The Blacksmith’s Daughter by Fay Berry 2013 – Chapter 12

Here is another story written by my brother Graham about his life in the 1950s.

I loved horses, by Graham O’Connor.

 

From a poor family, I could never hope to own one.  My home in the suburbs, had no room for one anyway, and who could afford to feed a horse? Dad was a Blacksmith and Farrier and this gave me contact with horses and horse owners. The man over the road from my home, Mr. Price, was a horse trainer who trained a style of racehorse known as a ‘pacer’.

A ‘pacer’ wears ‘hobbles’, a leg harness that enforce the ‘pacing’ gait that enables great speed and smoothness that is a characteristic of this style of harness racing. His small ‘string’ of horses were kept in the stables in the large yard of his home and trained in a paddock that could be entered from our street. Daily Mr. Price harnessed one of his charges into a ‘jinker’, a heavier version of a racing sulky, and leading one or two others horses, would set out for a nearby racecourse.

Dad approved of neither the man nor the sport of racing and did his level best to keep us apart. I was not able to go to the racecourse but spent some time in the stables, helping with the horses almost every day. From Mr. Price, I learned patience and care in the management of horse personalities. My favorite was his own mare, ‘Pacing Perfection’ or ‘Bubbles’ as she was called around the stables. The rest of the ‘string’ had other owners who paid Mr. Price for their upkeep and training.

Bubbles was a grey mare, a two year old. Her famous sire was a big money winner and Mr. Price had high hopes for this bloodline. Mr. Price patiently taught me how to groom the horses and clean out stalls, and to pay special attention to managing their diet. I picked up tricks with leather harness and could make both horse and harness sparkle. Already expert in hoof care from my blacksmith Dad’s example, I could thoroughly clean stalls and yard and detect and control stable pests of all kinds. I discovered that a ‘Pacer’, as distinct from a ‘Square gaiter’ (or ‘Trotter’) wears hobbles to force legs to move together in pairs; to stride forward first with both ‘nearside’ legs and then with both ‘offside legs’, in a smooth ‘ground eating’ flow.

This gait is beautiful to watch and very fast. The ability is bred into them; often, they instinctively run as foals in this manner. The hobbles and the training teach them to run at greater speed by enforcing the special gait. The only other gait possible while wearing them is a clumsy gallop but this is difficult and slows them down. A horse that starts to gallop during a race is said to have ‘broken’. The only way to get back to speed is to resume the ‘pacing’ gait.

As I grew in the knowledge and practice of horse handling, I began to hire my services to Dad’s customers who owned Hacks, Polo ponies and Show horses and ponies. During school holidays, I had a ’round’ of stables to clean and horses to groom for hard cash. Anywhere reachable by my bicycle, I would go to work with a smile.

Eventually I discovered Mr. and Mrs. Bold from South Hamblyn, who had sought Dad’s help to correct a hoof condition in one of their ‘Jumpers’. Dad forged special shoes and formed special ‘trailers’ on the hinds. The trailers made the horse steadier when jumping the high hurdles. Dad was eventually famous for these ‘trailers’ protruding on the outsides of ‘near’ and ‘off’ side hind shoes. He would have the horse pass back and forth a few times, carefully watching gait, stops and starts. Then he would fashion a set of shoes with either ‘trailers’ or ‘lifts’, as needed, to modify any imperfections of stance and gait.

He could correct ‘cross firing’; the tendency of some horses to strike one rear hoof against the other, or make the horse balance up on its toes more for greater speed and sure-footedness. Mr. Bold’s horse often let its hind legs twist slightly as it prepared to jump, losing some height, and the trailers corrected this. Mr. Bold sang Dad’s praises to his show friends.

At the time, Mr. Bold engaged me as ‘stable boy’ for the upcoming Agricultural Show, to groom and care for his string of ten horses in competition at the show. When show week was over, Mr. Bold was so pleased with my effort; he invited me to spend time at their South Hamblyn farm after Christmas.

When the time came, Dad contacted Mr. Bold and arranged to put me on the Bus to Hamblyn and I was collected from the depot by Mrs. Bold. Mr. Bold had already turned out as a bit of a ‘tight-wad’, paying me less than minimum wages for my work during the show. Mrs. Bold had given me an extra amount of cash and so I was well paid. The farm at South Hamblyn was a disappointment to me as all of the plant, machinery and buildings were run down and poorly maintained.

