The Red Roan Colt

                      The Red Roan Colt            By Opal Caven
   
    My uncle was a great procastinator, and never did anything when he said he was going too. He always put off doing things, if you were lucky it would be in a day or two, but more often than not, it would be a week or two, at times weeks turned into months and months into years. Sometimes I think, it never got done at all, or if it was, it so long ago that he said he was going to do it, we had all forgotten about it.
  That's what happened with the red roan colt. He kept saying, he was going catch that colt and break him to lead, but the days turned into weeks, and the weeks months, and the months turned into next spring.
  Finally I got impatient and I got thinking how hard can it be. I could put the mare in the high board fence with a hitching post. Just maybe I could get a rope on that colt. If I could halter break the colt, It would maybe impress my uncle with my horsemenship skills. I was just a kid, ten years old, but secretly I was hoping the colt would be mine someday.
  One day my chance came, everyone left for town, and one thing I had learned when I was a kid was,  when my parents and younger brothers left and everyone was gone, it was a good time to do stuff. If it turned out ok, I' ld tell them, if it didn't know one would ever know. If they did find out later, the deed was aready done and all they could do was holler at me !
  After they left I got some oats and rope. I talked softly to the colt and edged my way up closer, till I got the rope around his neck, When he felt the rope tighten on his neck, that's when all the trouble started. I pulled on the rope and managed to get it wrapped a couple times around the hitching post. First he went to the right of me till the rope stopped him, then he went left, and when he could'nt get lose. He lit into pulling, he sat down on the rope, till his breath was shut off and coming in short puffs. He pulled down  harder, standing his ground and stubbornly refused to move forward, finally he stepped a head so he could breathe, but refused to budge any farther. He had his feet firmly planted,  I pulled and pulled on the rope, trying to get him to come ahead, but he refused and repeated the choking process and then just moved ahead enough so he could get a breath of air. After a few minutes had passed, I began to think I couldn't break this stubborn colt to lead, so finally I gave up. I realized I had made a mistake, there should of been a second lope around his nose and back threw the first so he couldn't choke himself , but I was thinking it's to late for that now. I talked to the colt till he settled down and I took the rope off of him. I was sad and disppointed that the colt would'nt lead, I 'ld have to wait on my uncle even if it seemed like forever.
  Quite a while passed before one day, my uncle, who was a horseman of sorts went out to catch the colt. He finally got the rope on the colt, but my uncle, said to me, "I sure can't figure out why that colt was scared of a rope, when he had never had a rope on him before!", I never said a word, I don't know if my uncle ever found out or went to his grave not knowing, what I had been doing the day they all left for town.