Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Billy and Nanny

Our Billy and Nanny were permitted to run free just above town. Dad and some friends had corrals for a couple of milk cows, and a horse or two. They had a warm shed for the cows and a smaller corral for hay. Well, Billy and Nanny would go from one corral to the other. No one paid any attention to what corral they were in or whose hay they were eating. Because they were such wonderful pets, the children in the neighborhood, along with my brothers and me, would all play with Billy and Nanny. When it came to the goats, we were all like family. The goats sort of belonged to all of us.

Everyone thought a lot of the goats. They would follow us kids to the post office, the store, the butcher shop, and amusement hall. Everywhere we went, Billy and Nanny would follow and play with us - jumping, bunting, running, etc. That is the reason, the people accepted and loved those two goats.

Then one day they both came up missing. Both gone! What had happened to Nanny and Billy? Some thought someone had butchered them to eat, but our dad said, “No one would do that, not to Billy and Nanny.”

In the early days of Sunnyside, where we lived, droves of cattle and large herds of sheep and goats passed up and down the canyon going to and from the summer range. Dad felt when one of the herds was passing up or down the canyon, Billy and Nanny had just joined them. But herds had passed up and down the canyon before, and Billy and Nanny had never acted like they wanted to leave and go with them. Maybe this time, the herders helped them to leave.

Anyway, Billy and Nanny were gone and all of us kids, parents included, really felt bad. I know because I was one of them. I was only five or six, but I still remember how sad we all were to lose Billy and Nanny. They were our pals and then they were gone. The bottom of the sack came open and the contents were gone. All of us young squirts had a vacant space inside our hearts.

Days, months went by. Time flies on the wings of lightening. At last beautiful spring, perhaps April or May came. One day a large herd of goats were passing and what do you know, boy howdy, a Nanny goat left the herd and ran over to our corral and into her old stall where we used to feed Nanny and Billy all the time. Holy smokes! It was Nanny! My brothers, Dell and Andy, knew it. I knew it. So did the other kids who happened to be present.

“Boy oh boy, Nanny you’ve come home!” We threw our arms about her neck hugging her and saying, “Nanny, don’t ever leave us again.” All us kids were about as tickled as a hog in a cool pond on a hot day! But Nanny was different. Her ears were cut - earmarked. Her wool, that had been so long and beautiful, was gone. Nevertheless, we knew it was Nanny.

Just then, a big dark man with beady eyes and long black whiskers came into the coral and in very broken English said, “What ta you a thinka you a doin? Turn a my goat loose.” Dell, Andy. Mort, all us kids, said, “This is not your goat!” The big man with the beady eyes said, “I tell a you thatsa my goat.” He took Nanny by the horns and dragged her out of the corral gate and gave her a hard kick and hit her with a long stick with a hook on it, all the time swearing in Greek. Poor Nanny could do nothing but join the herd that was still passing down the canyon.

Dell, Andy and I told the Greek, “We wish our dad was here because he’d beat the hell out of you. You big, black, blankedy blank. That goat don’t belong to you.”

Old Nanny sure didn’t want to leave us. She started to run in a big circle to get back into the corral, but the Greek had two or three dogs and he set them on poor old Nanny. The dogs ran to the front of her and made her turn back and join the herd. That was the last any of us saw Nanny, but it was only the beginning of what, I believe, was the biggest goat steal by young kids who were still wet behind the ears and whose ages in life had to be between six and eleven years.

Dad was told about Nanny coming to the corral and about the Greek man with the black whiskers and beady eyes, but he said, “Well boys, you say Nanny was sheared and earmarked. I’m sure she is your Nanny. However, there is no way to prove it. We didn’t mark her in any way and that goat man has his earmark recorded in the state capital in Salt Lake City. Besides to walk among three are four thousand goats and pick out a certain one and claim it as yours, would be impossible. No judge or anyone else would accept that as proof. So, I would suggest you forget your goats and one of these days, we’ll try and buy you boys another Billy and Nanny to take their place.”

