Recalling the past with Mrs. Charlie Wiley Reed
Monroe, the horse
Notes by
Norman E. Reed (dates unknown)
As told to
Norman E. Reed by his mother Mrs. C. W. Reed (Mrs. Charlie Wiley Reed)
Monroe, the horse
Uncle David Heir didn’t have any children, he told my mother
if she would name the baby for him he would give the baby a colt. They were
both born on the same day March 19, 1886. Instead of Uncle David giving brother
David just the colt he gave him the colts mother too.
She was a race horse. My daddy had a big pasture down about
a mile from the house, during a rainy spell in the spring, Maze, the mother
horse, bogged down in the swamp and died. Nobody knew she was in the bogg (sp).
Monroe lived to be over 22 years old but didn’t look like he was over 2 years
old. You could ride him horseback but you just didn’t scream because if you did
he would take the bits in his teeth and hurdle the lot fence to get back in.
Four girls were spending Christmas with us. They wanted to
go horseback riding in the afternoon. Rosa Axon, who was Burley Kitrells
mother, wanted to be the first to ride the horse. My daddy told her they were
racing horses over on the highway, when you get there don’t scream or pull on
the reigns, just go quiet with him. But she got over there and he saw the other
horses racing and started to run too. She screamed and he took the bits in his
mouth, put his ears back and he was coming straight home.
My dad told John Hydrick who was visiting, and brother
Lewis, “both of you go out there and catch him because if you don’t he is going
to hurdle the fence with her” John Hydrick grabbed for the bits and missed him,
Lewis caught him and the horse whirled him around and around. He caught Rosa
with one hand and of course she came off the horse.
That broke up the horseback riding for the day. The Bond girls
that were there and the Inabinet girl didn’t want to ride that horse. There was
another horse that was gentle but they were afraid the other horse may do the
same thing.
We had to drive a horse to church, the horse I drove was
Monroe, and you couldn’t hitch him with a hitch reign. You had to put a rope
all the way around his body and let it come out of his collar through the ring
of the bridle and then hitch him to the tree.
We would go to preaching at Providence in the morning and he
wouldn’t have time to eat his dinner because we were going to Wesley Chapel to
preaching in the afternoon.
The preacher at Wesley Chapel would preach until sundown and
the horse would be prancing to go home.
One time I unhitched him to go home my cousin was sitting in
the buggy and I said now hold the lines because when I untie him from the tree he
is going to try to leave. But instead of
her holding the lines when I untied the rope from the tree and pulled if from
around his body he lunged forward, she screamed and threw the line off. I had
him in the bits and he carried me across a cotton patch and across some
terraces, finally some folks came down from the church and helped me hold him.
I finally drove him home by the bits all the way. He was
determined to run all the way home. My mother was satisfied for me to drive him
because he was a gentle horse, but a lot of places he wasn’t a gentle horse.
Sometime I would drive him to Orangeburg by myself to get my
books, because brother David was at the Citadel, and I had to go by myself 14
miles to the courthouse to get books for school.
When I got there one time they were having a parade, the
horses were prancing and my horse just turned sideways in the harness and just
kept step all the way with the bits in his teeth, his head down on his chest,
his tail curled up over his back. The policeman came over and said that horse
is going to kill you. I told him “no, he is perfectly alright, he is just
keeping time with the music” This horse belonged to a racehorse family. He was
a wonderful horse. I got my books and hurried home before dark.
The day he was supposed to get my brother who was coming
home from the Citadel he was sick. A colored man plowed him all day before
because they were going to have to take 3 horses, 2 to the wagon to get brother
Davids trunks, the colored boy didn’t give him water when he took him out in
the morning, it was hot, when he brought him back in he let him have too much
water to drink. I heard him right after lunch, he was sick, he was pawing. He
pawed all the way around the lot fence.
He knew when my daddy
left driving the other horse. He went to the fence and looked and neighed just
as long as he could see the other horses going with the wagon, he knew he was
missing out on something. He loved to go and be driven.
When David got back he had just died. If was hard to give up
the old horse we had driven for 22 years. He was a beautiful racehorse, pretty
as a picture.
Sent by N.E. Reed’s son, Don Reed to Tom Reed 12-2021.
Retyped into Word.
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