At the show, the horses were well turned out in new or well maintained and repaired ‘tack’ as were the riding outfits worn by the Bold’s. To see this comparison was a shock. I had unconsciously assumed that someone who could present ten immaculate horses at the show; would work and live in similar style. The house was old and ill furnished though clean, comfortable, and shady. The evidence of Mrs Bold’s deft hand was everywhere inside the house. Mr. Bold was a mutton and potatoes man and ignored the heaped fruit and vegetable platters that his wife brought to the table. His exciting personality at the show had quite deserted him.

My sleeping space was the side veranda that fronted the enclose kitchen garden where Mrs. Bold grew all of their fruit and vegetable needs. This garden, shaded by a giant fig tree and some stone fruit trees, was fenced with chicken wire. The bed was freshly made with a bright covering and a cupboard for my clothes.  The fence however was in disrepair and no longer kept the chickens or other stock out of the garden or the veranda. One of the cows for some reason had the run of the house yards, and had by persistence found a way to get her legs and neck through the wire far enough to graze the tops of the cabbages that were to have provided next year’s seed.

Several cats and a dog with pups had taken advantage of this hole and taken up residence in storage boxes in the kitchen end of the veranda. On my first night I, once asleep, was joined by a cat and its fleas. A rooster sat on the end of my bed to greet the dawn. My legs continued to sleep because of the effect of the cat’s weight. After a bath to dislodge the fleas, I repaired the fence while Mrs. Bold replaced the bed linen and laundered the blankets.

The harvest was almost over and I helped the team of workers stacking the sheaves of hay onto the truck. They forked them from  ‘stooks’ of about thirty sheaves: left in ‘windrows’ across a seemingly endless paddock as the truck slowly made its way along the rows. In the distance, the header could be seen through its cloud of dust as it cut and bagged the wheat from the best quality crop that was too good for haymaking.

In a few days, the combination harvester would be reset from hay to straw and the straw would be baled and stacked in sheds. Then the rake would collect the stubble and bin it near the stables. The cycle would be completed by first harrowing the soil and sowing ‘Barrel clover’ to replenish the soil with nitrogen and provide yet another crop for the animals before the next wheat sowing. For the full week, we circulated from paddock to haystack, the skilful, hardworking farm hands building it ever higher and eventually water-proofing the top in the old fashioned way.

When the weekend arrived, Mrs. Bold had arranged an invitation for me to stay at the nearby property of the Bloore family with whom I had been friendly at the Agricultural Show. I was to stay from Friday night and return on Monday morning. Their daughter Mary, who had ridden so well at the show, was home for the school holidays, so I would have company of my own age.

Mrs. Bold drove me over to the Bloore farm.After taking tea with Mrs. Bloore, Mrs. Bold promised to collect me early on Monday morning for the last of the harvest, and left for home. After my home in a lesser suburb and the Bold’s farmhouse, it was a palace. The tall gabled house of two stories was widely separated from the farm and the old farmhouse. A gravelled shady avenue let from the town road.  The house had no less than eleven bedrooms and a large games room. Several sitting rooms arranged around a garden courtyard and shade area completed the picture.

The weekend was enchantment. Mary, the darling of her parents and brace of older brothers, did everything well. Of solid good looks and style, she rode her pedigreed horse with love and humor; accepting a wall full of awards, cups and ribbons as ‘what one did’. Mary attempted to correct my ‘sack of potatoes’ horsemanship, but accepted my failure with patience. I did redeem myself a bit by passing on some of Mr. Price’s tricks with harness and mane and coat preparation.

The time passed in a flash. We rode, swam in the dam, walked, climbed, and caught and boiled a large tin of ‘Yabbies’ from the dam. When Monday morning found me back at the Bold’s harvest, I was full and bubbling over with the Bloore’s, Mary, and the wonder of eleven bedrooms. In front of the grinning men, Mr. Bold’s attempts to tease me about Mary brought my undoing.

With red blushing face, I protested that my friendship with Mary was “nothing like that”. Mr. Bold responded that I could not sleep in eleven bedrooms at once. With not a thought my reply was, “Well that is better than sleeping in a ……..” My mind was searching for the word ‘Menagerie’ but it would not come, while I pictured my first night and me sharing my bed with cat dogs and chooks. Instead, my blushing brain delivered ‘cow shed’ to my stupid mouth. Mr. Bold became as red and incoherent as I for just a moment.

Then “Go to the house and get your things; after you have apologized to Mrs. Bold for abusing her hospitality, you can get her to drive you to the bus stop! …. NOW!  START WALKING!” I staggered weakly across the fields to the distant farmhouse in a haze of tears. All I could think was, “What would Dad think?” I seemed to shame him at every turn. By the time I had reached the house to tell Mrs. Bold all, my tears seemed unstoppable.  My apologies and explanations were brushed aside with a smile.

