Moishe's Lament

It was a dark and snowy night. Moishe's old gelding "Meshuga" strained terribly against the harness and the yoke as he tried to pull Moishe's rickety old wagon through the drifts and ruts in the old trail that led back to the Rosenburg ranch. There were still at least 50 miles to go before they would be home and both Moishe and the old horse were at a point where it was doubtful that they would make it without freezing. They certainly weren't going to make it tonight.

All at once, horse, wagon, and Moishe slid uncontrollably right off the trail and into an unseen ditch that had been covered by a huge snow drift. It wasn't even noticeable from the vantage of the regular trail, but it was there, and therein did Moishe find himself, the wagon, and his old horse.

"Come on, Meshuga!" Moishe gave the reigns a slap across the old horse's back.

The gelding snorted and looked as though he would have tried to move on had he not been injured.

"Oy vey, vat is dis?" Moishe asked aloud in his broken eastern European accented English.

"Not now, Meshuga! Not here! Vat are ya? Crazy?"

Moishe sort of chuckled in a pained way at the thought of asking the horse if he was crazy when, in fact, the horse's name, "Meshuga", actually meant crazy in Yiddish, Moishe's mother tongue.

Moishe clamored down out of the wagon to assess the situation and quickly saw that the poor old horse had broken what appeared to be both of his front legs.

The horse was in excruciating pain.

Moishe mustered up all of the strength and courage he had to do what was the only merciful thing to be done, and after saying a prayer, he put his old friend out of misery.

"Vell, Vat do ve do now?" he asked casting his eyes toward the sky as if he was talking to his maker.

"I guess you have in store for me yet another one of life's fabulous unanticipated adventures. Of course, I always velcome the chance to be spontaneous and adventuresome, I must confess that there are times ven I think you could do a little better in the planning department. Then again, who am I to say?"

As the bitter cold began to crawl into the places where Moishe's old woolen coat had been rubbed bare over the years, he pulled it as close as he could and thought. He remembered, it seemed, that there had been a light from a farmhouse that was burning about 2 miles back and about a half a mile off the trail. There, perhaps, he might be able to find a farmer with whom he could negotiate the purchase of another horse. Since he had just come from the market in town and had been lucky enough to sell everything he had brought to sell, his pockets were filled with $200.00, enough money to purchase a fine horse and a little more for causing the farmer any inconvenience.

And so, Moishe started to walk back toward where he had seen the light of the farm.

The wind grew stronger, and the snow came down a little harder with bigger flakes as he walked the first half mile. Moishe drew his collar around his face as he walked. He started to think about what he was doing.

Maybe the farmer would be asleep by the time he arrived. Maybe he only had one good horse he could even trade. Maybe he had been pestered by others trying to buy horses this week. For this, the farmer would certainly want a premium price. Perhaps even a premium price plus an inconvenience fee. This could amount to as much as $150.00 he thought to himself.

The wind picked up to a gale force now and the snow became a literal blizzard as Moishe started the second mile back to the light he had seen.

Maybe the farmer would be so upset by being awakened in the middle of the night by a foreigner such as himself, maybe the late night awakening coupled with the difficulty the farmer would undoubtedly have understanding Moishe would cause the farmer to demand twice, or even three times as much as anyone would normally want for a horse.

Moishe pressed on. He was nearly frozen to the bone and all he wanted to do was lie down in the soft fluffy snow and sleep, but he knew that this would be the end of him if he did for surely he would freeze to death. So, with every last ounce of his strength as he murmured a prayer as he always did when times got tough, he pressed on. Step by step. Word by word.

Maybe this farmer wasn't even a farmer, he thought. Maybe this house was a house that was inhabited by terrible awful souls who simply lit a light to be seen by wayward travellers passing by in the middle of foul weather just so they would know where to return after their old horse fell off the trail and broke both of his legs. Maybe the reason the old horse fell was because of a ditch and a rut that had been placed in the trail by the demonic inhabitants of the house he was now approaching. Maybe the "hundle", the Yiddish word for scam, was that after the horse was taken out and the Wagon master came groveling up to the door seeking another horse, they would charge the poor frozen little man not 2 times as much, or 3 times as much, but maybe they would try to charge the poor little immigrant who was just trying to get back home alive ten times as much as the ordinary cost of a fine horse, he thought!

By now, Moishe was at the doorway of what appeared to be a very nice farmhouse with a warm fire burning inside. Moishe beat of the door with a frozen fist 8 or 10 times as hard as he could. Quite soon thereafter, a very kind looking and concerned farmer came to the door and opened it.

"Yes? Oh please come right in and get out of the miserable cold!" said the kind farmer.

From the sounds of his voice, it appeared that the farmer had the same eastern European accent as did Moishe.

As the farmer opened the door wide and made motion for Moishe to come inside, Moishe, still pondering the wild and free running thoughts he had conjured during the course of his walk back to the farmhouse looked up at the farmer inside the house and yelled, "For one thousand dollars and the hand of my most beautiful daughter '" I say you can keep your G-d forsaken and diseased old horse! I'd rather freeze to death!"

And with that, Moishe stomped of into the night, into the wind, and into the snow, never to be seen again until the thaw of the following spring.