Well, we didn’t like what dad had told us, but would have to accept it for the present. We knew dad didn’t want to be caught in the middle of things. If dad had any way whatsoever to prove what goat was Nanny, he would have done so. Not just because he loved us boys, but he also thought a lot of them two goats and the wonderful pets they had been.

Dell and Andy weren’t old enough to know which ends up. But they did have the minds of memory and the feeling of love for old Billy and Nanny. On the morrow, they would go to the goat ranch about a mile and a half from where we lived and try to find and get Nanny and Billy too, if they could find them and bring them home again.

The next morning, they set out walking down through upper town, middle town, and lower town. They continued on till they reached the cedars and the goat ranch corrals. They talked to a man and asked him for their Nanny and Billy, but the man said he didn’t have them and the best thing for Dell and Andy to do was to get out of there. So they left and went a short distance. Then Dell said to Andy, “Let’s go back to the corrals.” So back they went and when they got back to the corrals, there was no one around that they could see.

There were three or four tight, wind brush, corrals joined together, and all that was in the enclosure or corrals, were little kid lambs. All the big goats were being herded in the hills until evening, and then they would be brought to the corrals where they would nurse their lambs and some would be milked.

Dell said to Andy, “You know what? I’m thinking they took our Billy and Nanny, so why don’t we take two of these kid goats?” Andy said he was thinking the same thing. “Let’s do it! So into the corrals they went. There were several hundred lambs, so it was no trouble at all for them each to catch a little lamb, but their hearts were beating like sledge hammers in their excitement. They followed a wash , a tributary that dumped into the big Sunnyside creek. Then they turned up the Sunnyside creek until they got to the lower end of town. On and on they went, taking extra care not to be seen.

Dell said, “You know, Andy, maybe these are Nanny’s babies. Maybe Billy is their father.” “Yeh, Dell, I’ve been thinking the same thing. Even if they aren’t Nanny’s and Billy’s babies, I know Nanny has got some baby lambs of her own by now, don’t you think so, Dell? Dell replied, “Yes, and even if Nanny doesn’t have any babies, what about Billy and Nanny? They stole them from us. Nanny even came into our corral. We know it was her so we’re getting back only what really belongs to us. Besides Billy and Nanny are worth a lot more than these two kid goats are worth. “

“What kind of a story are we going to tell mom and dad. If we tell them we stole the goats, dad will give us a lickin and a hard one.” “I know,” said Andy, “we’ve got to think of something real fast cause we’ll soon be home. “

Dell and Andy came bursting into the house all excited and all aglow. “Look mama and dad. We’ve got two little kid goats! Aren’t they cute?” Dad and mama spoke at the same time asking where in the world did they get them. “Oh, a Greek man gave them to us. We went down to the goat ranch and told the Greek man with the black beard that we wanted our Nanny and our Billy back. We know you got them and we want them back!” The Greek man said “How a many a times sa I tell a you keets I a no gotta your goatsa. Huh! I a no want ta you a keets a makin me a troubles. Huh. I give a you each a little kidsa goat. Ok. What a you say keets? So that’s how we got the little kid goats.”

I want to tell ya that is what you call putting the big britches on your parents and they fell for it hook, line and sinker. I must admit, it was a likely story. I don’t exactly know what they told mom and dad, but it did the trick. This I do know, dad was very honest and very strict and if he knew Andy and Dell had come by those kid goats the way they did, there would have been hell to pay. This I want my grandchildren to know, their grandfather Peterson was a man to be admired by any standard.

A couple of days later the news spread like wildfire. The Peterson kids had two nice kid goats! The goats were old enough to live good off cow’s mile. All the kids wanted to know how we got the lambs, and, I can imagine to their close friends, Dell and Andy told the truth. They had stolen the goats. All you had to do, was to go down to the goat ranch and pick yourself up a lamb. During the day, hardly anyone was around, so it was easy pickings. There were several hundred kid goats in the corrals. Boy howdy! I hope to plug a skunk if this isn’t true. Any boy that ever lived who ever seen a little kid goat wanted it! Can’t help it. They are beautiful. What do ya notice when you visit old cemeteries? You see kid goats on head stones, sculptured in the stone, because of a token of love and beauty.