“Up to his old green monster tricks again?”

I watched her carefully, my tears forgotten.

“He is jealous of Mr. Bloore, they have been rivals for years. You trod on his sore toe”.

“I didn’t mean to say what I said,” I sniffed. “He made me feel stupid.”

“Don’t worry lad, you keep on as if nothing happened. If he tries to send you away, he’ll have an earful from me.”  The evening meal was a quiet affair, the master of the house retiring earlier than usual.  The harvest over, we all became occupied with equipment repair and maintenance. After a few days in which I kept myself busy, doing anything I could find to help the men, Mr. Bold grudgingly began taking me out to help him do his odd jobs. He was still curt towards me but I was grateful not to be shamed by being sent home in disgrace.

One day we drove out onto the property in his old Vauxhall sedan. He only used it on the farm as it was full of rust and unregistered. We were driving along a long flinty dirt track that led to the top paddock at the crest of the hill, well out of sight of the farm buildings. Suddenly we were driving on the rim of the front left wheel. The tyre had burst and the old car was impossible to steer. There was a wheel brace, and a spare wheel in the boot, but no sign of a jack to lift the car up to replace the wheel.

Behind the front seat of the car was an empty square kerosene can without a lid, which would just go under the front spring. Mr. Bold glared at me when I started to warn him about the can. I shut my big mouth and watched. Dad sometimes used empty kero cans to prop things up when there was nothing else. His trick was to fill the can completely up with water and screw the lid on tightly. Of course here there was no water or lid. Full of water and tightly sealed, a can would support a surprisingly heavy load. Even without the water, the air trapped in the can by a tightly fitted lid would support a reasonable load.

Mr. Bold had me place the can under the axle as he strained on the left mudguard to lift the extra few inches. It seemed to be holding, but the tyre was still slightly touching the ground. As soon as he had removed the hubcaps and wheel nuts, he pulled the wheel from the hub and the can collapsed with a ‘swoosh’ of air. With a curse he took the hub cap, and kneeling beside the stricken car, started to scoop the soil away from under the axle and hub, attempting to dig a trench deep enough to allow the spare wheel to be fitted. How he would tighten the wheel nuts if he succeeded I could not imagine; how would he then get the wheel out of so deep a hole?

After I had watched his lack of progress on the stony soil, I turned in a slow circle. The road curved up a low hill through fallow fields resting behind barbed wire fences. In the distance on the right side of the road and near the top of the hill was an old ruined shed. I started out towards it squeezing between the wires and making my way across the sloping end of the field. Little remained of the shed but rusted sheets of corrugated iron and some palings fixed to a 6″ x 4″ beam of hardwood about eight feet long.

Under some old newspapers I found a few billets of cut mallee firewood of the type burnt in wood stoves. I bashed off the palings and trod on the nails with my sturdy work boots, to bend them out of harm’s way. Staggering under the weight of the beam of wood, the other piece of wood inside my singlet against my chest, I alternately carried and dragged my load back down to the fence and threw both items over. On the way back I rehearsed my airy response to his hoped-for praise.

As I walked I remembered my Grandfather’s cryptic words “Give me a lever long enough, and the moon for a fulcrum I could move the whole world!”  That was Grandfather’s version of the quotation anyway. Huh! Back at the car, Mr. Bold had given up his futile attempts to dig and was about to walk back to the farm. I placed one end of the bar of wood under the axle and set up the firewood on its end as a fulcrum, just clear of the ‘running board’.

The other end of the wood was now far above my head, so I walked up the beam most of the way until my weight and the leverage lifted car, axle and brake drum high enough for Mr. Bold to simply slip the spare wheel on the bolts. Of course half the wheel nuts were buried under bucketfuls of dirt, but were soon found and we continued on our way.

I cannot remember what we went to the top paddock for, but on the way back, he stopped at the site of our recent adventure and tied the beam of wood to the roof of the car and tossed the mallee wood in the boot. As we got out of the car back at the farm, he patted my shoulder and said “Good job, lad”.

When my stay came to an end, and Mrs. Bold had again supplemented my wages, I was able to reflect that we had quite returned to normal. I am glad that after my stupid statement the day we were loading hay, with Mrs. Bold’s support, I had stayed to face the music, therefore having the opportunity to redeem myself.

Perhaps I am my father’s son in ability if not in wisdom.

Graham O’Connor

A rural scene in the Adelaide foothills.