Floods.
About every year or two the question is sprung whether or not a horse is a natural swimmer. It appears that some horses are and some are not, if the statements of various persons interested be true. An old soldier, who was a colonel in the big fight, once told me that in a close place he rode his horse in the Tennessee River, hoping to swim across. The animal never struck a lick at swimming, but simply waded in until it committed suicide, and but for the timely arrival of a friend in a canoe, the rider would have drowned also. On the other hand, it is an historical fact that Weatherford, the Indian chief whom Jackson defeated and captured in the Creek War, and who always rode a gray horse which was at least half thoroughbred, when surrounded by soldiers and crowded to a big bluff on the Alabama River, took a running start, drove the spurs into his horse, who jumped off a bluff fully twenty feet high, into the river. Horse and rider went out of sight, but rose again and struck out, the chief still on his back, to the distant bank. So daring and brave was the act that Jackson’s soldiers would not shoot at them, but let them escape into the forest.
There is one horse in Tennessee that I will make affidavit to the fact that he is a swimmer, as well as a lightning pacer. It is Brown Hal Jr. 2:10¼.
On Good Friday, 1902, the heavens simply opened on the South. Never has such a flood been heard of—at least since Noah’s day. Creeks became surging rivers, rivers vast lakes of water rushing seaward. Mr. Robt. Hutton, one of the owners of Brown Hal Jr. 2:10¼, writes that that game son of the old horse was in a large stable, in which a half dozen mules were also confined on the creek near the town. Mr. Hutton is a banker and was busy in his bank. The cloudburst came so suddenly that people indoors did not appreciate the extent of the downfall of rain.
“Is there anything in your barn, Bob,” asked a friend as he stuck his head in the door. “I see it is about to float away.”
“I should say there is,” he said, as he started on a run for the barn. A boat was procured and the door finally reached, when the gallant horse was found swimming around for his life and doubtless wondering why he had been shut up to drown. Once out he left no doubt of his ability to breast a flood.
But talking of the flood, I suspect I will have to make affidavit to this, but unless several friends in whose word I have the greatest confidence have prevaricated, I am willing to do so. Down in Giles, where it seems everything happens now and then, Col. Martin Houston, of near Pulaski, had two lovely asses of the Mockingbird breed. These wandered by day in a delightful paddock in Richland Creek, and at night sang in basso profundo to the listening lady loves. The floods came and Richland Creek became a Mississippi, and before the festal asses could consult the weather bureau at Nashville (which, by the way, I will solemnly swear published it the day before that it would be “cold and fair,” the next day), these two Romeos went floating away on the deep, with nowhere to lay their heads. Colonel Martin grieved sorely, for they were worth many shekels while the South African war was on. After the floods subsided Colonel Martin went out to examine things, and down the creek, a mile or so, high up in the top of a tall sycamore tree, hung one of his Romeos, alive and kicking. Ropes were got and neighbors came. The tree was tied on four sides, then cut in two, at the base, and gradually lowered until the animal was released sound and all right. Now, the above is vouched for by many citizens, but what became of the other ass I am unwilling to publish over my own signature, as I have some respect even for the reputation of a maker of rhymes. I clip this from the Nashville Banner of April 23:
Columbia, April 23.—An unusual story comes from Glendale of the endurance of a jack. Two of these animals were in pasture on the banks of Fountain Creek, at the time of the big flood three weeks since, and were swept away. The body of one of them was found, but nothing was heard of the other one till last Friday, when, it is said, some workmen found him buried in a sandbar with only his head out, still alive.
Spades were secured and the animal exhumed, when, so the story goes, he ate food offered him and lived till Saturday, when he died as the result of over-indulgence after the long fast.