Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1945-03-09

As for the weasel, it must have
been an albino. I took it down to
Mr.. Jenkins, who bought for a fur
house in st. Louis, and sold it.
My father was cattle" farmer,
Mr.. Knabb was a "hog" farmer,
Newt Kennedy was mule man."
tor even in our neighborhood we
specialized. There>were many other
mule men, but none like Newt Ken
nedy' who got fun even out of mules.
Most farmers, when they wanted
to break" mule, gingerly hitched
him up with an old mare who could
De got into trot only by deter
mined effort, and let the mule lunge
and kick and prance beside the
Ialthful old mare. But not Newtl
Newt got his fun out of the very
thing that others dreaded. He liked
TO break mules; more than that, he
looked forward to mule-breakine
time, as children do to circus time.
Fail was undertaking time; dur
ing the hiatus between harvest and
corn picking. The mule colts had
been on grass all summer, kicking
up their heels and watching the
horses and other mules plodding off
to work. They'd run along beside.
as near as the fence would allow.
and whinny and taunt the dull plod.
oers; at least. it seemed that way.
But these gay mules didn't know
that Newt Kennedy would soon be
on their trail. Newt would go bounc-
ing along in wagon, or on a hay
frame, looking them over with a
Joyous eye. It wouldn't be long till
ne would have a nose-twitch on
them.
Usually, when a farmer wanted
to break mule, he would take
him to the back pasture so he could
swing on line and make him run
In a circle. But nothing so common
as this would do for Newt Kennedy.
When it began to chill up in the
autumn, he would say to me, "Ho-
mer, are you going to be doin' any,
thing Thursday morning?"
never was, if Newt wanted me.
It was understood l was to say
nothing to anyone, for Nevis mule
methods were frowned on. They
might like him fifty-one weeks a
year, but mule-breaking week they
had no use at all for him.
would go out the back way. so
as to appear to be about my work
"a suspicious item) and cut across
the fields to Nevis. l could see
the mules even before got there,
for they would be running around in
the barn lot, the widest things on
four legs, and the trickiest. And
the smartest, too, for a mule is
miles ahead of a horse in horse
sense. 1t really ought to be called
mule sense"
Il thought maybe you'd like to
help me break" he would say and
we would 60 to the horse lot where
the mules were racing around and
around with their heads as high as
giraffes. Newt would stand there,
his arms on the fence, looking them
over, as a fisherman might look
over a trout he was going to have
his way with.
The thing was to get rope around
the neck of one of them. Newt
would approach with a rope held
behind him, and suddenly send it
looping through the air, like a cow
boy. If the rope landed, it was hell.
Newt and would have to sink our
heels in the ground and hang on
for dear life. OF course the mule
couldn't 60 out of the lot, so we
would stand in the middle, like a
ringmaster at circus, and let the
mule run round and round.
After a time we'd get him into a
chute that Newt had for the pur-
pose and leave him, as Newt said,
to think it over" and then go
back for another mule This one
usually would be in harness and
considered partly broken. Newt
would not have dreamed of putting
an old plug-ugly pillow horse in to
break mule with. Newt wanted to
get fun out of his work.
After time we'd have the partly
broken second mule in, and
snubbed; then we'd go back to the
first mule and Newt would pretend
he loved that mule. He'd stroke his
nose and talk to him in honeyed
words, but Newt had something be-
hind his back. The witch. This
was stick as long as a persons
arm, with loop of rope at the end.
Newt would get the loop over the
mules upper lip and twist it tight,
and pass the stick to me. The
mules head would 60 down and his
heels up. But usually l could hold
him, in spite of all the ideas he had
on the subject. Newt would creep
up with collar and slip it over his
neck. Bit by bit he would get the
harness on the mule and then the
harness on the second mule. Then
would come the tremendous job OF
getting the mules to wagon tongue.
Only Newt could do that, sometimes