We had three horses at a time:
Our first horse was Duchess, a Morgan type, who was purchased from the Close family in Scotland. Charlene must have been lounging around on our vintage “fainting couch” as she awaited the royal arrival. I say this because years later, when my parents decided to have the couch re-covered, they found the following words, carved with blue ink, into the couch frame, “Duchess is coming!” We were told Duchess was a former sulky race horse. She was pretty high strung, thus only my father and older and “bigger” sisters felt comfortable riding her. After some years, Duchess was bred. This took place at the University of Connecticut, by one of their favorite Morgan studs, Panfield. In spite of our begging, pleading and whining, my sisters and I were not allowed to watch the mating event, and so that process remained a mystery to us for years to come. (No internet in those days. Although at times I have wondered how Mrs. Fuller, our longtime and beloved town librarian, might have handled any request for books with horse studding illustrations.) The union of Panfield and Duchess was a success, and Mr. Duke joined our horse group at some point. I believe his name was voted in during a regular “Family Council” meeting attended by all five of us, each with one vote. I recall Dad was outside in the orchard on a Saturday when someone noticed Duchess was foaling in the nearby field. Dad ran, jumping over the electric fence in his excitement, to get to them.
Jack Frost was a big, western riding, black and white pinto with a heart of gold. He wanted to do whatever he thought his rider wanted. He loved to be around other horses…and in parades. He came to us with a fancy, big and heavy saddle decorated with silver conchos and long, leather saddle strings. I loved that saddle, spent a lot of time cleaning and oiling it, but could not lift it onto Jack’s back for a long time. Once, during a Memorial Day parade, Jack apparently thought my dad wanted him to walk on his hind legs, so he complied with a few steps — much to my father’s surprise! Jack eventually went across the street to my Grandma Burnham’s house, where Nina and Nancy Waite enjoyed him for many years. I was sad and bit jealous, since he was a well-behaved and willing horse, not at all like Patti.
Patti…well, she was definitely a character. She mainly wanted to eat. She was another Morgan-type horse with a physique like a 50-gallon drum. And well, Patti was harmless…Mostly. She was pretty much safe for riding, if you didn’t count fake-stumbling and bouts of coughing when leaving the barn (for the purpose of appearing unable to perform). And/or backing her large derriere out into traffic on Main Street for the same reason – my cousin, Candy Jaworski, remembers watching patiently as I tried to get Patti out of the road. However, Patti would do anything for my sister Charlene. And she obliged many visitors a ride in our fields, only stopping short and going to her knees to dump the heaviest rider head-over-heels…gently, and refusing to move thereafter. But she’d also munch on lawn grass and let us lay on her back to soak up the sun and warmth from her body. Those days are a delight to remember.
She was quite smart, or curious, or easily bored, because she caused more mischief than the other horses put together. After frustrations and accusations flew through the house, we learned no-one was forgetting to put the heavy, S-hook chains across the paddock exit at night. Instead, Big-Lipped Patti had figured out if she worked on them long enough she could wiggle them off, and she and her four-legged friends could run free up Main Street at night. It’s a horrible sound I still remember: horse hooves “stampeding” …away from the house…on driveway…then pavement…knowing whose horses they might be! On one of the escapes. Patti found her way to the orchard and ate so many green apples she had to get her stomach pumped. We kids did get to watch the stomach pumping! And that misshapen pine tree, still standing by the barn today? Long-Lipped Patti nibbled any fraction of a pine needle off that tree daily, under, over or though the paddock railings, should they come within reach of her sizable horse lips.
Another problem for which we kids became suspect: the overflow of water from the claw-footed tub that was used as a watering trough. Multiple times the entire paddock was flooded when Dad made the first trip of the day to check on the horses. This happened irregularly, making the paddock soggy in the warm weather, and turning it into a dangerous ice rink in the winter. The assumption was that one of us young ones turned the water on in the evening, went to clean the stalls, and forgot to turn the water off. But oh no! After time, and as luck would have it, the flooding took place on a night that Dad watered the horses. Turns out Nimble-Lipped Patti had learned to turn the faucet on (we were unsuccessful in efforts to teach her to turn it off). Dad promptly fixed the problem by fashioning a removable handle for the faucet. Hooray. But wait…the first few mornings, if the faucet was placed anywhere near the water trough, it had disappeared by morning, resulting in a search effort throughout the paddock area. For safety purposes, it had to be stowed away safely inside the pump house!
I do believe Patti is the horse Charlene used, along with Eunice Fuller, Ann Chapel, Peggy Trowbridge and their horses as co-conspirators, to pretend fall, and stop poor travelers along Route 6, only to gallop away if the cars stopped. Or, the rider might be leading a horse with a body draped over its back, like a dead cowboy– same purpose and results. These antics were revealed to my parents long after the statute of limitations had run out on such juvenile crimes. Gail Landon and Charlene spent hours in the pine grove behind Landon’s home, building grapevine “paddocks” and tending to their horses. It seemed perfectly safe in those days — even without cell phones. Because Patti had such a personality, our Mom documented her antics in a short story that will be a treasure for our family’s future generations.
Kathie Halbach Moffitt