Walter Hartley came into the little country store one night and his grin was wider than the door he had just walked through.

   “How come you’re so happy tonight, Walt,” Mr. Ivan Dreath asked, “come into some money?”

   “Nope, nothing near as good as that” Mr. Hartley answered as his wide grin turned into a broadsmile and then into a soft laugh.

“I was just thinking about those two Boston friends that were doing pretty good in the insurance business so they each decided to buy a horse.”

   Here he stopped and laughed so hard tears ran down his cheeks. Once his composure was regained he continued with his story.

   “These two city friends didn’t know much about horses and had them stabled at a farm just outside the big City. Every time they went out to ride they had an awful time telling them apart. So one man told the other one they had to do something to tell which one was which. He said they had to do something to make their horses different. So the next time they came riding he brought along a pair of scissors and cut off his own horse’s mane. Now it was easy to tell which horse belonged to which man.

   For some reason the other horse got sick and his mane fell off so now they were back where they started.

   The next time they came out to ride one of them brought a butcher knife from his house and he cut off his friend’s horse’s tail. Now it was so easy to tell them apart even a blind man knew which horse was which. But fate has a funny way of doing things and one day while they were passing through it a gate closed on the horse with the long tail and tore it off. Again they were back where they had started.

   One man told the other man this would never do so the man with the knife cut off his own horse’s ear.

Wouldn’t you know that fate stepped in again and when they were riding one day it started to rain. They were headed back to the barn when a streak of lightening came from  heaven and burned off one of the ears on the other horse. Now they had an awful problem. Each one had a horse that was maneless, tailless, and only had one ear. So the smarter one of the pair told the dumber one they needed to measure the horses. They did and for once they did something smart. The measurement showed the black horse was four inches shorter than the brown one.