[AT] O/T one horse sleighs

[Cecil E Monson]

	I was listening to Christmas music last night and wondered how
many of the people on this List have ever owned, ridden in, or driven a
horse hooked up to a one horse sleigh?  I have and enjoyed it a lot.
We had a one horse cutter on the farm when I was a kid and it didn't
take us long to figure out how to harness up one of the smaller horses
and hook him up to the cutter. If you are not familiar with the term
"cutter" it is a nice light one horse sleigh with thin runners, a nice
padded seat and room for two people - maybe three if you squeezed in.

	My father, who had horses, used it to deliver the mail on our
country rural mail route in the dead of winter when our mailman, who
didn't have horses, could not do it with his Ford model T or the A.
When we moved to the larger farm in the late 1930s the cutter went
along with us but by then the roads were being plowed in the winter
and my father never had to go out on the route again. So, the sleigh
sat out in the orchard until we were old enough to harness one of
the horses and use it. The cutter had a foot warmer which was a little
metal box that held charcoal and had a vent that could be opened or
closed to adjust the heat. I doubt it worked very well or very long
at one time as it was kinda small. My father also had a buffalo robe
made into a heavy winter coat but it was too heavy for us and it
eventually went the way of all things. If I remember right, my mother
didn't think much of it. It smelled like the buffalo was still in it
to me.

	We tried different horses on the cutter and it worked out
pretty well until we tried hooking it up to one of the broncos my
grandfather had on his farm. He bought these wild things from a ranch
in northwestern Montana and thought he could train them to do light
work on the farm. He was unsuccessful. We failed too when we tried to
hook up one of them to the cutter as he took off before we were ready
and even though I was in the seat, I didn't stay there long. The end
of the cutter came when we hit some farm machinery parked in back of
the chicken house but it was OK right up to that point. Too bad the
bronco didn't work out. He was a really fast horse...

Cecil
-- 
The nicest thing about telling the truth is you never have to wonder
what you said.

Cecil E Monson
Lucille Hand-Monson
Mountainville, New York   Just a little east of the North Pole

Allis Chalmers tractors and equipment

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