Peanut
It usually involved not wanting to get in hot water for doing something we shouldn't have been doing. If we had fessed up, the confession would have begun something like this: we broke it, lost it, took it or ate it. He hit me first, made me do it, used a bad word or told a lie also often crossed our innocent lips.
Parents usually know when you have something to confess before you even open your mouth. We often felt the need to clear our consciences years later. We should have just fessed up in the first place and saved ourselves from carrying the burden of guilt.
The Hubs and his older brother are six years apart in age, but always played together as they were the only two kids in the family. Things always went good between them until they weren’t good anymore and a dispute erupted. There is no one else that you can have a nastier fight with then your sibling, but still have their back the next day.
On a summer day back in the sixties, when The Hubs was nine and his brother was fifteen, they took their horses out for a bareback ride to their nearby pasture, hanging on to the horse’s manes.
The Hubs was riding Peanut, a small male Welsh pinto pony that stood five feet high at its shoulders. His brother was riding a big bay horse named Bob.
They rode through the pasture bush on a rutted cattle trail. They had stopped and were getting ready to make the trek home when his brother slapped Peanut’s rump and he took off for home. Peanut could run faster than a full-size horse and had put a few guys on the ground previously.
The Hubs was not expecting this abrupt departure and got wiped off Peanut by a low hanging tree branch. He hit the ground, landing awkwardly on his left arm. Peanut headed back to the barn, leaving The Hubs to walk home holding his injured arm. He was hurting too much to join his brother on Bob, so his brother just trotted alongside him as he walked. His brother told him, “don’t tell Mom you broke your arm”. Like she wouldn’t notice.
He was taken to the doctor to find out that the bone in his forearm was cracked. He was fitted with a sling and sent home to heal. He lived to ride another day.
The Hubs broke horses for a friend of his dads and got free horses to ride in the process. Peanut was one of these horses. Eventually a buyer from the Prince Albert area was found and they came and picked Peanut up. He sold for ninety-five dollars. The Hubs had wanted his dad to buy Peanut for him, but he felt the price was too high. The Hubs was broken hearted when Peanut left and he never saw him again.
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