Every boy, who ever saw a kid goat, wanted one! And is it any wonder. All these boys knew Billy and Nanny. They had seen them and been with us when Billy and Nanny followed us to the store, post office after mail, butcher shop, etc. And these two little kid goats would do the same thing some day. So the goat steal started.

About this time, my dad, who owned one of the first cars I had ever seen, took Andy and went to Idaho, leaving the rest of the family at Sunnyside. Well, most of the boys who played with Dell and Andy began to go down to the goat ranch to steal one of those kid goats. There were at least fifteen and maybe more involved. All so young, from six years, which happened to be my age, on up. All had gone to the goat ranch at different times and taken a little kid goat.

My cousin, Merg Magann, went and got a lamb, brought it home, had it a day or two, and it died. So he and a couple of kids took a shovel, dug a hole and buried it. A bigger and older kid nicknamed Puke coaxed me and my friend, Alford Turner, to go to the goat ranch with him to steal goats. It was in the evening and the Greek people were at the corral milking goats and doing other chores. We tried to keep ourselves hidden or concealed as much as possible. Hiding and sneaking along washes, following old Puke and doing exactly everything he told us to do.

Finally we gained to the side of the goat corrals. There were three or four corrals joined together. Each tight woven together with net wire, brush cedar bows, and weeds to keep the wind and cold out. Puke left Alford and me and told us to wait while he looked the land over. In about ten minutes, he came back and told us to follow him. He led us to a point, and then he told us to go up along the side of the corral until we would come to a little wooden gate. He told us there were a lot of lambs but that, he wanted us to get a particular one for him. It was all black with just a little white on its head. He said, “I want you to get that black lamb for me.” Alford and I both told Puke to go to hell. We said, “There are men in those other corrals and they’ll catch us for sure. Plus, you know a lot of kid goats have been stolen and they’ll be a watchin.” Puke said, “If you don’t go and get that little black goat for me, I’ll beat the hell out of you and I don’t mean maybe!”

Now, Alford and I are only around six years of age and Puke was around eleven so when he told us again, “If you don’t want a beaten, get going.” We did. Alford and I looked at each other and gained courage, I guess, and we took off up along the fence and to the corral as quiet as possible to the little gate. We were both as scared as a coyote would be on state street in Salt Lake City.

Into the corral we crept. There were a lot of big goats also in the corral, their lambs were after the groceries, sucking, getting their supper. To find that particular black lamb among all of them big mama goats plus baby kid goats, seemed impossible. Just too big of a job for us two short horn boys. We could hear the Greek men talking around us, which didn’t help to take away our fear. Finally, Alford and I just picked up a little white lamb and hurriedly got out of there and ran into the wash where Puke was waiting.

Boy howdy, was Puke mad! He said, “I told you guys I wanted that little black lamb, not a white one. “I’ve seen greed stickin out of a hog's eyes before, but never like I saw it stickin out of Puke's eyes at that moment! He grabbed Alford by the front of his overalls and really shook him up. At the same time, telling us to go back and get that little black lamb. Puke looked at me and said, “Cotton, I’ll give you the same thing if you don’t help him.” I looked Puke straight in the eye and said, “If you so much as lay a finger on me, I will tell my brothers and they will eat you and you know it.” Puke wouldn’t let it go and turned again to Alford and told him to go and get that black goat, telling him that he would work him over if he didn’t do as he was told. I said to Alford, “Don’t go.” But Alford said, “I gotta, Cotton, or Puke will beat me up." Please come and go with me.”

So we took the little white lamb back with us, up the wash to the side of the corral, and through the little gate where we turned the lamb loose. All at once the man, with the black beard and the beady eyes was there. Boy howdy, was we scared! He hooked mean, to us kids anyway, and he never seen us when we had the lamb. He said, “What ta hell a you a keets a doin here?“ We hemmed and hawed, trying to think up a good excuse. The man with the beady eyes said, “You a steal a my a goats a huh? Me a catch cha you. Now you go a hurry up a quick and a go.” Boy howdy, we left!

