Ione and Clyde Lundy are back home from their vacation, a part of which was spent in Marianna, Florida, with Claire and Rush Cowherd. And they report that the Greenville colony out there is still quite interested in Delta doings.
Old Stuff is particularly gratified by the message Ione Pie brought him from Major Templeton, the psychologist for Graham Aviation, who used to moor his trailer next door to Peacedale Farm. The major kept horses and we can see him now astride his favorite mount, with his little boy, Johnny Templeton, riding alongside on a pony.
Major Templeton will be glad to know that a few of us are still horse-minded in his old neighborhood. The Chapman family, who bought the first house built by Joe Virden in the latter's Greenfield Addition, have a pretty mare named "Golden Lady" which daughter Mona sometimes rides. And the Dykes children are on reasonably friendly terms with "Ginger" and "Crop", Peacedale's horse and mule respectively.
Out in Wilzin Park we sometimes glimpse a big bay charger with General Paxton up and, like as not, Thorne Crosby is making the rounds with Galla on his pinto pony from middle Tennessee.
We can remember when all the horse flesh in Gamwyn and Wilzin too was wrapped up in "Mayflower" and "Dixie," owned by the Paxton and Gamble children. And Jennie Burton will recall the day she, Ruth, Galla Boy and Mary Burton went somewhere out into the surrounding territory to fetch Mayflower home. It was their idea to anchor the little Shetland's tow line to the bumper of the Paxton car, and thus to tow her along. And it worked, after a fashion, but with no suggestion of haste on the pony's part. For Mayflower set herself, standing firm in her tracks, whenever she spied a likely looking patch of grass by the roadside. So the task took several hours to finalize.
Then there was the time we went out to Dr. Paul's "'Tierney Place" to get "Dixie" for Patricia Blackmon's birthday party, (It must have been the fifth, Edwina.) The Tierney, Place was about a mile south of 82 Highway, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of what is now the Municipal Airport, and Mrs. Oltremari, whose husband was manager for Dr. Gamble, may remember the day we came for Dixie. For she told us where to find the pony and its gear, and she also showed us the turkeys, ducks, and chickens that she was raising on wire.
Edwina (Mrs. Jimmy) Blackmon sent her cook's son Robert along with us, to ride Dixie back to town. We had insisted on this arrangement in light of the recent Paxton difficulties in leading Mayflower. Robert looked small enough to match Dixie but, when he climbed into the saddle, his feet all but dragged the ground. So, when we arrived at the city limits, it was Robert rather than Dixie who balked. He refused to ride any further he said, because he realized how silly he looked, and folks would laugh at him.
Dixie didn't mind being ridden and was biddable enough until Robert dismounted and tried to lead her. Then it was her turn to become fractious. So we were a long while reaching the Blackmon premises on Fairview. And if Mr. Frank Mascagni hadn't given us an armful of freshly cured Johnson Gras, when we passed his place, we might never have made the grade. But he did just that, and we used the hay as bait to entice Dixie along the way. When we reached the Blackmon front yard, the party was in full swing, so we weren't a minute too soon.
How did Dixie perform for the children? Adequately we trust. How did she get back to the Tierney Place? We never knew, for such logistics were laid in friend Jimmy's lap, but we are sure she made it.
— B.C.
