open the gates. Slowly we rattled up the shingly path ; magpies would look up from the nearby pasture where they’d been listening-in to the grub world, and come squawking over to their nests in the pine-trees ; sheep left their nibbling at the grass, looked at us, then at each other, then as we passed they nibbled at the grass again. I was admiring the peaceful scene, when all of a sudden the old mare neighed, she arched her head in the air, then galloped with the dray clattering and bouncing behind, and me sitting where I’d just been standing. “ Whoa, Emma. What the whoa ! ” I yelled, tugging on the reins. But no, I couldn’t stay her mad stampede. She eventually stopped by a gap in the trees, where a gateway impeded her progress. And over this gateway I saw the stables, and running up and down the fence beyond the stables was an old black horse. Like the mare, it had a great sagging back. Driving up to the stables I couldn’t believe her to be the same mare I’d that

morning harnessed. Her head was held high, and she lifted her feet in as sprightly a manner as any excited show pony. All the while I was getting her out of her harness she would turn her head and look at that silly-looking black horse who was still galloping up and down by the dividing fence, then she’d turn back to me and snort as though annoyed at my fumbling with the buckle of the belly-band. As soon as I loosed her from the stable she made straight for the gate that led into the outside paddock, but here she had to wait for me to run over and open the gate for her to pass through.

Once through she flew with a thudding of hooves down to the far end of the paddock, with the old black horse bounding along beside her. Then they’d stand still, head to head, as though they had much to talk about, having been so long parted, then off again on another crazy gallop. To think that she had missed that funny old black horse so much that life didn’t matter when they were apart. Love, I thought, must be a peculiar thing with horses, for two queerer-looking animals you could hardly imagine. Then going home I remembered old man Styles and his funny little wife.