We never went back down the wash, just took across the flat towards the road. Puke seen us and before we got home, he caught up with us. He wanted to know everything that happened. After we told him, we said, “If you hadn’t been such a hog about getting that little black lamb, he would of at least had the white one.” As I recall, Puke already had a lamb at home and just wanted another one.

One morning around 8:00 a.m., there came a knock on the door. I opened the door and to my amazement there, on the porch, stood old Fat Tucker, the town marshal, and a Greek man was with him. Marshal Tucker said, “Is Mr. Peterson home.” I said, “No, he went to Idaho.” He then asked for mama and she appeared, asking the marshal what was wrong. All of us kids called Marshal Tucker fat behind his back. We didn’t like him and I don’t think he liked any of the kids either. He was a big man and had a big belly. He always rode a white horse. More than once, he took me home as fast as my little legs would carry me. Tucker’s whip , quirt, just a missing my rump.

In those days, they had outside water taps, and four or five houses or families would use the same tap to get their water. Well, I had control of the tap, which had a lot of pressure. The women were standing around trying to get their water, and each time, I would squirt them when they would rush me. Of course, I was small and the women were laughing and getting a big kick out of it and seemed to be having as much fun as I was. They kept telling me, “Fat Tucker is coming.” I didn’t believe them and didn’t take time to look, on account they would rush me and get control of the water tap and give my head a ducking under the tap.

This had been going on for some time, when all at once, I could hear a horse’s feet running. I looked and sure enough there was Fat Tucker on his horse. I started to run as fast as I could go. I ran to the closest house and ran around it as fast as I could with old Tucker swinging his quirt and a hollering, “I’ll get you! I’ll get you!” I could make the corners of the house faster on foot than Tucker could on the horse. Finally, he slowed down a bit, and I took off toward another house trying to get home. I believe he took a little hide off my rump that time with his quirt. Strange as it may seem , the women at the water tap were on my side. I could hear them hollering, “Run, Cotton, run. Don’t let Tucker catch you.” These women liked that little white headed kid even if he did squirt water on them. Finally Tucker quit chasing me and let me go. I don’t think he even told dad and mama. Nevertheless, I didn’t like Fat Tucker and neither did any other kid in town.

So, there on the porch, stood the marshal and this Greek. He said, “Mrs. Peterson, almost all of the boys in upper town have been stealing this man’s goats, and these kids outside here tell us your boys have a couple of lamb goats.” Mama said, “Yes, my boys have two little goats given to them by a goat man down at the goat ranch. How about it, Dell?” Well, I suppose, Dell knew the truth would have to come out so, he told mama the truth that they had taken the goats. Mama was terribly embarrassed. She said, “Dell, you mean you actually stole them two lambs?” Dell said “Yes, but remember mama, they stole Billy and Nanny from us. We only took what we thought belonged to us.”

Dell told Fat Tucker all about our Billy and Nanny and how Nanny had even come back to our corral. When Tucker asked the goat man about it, he, of course, denied all of it. He said, “You thinka me a steal a goat. I got lotsa goats. These people makea me crazy. I no a steala goat.”

Marshal Tucker said to mama, “Maybe your boys do have an argument, but they don’t have any proof. What we’re doing is rounding up all these boys, along with the lambs they have taken and we’re taking them down to the goat ranch. We are having a judge come out from Price and he’ll decide what is to be done . Your boys won’t be harmed in any way, so please let them come along.” Mama said, “Ok, but if one of them boys is harmed in any way, it will be too bad for you.”

Tucker and his deputy, along with the goat man, already had a bunch of boys with them. Most of the boys were carrying a lamb. As I recall, there was also a buggy which belonged to the Greek.
My cousin, Merg, was staying with us, and the goat which he got was the one that had died and we had buried it. Someone blew the whistle and told about the dead goat, which had been buried a couple of days. Fat Tucker told Merg to dig it up. Merge said, “I’m not digging up a dead goat!” Tucker asked the goat man if he had to have the dead goat. The goat man said that he needed it for evidence to make someone pay for the goat. Merg argued, but after the marshal threatened to put him in the stone jail all by himself and our friends said they would help, he relented and they went and dug up the dead goat. It had started to smell and wasn’t too nice to look at.

