My Long Relationship with Nell

This wasn't a love-hate relationship; it was hate on her side and on my side from the beginning to the end.  It only ended when I graduated from high school.  You see, when I was no more than eight or nine, I built this plow. Daddy let me plow with it, giving me Nell to pull it. Yes, Nell was a mule, a one-eyed mule but she cast that one eye on me, noting I was just a kid. She refused to walk right, in fact turning around to face me. Thus my relationship with Snip began. He replaced Nell and we got along except he was a very fast walker and I had to trot to keep up, even though he might have been 20 at the time

As I got larger and  more experienced , I  won more battles with Nell than I lost, but she never ceased to fight me  every way she could. The  day came when I was the only one working in the field. I was plowing peanuts and Nell was hitched to the plow.  Next to sweet potatoes and water melons, peanuts are the most difficult to hoe and plow.  Nell refused to walk adjacent to the peanuts, preferring to walk  on them.  I finally lost it, faced Nell and hit her on the nose with my fist as hard as I could.  You know what happened; I almost broke my hand, something others done when losing their patience.  Nell finally agreed to act right and we finished plowing the peanuts.  That was not the last of our disagreement but we never came to blows again..