Run Away Horses
Mr. and Mrs. Wallner moved to the state of Montana, where the government was offering property free to anyone who would settle on it and improve the land. They were require to fence the property, build on it, and put part of it into cultivation.
So Mr. Wallner signed up for two sections of land—a total of 1280 acres. He was only allowed to homestead one section, but he had to pay for the other one, which he did.
He had no tractor or other locomotive equipment, for in those days farming was done with horses. He had several good teams, but one was especially strong and high-spirited. They were a beautiful team of dapple-gray horses. They loved to work and to run. Their names were Pete and Vick.
Wallners live quite a distance from any city, but there was a little store and post office about 15 miles away. The storekeeper and the postmaster were the same person, and both businesses were in his home.
One day Mrs. Wallner hitched up Pete and Vick to the spring wagon. She bundled up her one year old boy and together they set off for the little store. After she had done her business she started back home. On her way she stopped to see the neighbors who lived about two miles from her home.
The neighbor Mr. Huff, warned, Watch out, those horses are acting very nervous.” Mrs. Wallner said. “Oh I can handle them.”
But when she got over the hill and in the site of home she found out the horses were indeed to much to handle. When Pete and Vick saw the barn, they left the road and started in a beeline across the sage brush for the barn at full speed. The wagon bobbed up and down, up and down, over the rocks, sage brush, and dirt mounds.
Mrs. Wallner realizing that the wagon might turn over at any moment, and that it might cost the life of her baby as well as her own, she decided to pick up the baby and jump out of the wagon.
But just as she was in the process of picking him up, the wagon hit a huge rock and bounced into the air; she was thrown out and the baby was left in the wagon.
Sitting there in the sage brush she offered an earnest prayer to her heavenly Father and said, “Oh Lord save my baby.” In an instant, the wagon became detached from the horses and it came to a stop. Of course the horses kept running to the barn.
She thanked her Savior, and quickly went to see what happened. First of all she found her baby safe in the wagon. She also found that the bolt that connected the double tree to the wagon tongue. Had been pulled out. She knew this was virtually impossible for the bolt was ten inches long, an inch in diameter, and had a large nut on it; but there it lay on the ground.
Although she never saw the angel, she was sure that the baby’s guardian angel had saved his life.
Ruth Grosball