Old Horse

The ragman and the knife sharpener man both came down the street in horse drawn wagons, yelling to let people know they were coming. It was nice yelling, like singing, like the Italian Ice man in Peanut Park pushing his cart. “Rags. Rags for sale. Rags,” the rag man sang. And you could hear the clop clop of his horse pulling the wagon all heaped up with bundles of rags.

Their horses, the ragman’s and the knife sharpener man’s, were older than they were with grey stiff hair in their coats and a slow walk like they had one more step in them before they died, but they kept going. “Ready for the glue factory,” uncle John said. I couldn’t figure out how they make glue out of horses. I imagined them going through a big sausage grinder and coming out glue. They had to kill them first. Hit them in the head with a sledge hammer like cows. I wouldn’t like that job. Your arm would get tired and then you couldn’t hit them right and you’d have to keep hitting the over and over until they were dead.

The horses had blinders on, to keep them from getting scared, the ragman said. I wonder if they left them on when they went to the factory, so you could sneak up on them? The horses stood there tied to the wagons, snuffing, shaking their flanks and swishing there tales against the flies.

“Whoa. Whoa,” the men said quiet like, and the horse would swish its tail.

The rag man’s horse’s name was Betty. Old Bet. I was allowed to pet her but not to close to her mouth. She liked to bite. Sometimes she would go poo right there in the street. No one would say anything and she’d just swish her tail. She didn’t seem to mind the bit in her mouth but it looked like it hurted. Rags were a nickel a bundle and sometime we changed dirty ones for clean ones.

When they came I ran and told my ma. For the ragman she gave me a nickle to buy some rags. She came out for the knife sharpener man. He had a sharpening wheal on his wagon he rode like a bicycle. His horse didn’t bite and some time my ma give me sugar cubes for him. I could tell he was a boy horse because his thing was giant size. He was older than Betty and his belly hung down and he walked even slower. He pooped in the street too, splatty so it went flat.

The knife sharpener man was missing a bunch of teeth. He peddled his wheel with his tongue sticking out through the spaces. The knifes on the wheel made a loud hissing like sound and he would test to make sure they were sharp by cutting news paper. Then he wrapped each knife up by itself.

His horse’s name was Old Horse. “Gee’up, Old Horse,” he said when he left. Old Horse leaned forward and shook before he started pulling.