Damn Horses

My mother loved horses all her life. When she was young and the family moved to Pittstown after her brother was killed in a tragic accident, they invested in a plowhorse to help work the fields. The remaining brother worked with the horse, and my mother said he hated it, both the field work and the horse. Not my mother, though, she would ride that horse to school, probably her only happy memory of attending that Cooksboro school. After she married, and we kids were born, our family would visit the old homestead every two weeks. One year, on our return trip, my father pulled in to what must have been a recently opened business venture, horseback riding. Several horses were available to be ridden for what must have been a small fee, and so my mother must have saved up for us kids to have the experience of our first horseback ride. I was small enough for someone to have lifted me onto the horse, and I remember it seemed a long way up. The horse I was on would barely move, keeping its head down to eat the sparse grass growing along the edges of the "trail." I don't remember where the other kids were when the owners decided to feed the horses; they must have already returned to the starting point. Feeding the horses meant throwing hay down beneath the apple tree where the horses were stationed. When my horse saw the food, which was all he'd been interested in during the ride, he took off at a fast pace----toward the food, which was under the tree. Somehow I managed to stay on his back; that is until he reached the tree where the hay was strewn. The next thing I remembered was a bump on my forehead where my head had crashed into the tree branch. I realize now that the ranch was early LAZY J, and that the horses were probably very hungry. I also realize I will never share my mother's love for horses.