Ed and Nessie
Ed Napoleon Vanderhoof
Ed and Nessie
EDDIE, told by Vernell
There was a
horse that used to wander over to our place when we were kids.
One day Eddie climbed on and rode her around.
He got so attached to the horse that Dad tried to purchase it.
But, the man wanted too much for him so Dad decided not to make
the deal saying, “No, that’s too much to pay.”
Eddie heard,
turned to the horse and buried his face in her neck
trying not to cry in his disappointment.
Dad looked at him, thought for a moment then said, Well, I guess
I will buy her after all.
He just couldn’t break Eddie’s young heart and if there was one thing he could understand, it was a little boys love of a horse.
EDDIE told
by
Vernell
Dad had a
little mule. He was a good
riding mule for kids because he was well broke.
Leo Camp, a friend of ours, wanted the mule, so Dad traded it to
him. The horses were in for
water on a short lane with the troughs on one side.
Leo got his lasso rope and was going to rope the mule, but the
mule had been roped before and had other ideas.
He stayed behind or among the other horses so Leo gave up and
threw the rope down. After
a while, the horses quieted down.
Eddie was about
nine or ten years old and picked up the end of the rope and walked up to
the mule and tied it around his neck.
Then, he stepped back and stepped into the loop that was still
laying on the ground. We
had a mare that was good at unlocking gates and she had been working on
the gate that opened into the road and it fell down about the same time
Eddie stepped into the loop. When
the gate fell, the horses made a mad dash for freedom with the mule
along with them. Eddie was
unaware that he was standing in the loop until it tightened around his
legs. He went down and was
pulled along with the horses.
My first
thought was that he would get caught in the gate.
It was a wire gate. But,
as the horses went through it caught on their feet and it was pulled out
of the way, so Eddie sailed through and into the lane.
I was running
after them as fast as I could run.
There was a lot of dust. Leo
hollered at Eddie to get a hold of the rope with his hands.
I was close enough to see him grab the rope with both hands, but
just then his hat came off and he let go of the rope, reaching
instinctively for the hat. The
horses were headed for the mountains and I couldn’t see how Eddie
could miss being smashed into the fence post, but when he got to that
point, they were going so fast that he switched out away from it.
Some of the
horses had been grazing in a field outside the gate, and that is what
saved Eddie. Some of them
turned into the field to join the horses there and they hit the rope
between Eddie and the mule and before the mule got started again, we got
the rope off. No
sooner was the rope off Eddie’s legs when the mule was gone dragging
the rope behind him.
After it was all over, we were so unstrung that we could do nothing but
count our blessings. Leo
had seen a man dragged to death and didn’t want to go through that
again. It was the main
topic of conversation for many a day.
1950's
A favorite pastime,
fishing on the Oregon Coast.