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Bob: Your mention of the evener getting too far out, thus causing them difficulty. My grand mother's brother, Mort proved this not to be so, close to 100 years ago. Uncle Mort hauled freight for the railroad, between two towns in Nova Scotia, and farmed a bit as well. Mort was quite well known to be tight fisted with his money, never had a matched team of horses, thus he could often be seen on the roadways one horse 4' behind the other. Mort was coming into the Town of Stewiake one day, (usual one horse 4' behind the other) some young lads got making fun of his team. One young lad shouted out, " Hey Mort you've got a slow horse". To which Mort replied, " OOOOO hh, he's not tooooo o bad, he only got behind 4' in 11 miles." Mort was also a very good living religious man, would never use 4 letter words, no matter how bad a situation became. Later in the 1930s my dad and Mort were putting logs into a sawmill. Late March, using two teams, two sets of bobsleds, helping each other load and unload. Only 1/4 mile haul from stock piled logs, not hauling big loads, as there was some bare ground, most notable right in front of mill skidway. Mort was approaching skidway, when someone poked their head out a window and yelled, "Whoa". Mort's team stopped, he never did get them moving again with load. My dad told me the adjectives Mort used on that team of horses, was hilaroious, remember he wouldn't swear. Dad had to hide behind log pile so Mort wouldn't see him laughing. The joke played out on my dad as Mort was stopped about 6' short of where he should have been. They put skids across from sleds to mill skidway. Dad working the back of the load had to slide his end of every log about 6' so they could roll it at an angle onto mill skidway. I'm sure my dad put his blessing on that mill employee that yelled Whoa. Dad said it was difficult but not impossible for him to restart on the bare ground, dad also always had the finest of matched teams. Mort never liked big loads thus his criteria probably wouldn't hold up in tractor pulling, or even serious horse pulling. He was basically a one horse farmer, that would buy or borrow a second horse if team was needed. Dad said one good horse would pull more than most of his teams. THERE IS A LESSON HERE.
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