Pamy's Place: The Horse Traders
Pamy Blaine tells an engaging story about how she and her brother Jerry, when they were still children, negotiated a deal with Billy the horse trader.
My brother, Jerry, and I were just children when we made our first business transaction.
Back in the late '50s, there was an elderly man,a bachelor,who lived just down the road from us who one of the last of his kind. He was what folks used to call a "horse trader".
This was a very lucrative business in earlier times, but things had slowed down for Billy since the advent of the used car salesman. This didn't stop Billy, however, and he continued to ply his trade and he was known to be very good at what he did, "trading".
Billy expanded his business to trading for other things such as saddles, bridles, or even scrap iron. He also added to his income by mowing or disking land for other people using, Nellie and Daisy, his team of work horses.
Many was the time that I sat on Daisy's back while he worked the horses.
One day Billy came home with what we kids thought was the most
beautiful horse we had ever seen. Her name was Boots' I'm sure she got the name because she was marked by what looked like four white boots on her legs.
She was mostly black but she had a blanket of white across her back that looked like someone had poured white paint on her that dribbled down to a point on her back flanks.
We became very attached to Boots right away and we wanted to buy her. We were a bit dismayed at the price that Billy quoted but we went home and started counting up our money.
Jerry had a savings account, since he was older than me,and he mowed yards for extra money. I was only eight years old but I had milk money stashed away that I made from selling milk from our milk cow to the neighbors.
With money in hand,off we wentto talk, deal, and "trade" with Billy.
I think Billy was a little surprised that we came up with as much money as we did but we were still short about $50.00 of what the horse was worth.
Billy explained that he couldn't take any less than the price
he had quoted us as he was already giving us a "deal" since we were his good friends, and he couldn't afford to lose money on a deal.
I was feeling a bit forlorn when suddenly Billy said, "I tell you what", "If it's okay with your Mama, I'll take what you have and let you make payments on the rest."
We did check with our parents and we were ecstatic that day as we rode Boots home.
Jerry and I dutifully fulfilled our bargain with Billy and paid off
our $50.00 debt within the year. The interesting part of this story is that most of that money was made from selling milk to neighbors from our jersey cow.
You see, our best milk customer was Billy!
