MUSCODA - With Father’s Day approaching there is still time to think about your father. I remember my dad as a man who made his living carrying rural mail. But what he really enjoyed was writing poetry, especially if had a rural twist. My favorite of this poems is simply titled “OLD BARNEY.” It’s about a pioneer family, my great-grandparents and a team of horses and their journey from Illinois to Nebraska in 1881 to homestead quarter section of raw prairie. It follows here.

I grant you he is useless now – that old bay horse. But I allow he earned his right to live and rest, Old Barney there had just turned four. His team-mate Dan, was 10 months more. We made the trip with just the two – But Dan and Barney brought us through.

Twas on the 16th of July, in ’82 we said good-by to Illinois and headed west with Dan and Barney hitched abreast. In the heat of the day that team would sweat until they’d both be lather wet. We’d stop at times to cool them off, beside some stream or water trough.

At nights we’d air to try and stay where we could buy some oats and hay. But there were days they pulled that load and lived on grass along the road. We’d start our daily trek at dawn to beat the heat of later on. We’d rest a spell at noon and then we’d hit the westward trail again.

From back the day we started out it took us just six weeks about to make it here, where we had planned to file on some still-open land. The day we pulled up here for good, I think those geldings understood that on this piece of prairie loam, we’d stopped to make our future home.

An extra horse had been my aim, as soon as we had filed our claim, but horses here were hard to buy, so I thought I’d give a try and see if I could somehow do my work with just the two. For three years straight that team did all my harness work – both spring and fall. As I think back I don’t see how they stood up to that breaking plow.

In those first years that we were here, had that team failed me then, I fear we might have lost our heart to stay. I well recall the windy day that I found Barney on the ground in pain – and thrashing all around. Some moldy oats it may have been, which he had found that sickened him. Had barney died, I rather doubt we’d now be living hereabout. Drought – and hoppers – a three-room shack – I fear we might have journeyed back to Illinois and likely spent our years and money paying rents.

He’s 28 – Old Barney there, today he’s mostly bones and hair. Dan died about 12 years ago – he was only sick a day or so. But Barney there, keeps hanging on, in spite his teeth are all but gone.

To look at Barney, there today, it’s hard to realize the way he’d step across a wagon tongue, back in those years when he was young. To see him drooping out there now, it’s difficult to picture how, when in his prime, he’d catch the eye of almost any passerby.

It’s true those days are past and gone and Barney’s now just hanging on. But that old horse that’s dozing there much more than earned his right to share in what this place has come to be. The years he strained ahead that plow – I’d hate to think I’d failed him now. If ever a horse deserved his care, it’s that old horse you see out there.