I BUY ME COUPLE HORSES

All I said was——

“I’m movin’ out where I can have couple horses.”

I didn’t say when, how or where. The movin’ vans ain’t got quite all my worldly plunder through the front gate, when horses began to come. Trailers loaded with horses; a lot of peddlin’ cowboys, workin’ on commission—beatin’ the Universal Zoo lions out of a meal.

“This here horse is worth twelve hundred, pardner. Five gaited, sound as a dollar, and as kind as a—as kind as a—well, he’s kind, thasall.”

“What’s the extra thousand for—haulin’ him out here?” I asks.

I took him on approval and found he was kind—the kind that eats your shirt. And I paid twelve dollars for that shirt. The next one was a polo pony, which whirled so quick that my hat was on backwards when we stopped. I got off and found that my chaps had turned around on me, too. That was too fast. I took another on approval, ’cause he didn’t try to bite me—and found out his teeth were all gone. They told his age by the rings on his hoofs.

Then I got weak minded and bought a horse. But I sure worked up a reputation as a discriminatin’ judge of horses. Refuse a couple hundred, and they think you know somethin’. One man cried over his animal. Hated to part with it. Said it had been in the family ever since they had been in California. I saw it and cried with him.

Then came a Horse. He came at dusk, and I choked with joy. Johnny had found the one horse in the world.

“Five hundred bucks. Mebbe can shade it a little. Man leavin’ town and must have the cash.”

“Gotta try him, ain’t I? Too dark now, Johnny. Try him early mornin’ and have check ready. Four hundred’ll do, eh?”

“Lotta horse.”

“Lotta money.”

“... See you mañana.”

I say to the wife:

“Honey, I’ve got the horse. He’s in the stable. Whee!”

Wham! Wham! Wham! Bing! Bang!

I got there in time to save my other horse, but the stable and corral is a wreck. I found one box-stall door over in another man’s place next mornin’. I managed to rope this cross between a batterin’ ram, Bengal tiger and a rattlesnake, after almost getting kicked, chawed and trampled, and hog tied him to a two hundred year old oak tree. Then I ran to a phone.

“Tell Johnny to come and git this blankety blank sorrel!”

“Whatsa matter—is he restless?”

“He ain’t now. I’ve got him hog tied to a tree.”

“What’ll you bet he stays tied?”

My wife’s yellin’—

“Honey, he’s loose!”

“He’s loose,” said I over the phone. “But I guess the tree is still there.”

“You’re lucky. Your stable is the seventh one he’s wrecked in six months. I’ll send Johnny over to git him.”

“Is the owner of him leavin’ town?”

“Nope.”

“Gimme his name, and he will.”

“Boy, if we’d have told his name, he’d have been gone six months ago. Now listen, Bill. I’ve got a brown mare, five gaited, weighs a thousand pounds. She’s a lady’s pet, I tell you. You can crawl under and over her, she ain’t scared of anything. What do you think?”

“I think you’re lucky,” says I—and hung up.