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I remember one time some boys from down in Mississippi came up to hunt for a few days, so one night they decided they would try the mules. I happened to have some extra mules on hand at that time that I had pretty well broke, so we got everybody outfitted with a mule for a big hunt.
Now, I had bought a couple of smaller mules that were already broke to ride and were very gentle, so I gave one of them to a man named, TC to ride. Another real good mule I had I let a man from Memphis, TN ride. Bob and the boys from up north had come down and we must have had about 10 mules and riders that night.
We loaded up and went to where we were going to hunt and unloaded the mules and everything, and being some of the boys had never ridden before, Bob and I were kinda helping them get on and get their stirrups adjusted and so on. Now mind you, some of these boys didn’t know a mane from a tail, let alone how to ride.
I got TC on his little mule, which was dog-gentle and adjusted his stirrups and told him how to stop one and how to make it neck rein and so forth, and he was rattlin’ on about a dog about this time, not payin’ a heck of a lot of attention to what I was a say’n, ‘cause he had seen Gene and Roy ride, so why in the heck should he pay any attention to me. When I turned him loose his mule walked out there about 10 feet to a bunch of grass and stopped real quick and dropped her head to eat, as TC didn’t have a hold of the reins. When she stopped and dropped her head, TC just rolled out over the front and hit the ground.
Now as I said, the mule wasn’t very tall, so it didn’t hurt anything, but maybe a little pride. Bob said, “TC what happened,” and TC replied, “I don’t know, I just lost my pedals” (meaning stirrups).
We finally got everyone mounted up and away we went. We treed three or four coons that night and covered quite a bit of country, and the boy’s sure fell in love with the mules. I think it was the next day I sold the man from Tennessee the mule he was riding, and I remember I called that mule, Sarah Lee. His comment after that was. “There ain’t nothin’ like Sarah Lee.”
I got to tell you about him and Sarah Lee because it was just a night or two later that we were hunting and we came down a fairly steep bank into a creek and Sarah slid down the bank and stopped at the waters edge real quick…..and this ole boy didn’t make the stop and sailed out over her ears like a big bullfrog, and lit smack dab in the middle of the creek. He got up in good spirits though and the next morning the boys asked him what happened, his comment was, “I’ll tell you one darned thing, when you go past them ears you’re to the point of no return.”
I later sold TC a mule I had called Black Mama; she was a pretty good kind of mule, but had been a mule that would run off. The story on her was a man from Wisconsin had brought her down to sell to me and he told me her fault was he couldn’t stop her if she decided to run off. He said, “I’ll leave her here and if you can use her I need to have so much out of her.” I used a different bit on her and was having difficulty getting her to where she would stop when I wanted her to, plus she was always wanting to run away. One morning I woke up with a plan and I made me a whip. I saddled up, got her out on the road, and as usual she was wanting to run off, so I let her, as I figured I could ride just as fast as she could run. She ran about a half mile and was starting to slow up a bit and that is when I started using my homemade whip. Every time she would try to slow up I’d start in on her. I ran her about another mile that way and figured I better turn her around and head for home before she ran out of gas. I whipped her all the way home as she was trying to quit me all the way. Well, when I turned down the drive she could barely make it, and to my knowledge she has never tried to run since, in fact, you could barely get her out of a trot.
I thought she would be fine for TC; he had only had her a short while when he called and said, “Mr. Max, you all got another mule up there that I could buy?” I asked what happened to Black Mama and he said, “She done got out from underneath me.”
Now from this I thought she had bucked him off or something, so I said, “What do you mean she got out from underneath you?” He said, “It’s like this, an old feller from over east came in here to try a hound and we had been hunting a good spell and was a far piece from the rig when he asked me, “TC how much for the little mule?” and “I just doubled the price I gave for her and the next thing I knew the man had paid me for the mule and said,” “TC, get off my mule,” “and he made me walk back to the truck.” He said, “I learned the next time I price my mule in the middle of the woods there’s going to be an understanding they don’t get possession until we get back to the rig.”
That fall, TC invited us down for a hunt and we were to meet at Senator Percy State Park. Now, just as I was getting ready to go a friend who delivered vehicles for a leasing outfit out of Chicago called and asked me if I needed to go down south as on occasions if I was going some place to look at a mule or dog and he had a car or something going that way I would take it and he would pay me. I said, “What have you got?” He said, “I have a van going to Baton Rouge, LA and a car going to Mobile, AL.” I thought a little bit and asked him what date they had to be there and he told me, and I thought, heck I can make TC’s hunt and deliver those vehicles at the same time, plus get paid for it, so I said yes.
Now, just before I was getting ready to leave I had bought a little pair of mouse-colored mules that were sure broke to ride and I put a hurry-up job of teaching them to jump and decided I would take them to Mississippi, along with a couple of hounds to sell while down there.
Now, the van was on a one way trip, but there was a car coming back from Mobile, so I didn’t have anyway to bring the mules back, but I could bring a hound back if I had to. I had a friend, Jimmy who liked to hunt and was always in for some excitement so I asked him if he wanted to go along and he said yes. I got busy and built a compartment out of some used plywood in the van to haul the mules in, as I didn’t want them to scar up the floor, and we were ready to hit the road.
I put Jimmy to driving the van and I took the car, and away we went. I had made a nest for the hounds in the van also and it made quite a hunting rig. Folks, we rolled into Mississippi in high style.
When we got there everyone thought we were sure traveling in a mighty fancy rig and we didn’t tell them we were just delivering this stuff, as I didn’t want anyone to know I had no way home for the mules I brought down.
The first night I was there a man from Hollandale came and hunted with me and bought one of my hounds; I don’t recall his name, but I think he was the town marshal or something like that. The next day I had a few lookers at my mules, but no one wanted to give what I was asking for them, but I knew this one feller was sure in heat for ‘em, so I stuck to my price. On about the fourth day we were going to have to deliver the vehicles and then the people would know I was in a bind, so I wanted to sell out before then.
This one man would try me every day and I just stuck to my guns and was playing with them mules, practicing their jumping and letting people ride them, and that part was working pretty well, but still didn’t have them sold. The night before we had to leave I went hunting with some of the boys and when I got in about one o’clock in the morning here this one man was, waiting for me. He had been hunting and had to go home that night and wouldn’t make it back; he made me an offer and I told him I couldn’t take that and that I was tired and was going to roll in. He said, “I’m going to make you one last offer,” which was within $50 of what I had priced them, and I told him to pay me and lets load ‘em, as I’m tired.”
After he later heard I was going to have to sell out because I had no way home with them he said he wished he would have bargained with me more. We cleaned out the car to drive home and ended up bringing one hound back.
We had a lot of fun with TC and the boys and another thing I remember about that trip was we went squirrel hunting and shot a black squirrel and I understand they have a lot of them down there. One of my friends skinned one carefully and took it home to have it mounted
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