Its strange how a word can trigger a memory. We were cleaning up after breakfast yesterday and my sister Et asked if I ever thought of the old black buggy that Daddy bought when we were teenagers. I hadn’t thought of that in years but just the mention of it brought back so many memories. Nowadays they come in droves anyway and I welcome every one with open arms. They are reminding me of happy times when I was young and carefree with my whole life opening before me like a rose beginning to bloom. There will always be sad memories too but they are welcome as well because they are the most tender of all. It may be a song that I hear on the radio, a voice in a crowd that sounds familiar or when I see a young couple walking along holding hands and smiling. They make the day seem shorter. When I close my eyes I see the images in my mind as clear as a movie playing onscreen and I can enjoy them all over again.
The time line of the buggy escapes me but it must have been in the early forties. Most people thought I was older than Et. Daddy always expected me to be the one who took care of us when we were away from home. It had nothing to do with brains or brawn. It was just the fact that I was more assertive. Et was shy back then but she had a mind of her own and let us know when we crossed the line. She still does.
School was out for the day. I rushed home, carried my books to the bedroom and threw them across the bed. They wouldn’t be needed again until the next morning anyway. While walking down the hall toward the kitchen, I looked out the back door and there, pretty as you please, was a black shiny buggy with the top pushed back over the seat. I ran to the back door as fast as I could to see if my eyes were deceiving me. It was still there but now there was a beautiful black horse standing near it. Daddy was holding the horse and one of his friends was standing there with him. The horse reminded me of Black Beauty only his mane wasn’t flowing down his neck. It had been cut and was standing up about four inches all the way from his head down his neck like the hair of a Mohawk Indian. I didn’t slow down until I reached the barn. Daddy raised his hand in a “stop right where you are” gesture and said, “Be still, don’t spook him.” I don’t know what he thought I intended to do. I just wanted to watch.
I inched in closer. It looked like Daddy might have reached into an old western movie and stole the doctor’s rig. By this time they were hitching the horse to the buggy and soon had it ready to go. Wilson, the friend, rode horses a lot and sometimes rode the ones Daddy owned to exercise them. He got in the buggy and rode out toward the field beside our house. Daddy and I and watched as he went around and around turning left and right to see how the horse responded. Then he came back to where we were standing. Daddy asked if I wanted to take a ride and helped me up on the seat. It thrilled me to death. He told Wilson to show me how to hold the reins and guide the horse around the field. I was so proud I could hardly sit still. After making a few rounds in the field we went back to where Daddy was standing and he and Wilson went for a ride. They went out on the highway and were gone for a good while. When they returned they unhitched the horse and put it in the stall Daddy built for horses he kept from time to time.
At suppertime we heard all about the horse and buggy. Daddy told us he traded with some man for both and thought he might hold on to them for a while. He would see.
After seeing how gentle the horse was, Daddy let us take him out for a ride after school and on Sundays. I had to practice in the field for a week or so but that didn’t matter. We couldn’t hitch him up but I could handle the horse and buggy. We didn’t venture far from the house at first but after a few weeks we felt more confident and would ride down Matson Street, around the field or over across the main highway to my cousin Lucille’s house. Three of us could sit on the seat and two or three could stand behind the seat when the top was folded down. It was a bit hard to squeeze into that area but we managed by standing the whole time. We always chose the roads where we could turn right or left. I didn’t feel too good about trying a U-turn.
One Sunday afternoon five of us started out from home for our Sunday outing. We went south on the bypass until we reached 601. We turned left and rode down through town on Main Street. Most of the young people driving their family cars would park along the street and visit there on Sundays. It was like a one man parade. Everyone was waving at us and we waved back. We continued on toward the mill and up to the area where we would turn back on the bypass. There were more people out driving that day and we pulled into a side road to wait for the heavy traffic to pass before crossing the main highway. The road we were on was a short drive through that connected the main highway to the Fork Hill Road running parallel to 601. It wasn't paved and had a lot of white sand and ruts left where the cars used it to make U-turns back onto the highway.
A car full of young people went by and began waving and the driver pushed down on the horn just as he reached the spot where we were sitting. It spooked the horse and it reared up suddenly and scared the life out of me. I jerked on the reins and the horse turned and reared again. The front left wheel went up under the bottom of the buggy causing it to tilt sideways. Lucille and Valeria thought it was turning over and jumped out on the right side of the buggy screaming and scared the horse again. Et, Doris, and I were still in the seat and they wouldn’t leave me. After the car went by we waited until the horse calmed down and pulled on the reins again to try to get the wheel out from under the buggy. I was surprised when it worked. After the others were back in place, we went across the road back to the bypass and down Matson Street until we reached home. When we got there Daddy was getting in his car. When he saw us he came over and grabbed the horse by the halter and led him back to the barn. He told everyone to get out and unhitched the horse, put him in his stall and pulled the buggy around to the side of the barn.
We found out afterwards that someone had seen the horse rearing while we were waiting to cross the highway. They went straight to our house and told Daddy the horse had run away with us and we were going to get killed in that buggy. We told Daddy it wasn’t true but it scared him so bad that he didn’t believe us. He didn’t talk to us about it that night and I wondered what he was thinking. I found out the next day. He carried the buggy to the sale on Wednesday and sold it at auction. It made me sick. We had such a good time riding in that old buggy and had just begun to feel safe on the road. He kept the horse and I did get to ride it but I sure missed the buggy. We didn’t even get a picture of it. How I would love to have one now of the horse, the buggy and those dear friends of so long ago.
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