This story, which is a true one, goes back to the days of oxen—a time and a tempo in which people
could stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep and cows.
Many a man and boy, and many a woman and girl too, had a strong affection for oxen reliabilities bearing such names as Old North and Crump, Tom and Jerry, Bigfoot Wallace and Jim Bowie, Bully and Blackie.
Take Old Samson and the rollicky crew that drove the freight train he helped pull. It was carrying supplies west from Jefferson on the Louisiana line. The wagon to which Samson was yoked happened to be loaded with bacon and barrelled whiskey. One day he went lame. The next morning a bullwhacker suggested that he be shod with bacon rind. Accordingly the rinds were cut off two sides of salt pork and put on Samson for shoes. While he was being held, the ingenious whacker suggested Samson would feel more at ease in the strange footgear if he had a dram. A quart bottle was filled out of a barrel and poured down Samson’s throat. “Well, sir, that old ox licked out his tongue and smacked his lips and went against the yoke. For a while, with his new bacon-rind slippers and morning dram, he was as frisky as a young colt. He tried to pull the whole load by himself.�
Some drivers of oxen were more noted than the most noted oxen. Not long after Texas joined the Confederacy, a youngster named Tim Cude went from Live Oak County to enlist in the Army. Although he was only sixteen years old, his way with oxen was a community wonder—especially the power of his voice over them. It was a voice young and lush, but strong, without the gosling quality. He did not charm the oxen by whispering—horse-charmer style—in their ears.
Brindle and Whitey were his wheelers, Sam Houston and Davy Crockett, the leaders. They were steers of the old-time Texas Longhorn breed, and they could pull a log out of its bark. When Tim commanded them, they would go to their places to be hitched to wagon or plow. Tim was partial to Brindle, and when he put a hand over the ox’s head, the ox would often show his pleasure by licking out his tongue. The four oxen were the last inhabitants of the little Cude ranch that Tim told good-by when he left to fight the Yankees. He was an only child. He did not realize what emptiness he left behind him. He seldom wrote to relieve it.
Months after Appomattox, his mother and father learned that he was still alive at Lee’s surrender. Tim Cude was a mature man now, strong and rangy with a full-grown beard. More months, then a year, then two years, dragged by, and still Tim did not come home, and there was no word from him. At first his father and mother talked with high hopes of his coming. Then, gradually, they came to saying little, even to each other, about his return. They still nursed a hope, but the heavy conviction settled down on them that Tim must be among the many other boys in gray who would never come back home. Their hope grew gray and secret, without confidence. The days went by as slow as laboring oxen walk.
In the late spring of 1867 Mr. Cude put a few beeves in a herd going north. Six months later the owners of the herd returned and paid him the first money he had seen in years. The aging couple needed the money to buy necessities with, but Mr. Cude had a hard time persuading “mama� to go with him down to Powderhorn on the coast for the purchases. “Tim might come while we are gone,� was her only argument. Mr. Cude’s argument that, if he came, he would stay until they got back, had slight weight with her. She wanted to be there. Mr. Cude would not argue, not even to himself, much less to her, that Tim would never come, but he often reasoned gently that it was better for them both to be resigned.
It was in December before Mrs. Cude finally consented to go. They took a load of dry cow-hides with them, and as the oxen pulled them south at the rate of about two miles an hour, they went over their plans again and again for spending the money.