REV GOES TO SEE HiS GIRL

OF course in those early days there were no cars. But that deficiency did not keep young people from seeing each other. If we were lucky, we went in a buggy or a two wheeled cart, or lacking such a vehicle, we rode horse back.

Revvie was one of the lucky ones. He used the family buggy. But he would not think of using the staid old horses that Father drove to the buggy.

Ponies were cheap, and almost every boy had several. They fed in the pastures where bunch grass grew high. And high bunch grass put high spirits into the beasts.

Revvie said his ponies had two faults — "they were hard to catch, and after you caught them they were not good for anything." He'd chase the ponies into a corner of a fence some or beguile them into the corral. Sometimes it required most of the family to capture the beasts for our rambling gadabout brother.

But catching the ponies was not all that was needed for Rervie to be ready to start. They must be hitched to the buggy, and that was a real job. It required two men to hitch them up.

Revvie would have the horses harnessed, would be dressed ready to go. The buggy would be brought out into an open space and the horses led up to it.

Those ponies would rear and plunge and one of them always succeeded in throwing itself. This was the signal needed. Who was helping would sit on the head of the struggling pony that was down, while Revvie finished fastening the traces to the buggy. He would get into the buggy and pick up the lines. Then, and not until then, would the helper get up from the horses' head. The frenzied pony would spring to its feet, rear, perhaps buck a little, and tbe conveyance was off, Rev's hat on the back of his head, the horses running as fast as they could. They would run for nearly a quarter mile, then they came to a hill that slowed them down. After the hill was climbed the team settled into steadier gait, and Revvie was on his way to see his girl.