Pennsylvania Game News - March 2021 - 22

Among his many duties, Mr. Fiddich
was the stable boss at the mines. He had
come to America from Scotland shortly
after WWI. During the war, he had served
as a farrier, then stable master, with a
dragoon regiment.
Fiddy's face, shattered from a nearfatal " two-barrel " kick from a mine mule
many years before, mostly was hidden by
a bushy red-and-gray beard that blended
into his fiery mane. The man's expressive
eyebrows, bristly as a red squirrel's tail,
shaded his piercing emerald eyes. One
sat lower than the other and his bulbous
nose seemed a bad rendition fashioned
from clay.
Sometimes Fiddy had difficulty
realigning his jaw when he spoke, and
held his chin with his hand as if pondering
a thought. Then he'd reset it quickly as
one would return the carriage on a manual
typewriter.
" Ya got a couple minutes to show us
the mules? " asked my father.
" They'll be coomin' down the hill
soon, " Fiddy replied. " It's their bath night
so's you'll get a good look. "
As we waited, Fiddy told us to wash
off the carrots in the concrete water
trough attached to the mule shanty. Soon,
the mules filed out of the black maw of
the clay mine pulling loaded " dinkey "
cars just as the brickyard's shift whistle
blew. After emptying the cars at the clay
pile, a young driver unhitched the mules,
removed their tack and put it in a cart.
One by one, the mules trotted out into an
adjacent grassy field, where they happily
rolled about like dogs.
These mules soon were joined by
four others from the coal mine. They
were brought down in pairs alongside
the shanty beneath a series of shower
22

bars, where another driver washed and
scrubbed off the dust and grime, while
Fiddy inspected their coats and ears and
brushed their hooves.
As he worked, Fiddy crooned an old
Scottish ballad in a crystal-clear tenor
voice. It was called " My Heart's in the
Highlands. " I immediately recognized the
tune as the one I sometimes heard early
in the mornings as Fiddy serenaded his
mules while readying them for another
day.
" My heart's in the Highlands, my heart
is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing
the deer. "
The ballad went on to mention broad
valleys, " wild-hanging " woods, and rushing mountain torrents, a contradiction to
the rigors of the mules' days in the dank
and dark bowels of the earth.
I watched the mules up close as they
drank deeply from the trough. A perpetual
stream of fresh, cold spring water piped
from the woods above the mines had
the trough brimming year-round. Fiddy
would not have his mules drinking the
sulfurous-tainted water found below. He
hoisted a large tin ladle on a chain from
the depths of the trough, filled it from the
pipe and offered me a drink. The ladle was
colder than the water and I drank until it
took my breath away.
The mules were then led inside. The
name of each mule was lettered neatly
on the top board of their respective stall.
There was Gunn, Duff, Rab, Tam, Kelso,
Ness and Piper. I helped feed them grain
and hay. They were big, powerful, talleared creatures, the hybrid offspring of
male donkeys, or jacks, and mare horses.
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2021

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