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Last week we read about Miss Ada and the mule. This week we’ll talk about some characteristics of mules and other draft animals, as well as share some other stories about them.
Mules, of course, are half-donkey and half- horse, and were long valued in agricultural circles for their stamina, strength, and ability to work. But just as every dog comes with at least one flea, every mule comes with at least two figurative ones – stubbornness and extreme flatulence.
We’ve all heard the expression, “Stubborn as a mule!” It sort of goes hand in hand with those oft-used expressions involving other draft animals, “Dumb as an ox!” and “Strong as an ox.” But of course a mule is a hybrid of two types of animals, while “ox” is more of a job description than anything else. In short, an ox is a cow used for draft work, no more, no less.
The only stories your compiler is aware of regarding oxen are those involving Paul Bunyan’s blue ox, Babe, and the teaching of Jesus that it’s okay to violate Sabbath rest in order to get one’s ox out of ditch. But mule stories – oh, my heavens!
Fayette author Ferrol “Sambo” Sams (1922-2013) wrote of one day in the 1930s having to plow the most uncooperative mule on the Sams place, who apparently could have gained a starring role in the campfire scene of “Blazing Saddles.” Sambo reached into his pocket, pulled out a match, struck it on the plow stock, and held it up near the mule’s raised tail. “A flame leapt out as long as a man’s arm,” Sambo wrote, and the mule took off uncontrollably in circles, wrecking a full acre of budding cotton before she could be brought under control.
A few years later, in 1942, John Cavender (1920-1980) of Brooks was plowing a mule one day with a fellow named Nonie Goodman (1911-1980), when Nonie (which rhymes with “pony”) saw John sling his plow across about three rows of cotton and stalk out of the field. Following him to see what was wrong, John told him, “That’s the last time in my life I ever intend to smell a mule’s flatus. I’m going to Fayetteville to enlist.”
While John didn’t use those exact words in the first sentence of his declaration, he did go and enlist, and turned out to be a triple veteran, serving in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. He married a European girl, brought her back to Brooks (where she still lives to this day), and raised two sons before dying of exposure to Agent Orange at age 60. The younger Cavender son gives great credit to that gassy mule in 1942, for “Daddy might never had met Mama, and I might not be here. I might not be me, if it were not for that mule.”
The last mule story we will relate today is another tale Sambo told your compiler once, about an old Fayette farmer named Spurlin Kinkaid, who was nearly pestered to death by his new neighbor, who wanted the mule Mr. Spurlin never used anymore. But Mr. Spurlin, although by then plowing with a gas-powered tiller, loved the old mule and wanted to keep him. The neighbor badgered on and on till Mr. Spurlin finally gave in one evening and accepted the $100 that the neighbor proffered.
The neighbor led the mule home, tied it in his barn with plenty of fresh food and water, and went inside for the night. He awakened the next morning to find the mule lying dead in his barn, and he filed suit against Mr. Spurlin.
In court, the neighbor’s lawyer alleged that Spurlin Kinkaid had intentionally sought to defraud the neighbor by selling him a defective mule – a mule that died on the night of purchase. Mr. Spurlin, who was representing himself in the legal matter, shook his head at this allegation. The judge asked, “Mr. Kinkaid, what do you have to say to these charges? How do you explain having sold a mule that died that very night?”
Mr. Spurlin’s reply was as clear a response as has ever been given. “That old mule never done that while I had him.” Unarguably the truth, it won the case for Mr. Spurlin, and he got to keep his $100. One might say Mr. Spurlin was stubborn, smart, and strong!
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