The marshal then told us to start walking down to the goat ranch. Merg had put the dead lamb down on the ground, and he refused to pick it up. He said he wasn’t going to pack no dead lamb and that if they wanted it, they would have to put it in the buggy. Merg had guts and even told them to go to hell. Fat Tucker said, “No, you pack it. Maybe packing it would teach him a lesson to not steal goats.” Merg picked it up and started walking with the rest of us. We were strung out and the marshal left, leaving the deputy in charge.

Merg he don’t plan, no way, to pack that dead goat clear down to the goat ranch, and when we came to a creek or wash, he figured it was a good place to dump the lamb. He walked over and threw the goat down into the wash. There were two goat men riding in the buggy and one of them saw what Merg did. He said to Merg, “You a go a get a that ta goat.” Again, Merg told them where to go. He was only about nine years of age, but he was no way afraid of those Greek goat herders.

Back then, a Greek goat man and others wore a six gun in a holster with a belt full of bullets. The gun hung on their hips in plain sight. Others wore their guns under their coats. Sunnyside was a coal mining town with lots of foreigners or people who didn’t speak hardly, if any, English. Trust hadn’t been built yet, and there had been a few killings at Sunnyside and around the county, so it wasn’t a really good idea to upset one of those carrying a gun. That was one of the reasons mama had told the marshal that nothing had better happen to any of the boys.

One of the herdsmen went down into the wash to retrieve the dead goat while most of us boys stopped walking to watch the altercation. The deputy, who had been riding his horse up front, showed up and insisted that Merg carry the dead goat, which he finally did, and we started walking again. We came to a bridge, which crossed a much larger and more important creek than the previous one, and again, a very “mad” Merg walked over to the edge of the bridge and dropped the goat. The creek was deep and the banks steep, so Merg said, “Let’s see one of you Greek blankedy blanks make me go down and get that dead goat?” Boy howdy, those Greek goat men had a fit. Talk about mad! Boy, I wanna tell ya the air was blue with a folly of Greek cuss words and oaths which we couldn’t understand.

Hot dog, I saw all that was going on, and I am as tickled as a cat that has just caught a mouse. Cousin Merg had licked those goat herders, brought them to a stand still. He was hell with hide jerked off. They didn’t know how to handle him. Further more, Merg told them he wasn’t gonna walk another step. The deputy told the herders to put Merg in between, in the buggy, which they did and we were off again. Being Merg was my cousin, I tried to stay as close to him as I could so that I could tell dad if something happened to him.

When we got to the goat ranch, they locked all of us in a rock cellar. We were in the cellar maybe five or six hours, maybe longer, I’m not sure. It seems we waited an awfully long time for someone to come. We were also hungry. Whenever one of the Greeks would open the door, the older boys would say, “Just you wait until our dads get home from work (the coal mine or whatever). They’ll all be down here and beat the hell out of all of you. Just you wait and see.” I know this had the Greeks a little worried, because that is exactly what would have happened if we hadn’t gotten turned loose when we did.

Cousin Merg had a thirty-eight six shoot, a pistol, a real gun. However, the gun wasn’t working. The trigger or hammer wasn’t working on it, and he was using it as a toy. He asked us if we wanted to escape, which we did, so he said, after pulling the gun out from under his shirt, “You all know this gun is broke, but them goat men don’t know it and the next time one of them opens the cellar door, I’ll push this six gun into his guts and make him stick his hands up. Then one of you take his six gun out of its holster and we will escape. How about it? Are all of you with me or not?” My brother Dell said, “I’m with you all the way.” One after another, each boy said, “I’m with you, all the way.”

