A Mule Is A Mule Of Course Of Course

Nowadays everyone uses tractors to plow fields and trucks to haul stuff.  But it hasn’t always been like that.  Used to be a lot of horses, oxen, donkeys and mules.  We called them beasts of burden.

Things were different back then, in rural Mississippi, in the 1930s.  Automobiles were newfangled toys.  A lot of people lived in houses with no electricity.  There was no TV or internet.  We had a radio, and could listen as long as we kept buying batteries.

Stonewall wasn’t big enough to have a movie theatre.  Not until after World War II.  

But we did have entertainment.  There were circuses, fairs, and carnivals.  Magicians, actors and musicians.  Minstrel shows and medicine shows.  Somebody was always setting up or tearing down, in the park next to town hall.  

Many of the acts came through every year.  They made a circuit across the country and went where the weather was nice.    

A few of the shows, like the circus, were pretty big.  Our little town would overflow with people.  More often, the shows were family acts.  There were a lot of one man shows.

An example was a fellow named Elmer Pickett.  According to his handbill, he was in possession of the world’s smartest mule.  Her name was Blossom.  Supposedly, among other talents, she could talk.  Admission was a dime for adults, a nickel for kids.

We were pretty excited when we got to the park.  We being me, Madeline Abercrombie, and my brothers, Jessie and Leonard.    

I was a lot younger than my brothers, age of nine when we met Elmer and Blossom.  Jessie and Leonard were sixteen.  It is easy to remember their birthday because they were twins.  But not the identical type.  There was nothing identical about my brothers.

We lived on a farm.  We had mules along with horses, dogs, and cats.  Mules are gentle animals and are quite good at pulling a plow.  They can haul a cart loaded with vegetables into town.  You can ride them, same as a horse.  Like the horses, our mules had names.  Still, until we met Blossom, we had no idea how athletic and smart a mule can be.

Elmer must have been about sixty.  He had long stringy gray hair and a bushy beard.  He looked like the kind of guy you’d expect to see climbing out of a gold mine.  He and the mule made quite a team.

The show started with Elmer riding Blossom into the park, sidesaddle.  He was facing the audience as the mule galloped in.  She came to a sudden stop, and Elmer flew off the saddle.  He landed on his feet and was moving fast enough that he had to take several running steps before he came to a stop.  The old man was a lot more spry than you would have thought.

He bowed to the audience, and introduced himself.  “Good afternoon, to my new friends here in beautiful Stonewall.  My name is Elmer Pickett.  And this…”  He turns to the mule.  “Is Blossom.”

She was a beautiful, healthy animal.  Elmer had done her up right.  He’d braided her tail, and woven daisies and other flowers into it.  Strands of colored fabric were woven in with the braids. 

The flowers in her tail matched the ones in the pretty white hat perched between Blossom’s ears.  It was strapped to her bridle.  Along with an elaborately decorated saddle, she was one fine looking mule.

“You may have seen one of the circuses that have come to your town.  The ones that have elephants balancing on two legs.  And tigers as obedient as a dog.  Monkeys that play an organ.  My friends, you have never seen an animal as talented as my Blossom.”

“Today, good people, Blossom and I are going to put on a show like you have never seen.  First, she will demonstrate her grace, speed, and agility.  You will rub your eyes in disbelief when you see how high she can jump.  Then, just when you thought you’d seen it all, she will awe you with her intelligence.  She is the world’s first and only communicating mule.”

That was when Leonard elbowed Jessie and whispered, “See I told you the mule couldn’t talk.  He’s already walking back what he printed on his handbill.  Communicating is not the same thing as talking.”

My brothers had argued all the way from the farm about whether Blossom could talk.  Leonard insisted that a mule was incapable of speech.  He made good grades in school including science class.  He knew what vocal cords were.

Jessie claimed he had no reason to doubt what Mr. Pickens had printed on the handbill and it was rude of us not to at least give him the benefit of the doubt.  “I fully expect to hear the animal talk.  Maybe she will even sing the National Anthem.  In a fine soprano voice.”

When you are nine, you tend to take things literally.  Eventually, I figured it out. Most of the time, when my brothers argued, it was because Jessie was riling Leonard up.  For the fun of it.  Jerking his twin’s chain was one of his favorite pastimes.    

I’m not sure if Leonard ever completely figured it out.  Jessie did it his entire life.