My life with Nell

Nell and I never got along; in fact we hated and detested each other.  I am sure we had met before, but the first time we really had dealings was when I had manufactured a plow and wanted to try it out.  I was assigned Nell because  she walked slow and I was just a kid of eight or nine.  I was to plow the middle between two cotton rows,  the easiest task possible.  However, Nell refused to walk between the rows.  She turned her one good eye on me, saw that I was just a small kid, and turned around, fouling the traces.  Daddy saw what happened and replaced Nell with Snip. As long as Snip knew what you wanted he would do it. The problem was he walked real fast and I had to run to keep up with him.  Soon Dad came back by and said a regular plow would work better than the one I made.  That took all the fun out of plowing and I became a plow hand from that time on despite my age and size.

That didn't end my troubles with Nell although I mostly plowed Snip and then Maude, who also walked fast.
One morning the only people in the field were Nell and I,  and the job assigned was to plow peanuts. Now, peanuts spread on the ground and are difficult to plow unless the mule walks right.  Although I was larger now and had plowed for several years, Nell took it into her head to refuse to walk along the row. She turned around, walked across the row and stepped through the trace chains.  Very frustrated at this point I pulled a stupid stunt (one many plow hands have done), I doubled up my fist and hit Nell between the eyes as hard as I could. My hand was not broken but was badly bruised.  Nell was finally convinced that I was in charge.