Horace the Mule rides again

Published December 25, 2014

Column from The Rocky Mount Telegram, December 24, 2014.

Editor’s note: The Rocky Mount Telegram is pleased to reprint what has become a holiday favorite in the Rocky Mount area: the ill-fated adventures of Horace the Mule.

The story, made famous by the late Edmund Harding of Washington, was the topic of a column by Vernon Sechriest, who was managing editor of the Evening Telegram for many years before his death in 1990.

Mrs. George Wood, now deceased, of Chowan County had a mule who was named Horace. On Christmas Eve she called up Dr. Satterfield in Edenton and said to him, “Doctor, Horace is sick, and I wish you would come take a look at him.”

Dr. Satterfield said, “Oh Fannie Lamb, it’s after 6 o’clock, and I’m eating supper. Give him a dose of mineral oil, and if he isn’t all right in the morning, phone me, and I’ll come out and take a look at him.”

“How’ll I give it to him?” she inquired.

“Through a funnel,” replied the good doctor.

“But, he might bite me,” she protested.

“Oh, Fannie Lamb – you’re a farm woman, and you know about these things. Give it to him through the other end.”

So Fannie Lamb went out to the barn, and there stood Horace, with his head held down, just moaning and groaning.

She looked around for a funnel, but the nearest thing she could see to one was her Uncle Bill’s fox hunting horn, hanging on the wall, a beautiful gold-plated instrument with gold tassels hanging from it.

She took the horn and affixed it properly. Horace paid no attention.

Then she reached up on the shelf where medicines for the farm animals were kept. But instead of picking up the mineral oil, she picked up a bottle of turpentine and she poured a liberal dose into the horn.

Horace raised his head with a sudden jerk.

He let out a yell that could have been heard a mile away.

He reared up on his hind legs, brought his front legs down, knocked out the side of the barn, jumped a 5-foot fence and started down the road at a mad gallop.

Now Horace was in pain, so every few jumps he made, that horn would blow.

All the dogs in the neighborhood knew that when that horn was blowing, it meant that Uncle Bill was going fox hunting. So down the highway they went, close behind Horace.

It was a marvelous sight. First, Horace – running at top speed; the horn, in a most unusual position, the mellow notes issuing therefrom; the tassels waving; and the dogs, barking joyously.

They passed by the home of Old Man Harvey Hogan, who was sitting on his front porch, well into the cups as they say down east. He hadn’t drawn a sober breath in 15 years, and he gazed in fascinated amazement at the sight that unfolded itself before his eyes.

Incidentally, Harvey is now head man of Alcoholics Anonymous in the Albemarle section of the state.

By this time it was good and dark. Horace and the dogs were approaching the Chowan River Bridge.

The bridgetender heard the horn blowing and figured a boat was approaching. So he hurriedly went out and elevated the bridge.

Horace went over the edge, straight into the river and was drowned. The dogs jumped into the water, but they could swim and climbed out without much difficulty.

Now it so happened that the bridgetender was running for the office of sheriff of Chowan County, but he managed to get only seven votes.

The people figured that any man who didn’t know the difference between a mule with a horn up his rear and a boat coming down the Inland Waterway wasn’t fit to hold any public office in Chowan County.