Back in the late 1950s, Deirdre and her friend Sarah, both just nineteen, came to America from post-war Britain, where shortages still prevailed and ration books were in use. Sarah was to train horses and riders for Jamie Kreuz at Bryn Mawr Farms outside Philadelphia. Deirdre was to work for the Insurance Company of North America in Philadelphia and help Sarah on weekends. The pair’s adventures discovering America, land of plenty, while struggling with a lively collection of foxhunting horses, timber horses, and show horses, have been published in these pages. (Use our Search function with the author’s name to find those stories.) What follows is a new installment revisiting “The Witch With Warts.”
Witch / Rosemary Coates illustration
Soon after our arrival in the States, Sarah and I were left in charge of Bryn Mawr Farms while the rest of the help went with the show horses to the Harrisburg Horse Show for the week. Jamie promised the two of us cubhunting from the farm and cocktail parties at the show as a reward. I took the week off as a break from my office job. This I quickly realized was going to be anything but a vacation.
Even Witch was going to the show, as she was going through a short period of being well. Billy, who mucked out for us, had used an old-fashioned method of getting rid of her warts; he put a rubber band around them. It worked. We saw them come off. Also, she had gotten better at unloading from a trailer—one of the many reasons she was usually left at home. She was entered in the hunter classes at Harrisburg, and we hoped for good results.
Bryn Mawr Farms had at least twenty hunters at the show—all top class, award-winning horses. This meant there were handfuls of tickets to the boisterous parties and balls afterwards. At the end of our days mucking out and caring for the field hunters and timber horses left behind, we would leave around four in the afternoon for the four-hour drive to Harrisburg. We met all the international and Olympic teams from countries all over the world. All this was a roistering party time for Sarah and me.
Thanks to Jamie’s generosity, we had four mornings of cubhunting and three evenings at Harrisburg. Since we never got home before five in the morning, we never went to bed—simply had two or three cups of coffee, tacked up, and went out hunting.
With the farm to ourselves that week, Sarah and I had tackled the main barn, where, piled high, were hundreds of riding boots. Such a waste, we thought, remembering war-torn England, clothing coupons, and ration books! We set to, pairing up or throwing out this entanglement of boots. As we dug down, we came upon hip boots, thigh boots, worn out boots, followed by the mouse-eaten, the browned, the boned, the blackened, the brand new, and the abandoned. All these we cleaned and ‘made good,’ and when Jamie returned from Harrisburg, he was astonished.
“You’ve cleaned out the show barn! All those boots! None of the stable help would ever think of tackling a job like that. What can I ever give you in return?”
Rosemary Coates illustrationDuring my boot pairing and cleaning sessions, I had dug out, amongst other things, three of the most beautiful ladies’ side saddles with suede seats. And luck of all luck, one was small enough even for me. I smiled like a cat with cream.
“Jamie,” I said, “I’d like the smallest of these side saddles!”
Loopy from lack of sleep, I wasn’t certain if I was tacking up for hunting, packing up for the next show, pairing up boots, going to bed, or getting up for the train back to Philadelphia and my day job. What I did, in reality, was board the train to Philadelphia. Upon arriving, carrying the beautiful side saddle, I had my pocketbook stolen as I was leaving the station. With both hands under the saddle, which weighed thirty-five pounds, there was no hope of giving chase.
Posted September 24, 2018