Merg stood at the side of the door and we all started to holler for water. We could hear someone coming and then, we could hear his keys rattling as he unlocked the door of the cellar. And what do you know, but who should it be, but ole beady eyes, ole black beard with the fat belly. He had stepped into the cellar. Coming out of the light and into the darkened cellar, he couldn’t see so good. Cousin Merg shoved that six gun barrel a couple of inches into ole beady eyes belly saying at the same time, “Stick up your blankedy blank hands and hurry up before I blow a hole clear through you!” Boy howdy, old beady eyes knew it was a gun and was he surprised! I don’t mean to cut the record short, but beady eyes was plumb scared! His hands shot up in the air as high as he could get them. He began to beg, “Pleasa boys, no a shoot a, please a no a shoot ta.”

One of the boys was trying to get beady eyes six gun out of his holster and was having trouble getting the flap undone. The holster just wouldn’t come undone. About then, ole Puke spoke up and said to beady eyes, “Don’t be afraid, that gun is broke and it don’t work!” Beady eyes, quick as a flash, reached down and grabbed the gun out of Merg’s hands and gave him a good cuff to the side of his head.
Ole Puke thought he was getting on the good side of beady eyes by telling him about the gun. But ole Puke lost all his friends, then and there. For a long time afterwards, whenever one of the older boys saw Puke anywhere, they would threaten him and, I believe, he took a few hits because of his blowing the whistle. Perhaps we could have gotten away or maybe one or more of us could have been killed, if one of the other herdsmen saw us with a gun and thought we would use it. So, I think now, that Puke’s telling was a good thing. However, after beady eyes left the cellar, everyone turned on poor Puke.

In those days, the roads were just plain dirt, wash boardy, with lots of chuck holes. Travel was very slow, specially in a Model T Ford, and so no one showed up from Price, as the marshal had stated. It was a long day for all of us boys and we just wanted to go home, which we would tell the Greeks whenever they would come around. “Quick as our dads get home from work, they will be down here and they’ll beat the hell out of you goat herders.”

About five or so, the herders came and told us we could go home. We were tickled. One of the boys said to the herders, “You were getting worried about our dads coming weren’t you? They would have beat you up and you know it.”

We started to walk home and hadn’t gone very far, when, sure enough, here came all the kids’ fathers and most of their mothers. What I mean, they were angry, plumb mad! Old Fat Tucker and his deputy were with them, trying to restrain or get them to cool down. The fathers and mothers felt better after seeing all us kids and that we were ok. Still, some of the men wanted to go on to the goat ranch to get rid of some of their anger. It took a lot of talking from Marshal Tucker to keep them from doing so. The parents didn’t have much respect for the way the marshal had handled the whole affair.

That was the end of the great goat rustling escapade, which was all done by kids from the age of six to eleven. The judge from Price never did show up and perhaps was never meant to. It was a tool that was used to give us a good scare. I doubt that any of us ever stole another goat, so the tactic must have worked.

I never did steal a lamb. I made one trip to the goat ranch with Alford Turner and Puke McMullin. Andy and Dell started the thing; however, they certainly figured they had a right to do so because of Billy and Nanny.

The story is true, the story about Merg Magann and the dead goat is true, the story about the gun is also true. Merg Magann is living at Helper at the time of this writing. He did have guts, and I had to admire him for this. Merg is now about 68 or 69 years old.

This about covers the territory. I want it understood, God said, “Thou shalt not steel.” As a boy and sometimes as a young man in my early teens, I may have overstepped the bounds of right and wrong, nothing real serious. After receiving a real testimony of the gospel, I am grateful for the gospel of repentance.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Wrecked Stagecoach

Dell and Andrew, perhaps ten and eight years old, doing odd jobs for dad and mother were paid in the amount of $2.50. The town of Sunnyside was approximately two miles long and in the mouth of Whitmore Canyon, we lived in upper town. There was upper town, middle town, and lower town, and then the wide open spaces.

