Cultivating 13

would go to school in the woodsleigh. At the school we would simply wrap the reins on the dashboard and send Prince to plod his way home alone. In March of 1938 Prince became ill and was nursed on the barn floor as a kind of infirmary. A number of neighbors came to visit and to keep a sort of vigil. Even my grade two teacher used to ask how our sick horse was doing. Prince died that month and with him went a large part of family lore. Bess was a faithful mare, getting on in years, too, as I remember her. Brown, with a distinctive white mark on her forehead, she was gentle and trustworthy, with enough speed to be easily selected for the wagon or sleigh, especially for running the mail. She passed quietly from the scene in the early 40s.

Around this time we bought a solid young horse from Peter Trainor in Greenfield. I remember well the day he arrived with Maurice on his back. We watched them coming down McCabe’s Hill, up our hill and in the lane, excited as though a new family member were arriving. Unfortunately this promising young horse took sick three months later and died without having the chance to prove himself. Shortly thereafter Mont Wright of Montague sold us a two-year old horse who soon came to be known as Monty, after General Montgomery, whose name was prominent at the time. Before long Wright sold us another horse, this time a large dappled-grey animal who became a favorite family addition to be known simply as “the grey”. Both of these animals worked well anywhere and together formed the O’Shea team up to the end of our farming operation around 1950. Of the two, Dad was extremely proud of the grey and liked to show him off. On the other hand he had only a grudging respect for Monty whom he nicknamed “the rat”. Monty dropped dead and the grey lived on to become a kind of family pet, turning white in old age.

Cultivators at our farm included the one-furrow single plow, hauled easily by one horse but requiring much skill in handling. Only Dad was capable of that chore. Older folk relished being Praised for their deft handling of the single plow, for turning out a neat sod and straight furrow. Some farmers added a small guide wheel at the front of their plows, thus simplifying the task considerably. The more skillful workmen, however, saw this as cheating and labelled those wheelers as second-rate plowmen at best. Next we had a two-furrow gang plow, pulled by a team of horses, and having two wheels oddly arranged, one somewhat ahead of the other on either side in a skewed fashion for proper balance. This machine was manipulated by two or three levers ’60 raise, lower or widen the shares. It was quite a slick imple-