The Oxen

In the year of about 1914 Eli Jasper Watson Jr.’s son, Walter Emery Watson, contracted to E. H. Sumners Sawmill to haul logs out of the woods to the sawmill. The mill was located on the south side of Big Black River about five miles southeast of Kilmichael, Mississippi.

Harry (E. H.) and Mrs. Sumners had moved down from Illinois in about 1910. They shipped down the hardware part of the mill, draft horses with heavy bodies and large feet, and an eight wheeled log wagon. They bought the wood beams locally to stock the sawmill. Mr. Sumners was the manager, and Mrs. Sumners was the log checker.

Uncle Walter used four Jersey oxen and a four wheeled wagon to haul the logs. Mrs. Sumners kidded him a lot about his ‘calves.’ Jerseys are of course a small breed of cattle. Even sophisticated, reserved, Mr. Sumners also had remarks about his small oxen.

One day Uncle Walter was going into the woods with an empty wagon, and the Yankee driver (he also came down from Illinois) was coming out of the woods with the four-up horse team hitched to the eight wheeled log wagon. The loaded wagon was bogged down to the hubs in the mud. Harry (Mr. Sumners) asked Uncle Walter if he would unhitch his four oxen from his wagon and hitch them in front of the draft horses and help pull the eight wheeler out of the bog. Uncle Walter told him, “No Sir.” Harry said, “What?!” He was accustomed to Southerners, who believed in the Biblical principle of ‘the borrower turn not away’, answering in the affirmative. Uncle Walter told him if he would get the horses out of the way that he would get the wagon out of the bog. The Yankee driver began cursing at the suggestion. Harry told him to get the horses out of the way and that Walt could do no worse. He unhitched the horses and moved them away.

Uncle Walter in relating the story said that he resolved that he would show them right there what oxen could do. He unhitched the front team of oxen only from his wagon and then onto the eight wheeler. He said most people did not know the power of an ox. He said an ox, unlike a horse or mule, will pull every pound of which he is capable while hitched to a tree. The heavier the load the closer to the ground the ox gets. Effectively this makes the oxen’s legs shorter, and gives him more leverage. Horses lurch at a load and if it doesn’t move, spring back. The ox keeps a constant pull on the load.

He spoke to the pair of oxen. They pulled for several minutes before any thing visibly happened. The first sign of any progress was that water stirred around a wheel rim. The little oxen kept applying the pressure. After several minutes the wagon was lifted out of the bog and onto solid ground.

Uncle Walter never heard the mention of his ‘calves’ again. Those Yankees had learned the pulling power of an ox.

This was written by Roy C. Watson on June 22, 1986 at Jackson, Mississippi.