At lower town there lived an Italian kid whose name was Dominick Palonie. He would be about three or four years older than Dell and Andy. Anyway, Dell and Andy gave Dominick the $2.50 for a little kid goat. They named her Nanny. It appears Dominick was herding goats and had a right to sell Dell and Andy that little kid goat. At the time of this writing, Dominick has been dead several years. We went to school and worked in the coal mines with him. He was a fine boy and became a good man. My brother Dell, he also passed away 1968. Dell and Andy had another goat they called Billy. Billy and Nanny became wonder pets. They followed us boys wherever we went. We loved these goats and were very fond of them. We played with them every day.


Andrew Mortensen was our neighbor. He had a large family. His oldest son Mort was the same age as Dell, and Lloyd (Salty) same age as Andy. These four boys, with me always tagging along, borrowed a nice new little real wagon from Jimmy Wilson a kid from another large family. Well, Dell, Mort, Andy, Lloyd worked a couple days making a wagon tongue, hooking it to the Wilson wagon on a pair of double trees, a harness for the goats. After much arguing and sweat, the job was finally done. Now the next thing to do was to hook the goats to the wagon. Billy and Nanny were full grown by this time and they were good and strong. Well, they finally got the goats hooked up to the wagon, then they argued about who was going to ride in the wagon and drive the goats. Dell and Mort said, “We are older, we should drive the goats.” Andy and Salty said, “No, we’re lighter, we should drive the stage coach.” I don’t know how they finally settled the problem, but Salty won out and he was selected to be the one to have the first go round with the stage coach. I think Salty was, by nature, the loudest talker. He was the kind of a kid who always seemed to be in the middle of things. No matter how hot or how rough the going was, old Salty was in the picture.

Old Salty gets in the stagecoach. He said, “Gimme the ribbons-lines boys. Let’s get this stage coach on the road. The mail has gotta go through, wind or snow. Gimme the lines, boys, and turn these ponies loose.” Now all us kids had seen silent Western pictures. The wagon in our minds was a nice big stage coach. The goats, Billy and Nanny, were four head of stage coach horses, and the mail, a couple old papers in a gunny sack. We were ready for business. By this time, a lot of kids had gathered, anxious to see the mail leave town in a cloud of dust.

Dell and Mort each had a hold of Billy and Nanny. Andy handed the lines to Salty, Dell and Mort each let go of Billy and Nanny. Old Salty let out a squall and the mail was on its way! There was a dirt road going up and down the canyon. They had the wagon or stage coach, Billy and Nanny, in the center of the road, thinking the goats would stay in the road. Well, they stayed with the road for about fifty or sixty feet then they crossed to the upper side and off among the rocks, boulders, hitting one big rock after another. The driver, Salty, lost the lines trying to hang on to the Wilson wagon. Holy smokes! Bumping over rocks and hitting one big rock after another, old Salty was thrown out of the wagon or, in our minds, the stage coach.

Now, Billy and Nanny didn’t have Salty’s weight to contend with, the stage coach much lighter, they went much faster. Bumpidy bump over the rocks and boulders. Dell, Mort, Andy, Salty, myself all trying to catch the stage coach team. Pretty soon they hit a big boulder and a piece of the new red wagon box went flying in the air, then a wheel came off, then more wagon box broke off, another wheel. Boy howdy, this is plumb bad! The little Wilson kids crying, “Hey! They’re breaking our wagon all to pieces!” Then Billy and Nanny came completely loose and raced on to the corral and safety. The wagon was almost new but now completely wrecked. Mr. Wilson had at least twelve children, and it was hard for them to come by a wagon. The Wilson kids were crying, other kids were laughing, just a ha hahing. I still laugh! It was really very very exciting and really funny to all us kids, except the Wilson kids who owned the little red wagon. It wasn’t too small, two or three kids could ride in it while a couple kids took hold of the handle and pulled it.

Well, to make a long story short, I, Dell, and Andy told dad and mama, so did the Mortensen boys tell their folks. Our fathers went to the Wilson home and then had them buy a better wagon, and dad and Andrew Mortensen paid for it. Therefore, the Wilsons were happy, we were happy, Nanny and Billy were happy. Everybody happy. A wonderful world to live in.