Big Brown Leather Whip

      When I was younger I spent most of my weekends at my Grandparent’s house in the woods.

The house was more like a museum of  memories than it was a house.  Each item in that old house had it’s own special story, even the house itself had a unique history.  I heard all those stories so many times,  by the time i was eight years old I could tell them almost as well as Gramps could.  But there was one story I never tired from hearing, and Gramps never tired from telling.   It was the story of the big  brown leather dog whip.  It had its own special spot on the living room wall, right  between Gramp’s old trumpet and the violin that Gram played in high school.  I’d climb up into Grampa’s lap and say “tell me again about the whip.”  He’d chuckle and then with the same enthusiasm as  the very first  time, he’d begin:

         “It was way back in the  twenties.  My brother, Alden, and I wanted  something to do awful bad.  So we decided to learn how to run dogs.  We  had so much fun that Alden wanted to try running the dogsled from Lewiston all the way up to Montreal Canada. He had friends up that way.  That’s over 600  miles!  Now Alden wasn’t much for keepin’ to himself so pretty soon  word got out and before I knew it, we were  running the mail  into Montreal with stops in over 118  towns along the way.  It would be the first international mail run by dog sled.”

         “About three months before we were supposed to run,  we  found out that our lead dog was going to have pups, which meant she wouldn’t be able to pull.  The whole team depended on her and this meant we had to find a new lead dog.  We thought that we would have to postpone the trip.  Then, a man named Donald MacMillan from Alaska heard of our dilemma.  He contacted me two months before we were supposed to leave.  He said that he had some dogs that he wanted  us to run. IF we liked them we could have them for the trip.  Now these dogs were special. They were the only black-headed Eskimo dog team in the world.”

“I can still remember their names: Ipunga,  Chippalla, Oblik, Lusing, Ipar, and Noochusik, she was the lead. Along with the dogs,  Mr. MacMillan gave me that big brown leather dog whip.  I was just a kid of twenty and Mr. MacMillan was a man to look up to.  When he handed me that whip, and  said, “give the  world some hope”   I was so proud I thought I’d bust.”  

“The  day came when we was to leave.  There was soooo many people out there, the dogs could barely get through ’em.  It was more than I ever expected.  There were movie cameras,  news men photographers, and just about every citizen of Lewiston  that come to see us off.”

“I remember  this one young lady in the crowd, must have  been sixteen or so, pretty little thing.  Anyway, she was near the front of the crowd, and as we passed by her she smiled shyly and handed me a ribbon.  I didn’t realize then how  Important  that little pink ribbon would be along the way”

“The adventure began and we were off and running.  We wanted to cover about  25 miles a day. Most the time we did it ok.  The nights were the toughest.  We’d make camp and  tie the dogs up.  That’s  when it got real lonely.  One night,  after  the dogs had messed up the sled, we thought about giving up.  You see the dogs had come into this little town and were doing fine.  A crowd had come to greet us and that’s when it happened, the dogs got sight of a barnyard full of squawking chickens, no sooner had Alden taken his foot off the brake those dogs were headed full force toward that chicken coupe. The only thing in their way was a wood pile.  They went  right up  the middle of it and tore the runners right off the sled.   This was enough to ruin the whole trip.   The town’s people put us up in their hotel for the night and we talked about giving up.  Then  I found the little pink ribbon in my sack.  It  reminded me  of all the people who were   waiting to hear of  our success.   We truly were out to “give the world some hope”. If we gave up now, that girl in the crowd, might think that there is no hope for success.  In the late twenties everyone needed to have hope.  So I told Alden that we couldn’t give up.  It took five days for the  blacksmith to fix the sled, needless to say we spent one of those days chopping and stacking wood” 

“‘Before too long we were back in business and making pretty good time.  We  reached Montreal with only a few minor problems.  There were huge celebrations. Each little Canadian town tried to outdo the last.  I think those American reporters only followed us up to go those big parties!”

“The trip home went smoothly, and quickly, considering we didn’t have to stop to deliver mail.   Back in Lewiston a bigger crowd had turned out for our homecoming than that which  had seen us off.  As we were pushing our way through,  I saw the young lady that had given me the ribbon.  I felt that I had to pay her back.  After all, if it weren’t for that ribbon,  we might have given up  somewhere in Aroostook.   So, I said to the girl,

“remember  that success is always there, you just need to look for it.”   And I handed her my big brown leather dog whip.”

You may be wondering, as I was the first time I heard this story,  if  he gave the girl the dog whip, how can it be hanging on the living room wall?

               “Well,” he said,  “ when I  married your Grandmother,  she gave it back to me.”