a few christmases back chipper decided to buy his grandkids a pony to keep at the ranch…. so they could learn to ride… it would be the perfect christmas gift…
he located a trusty steed.. a smooth mouthed shetland… in billy bell’s killer pen… anyhow he bought the oat-burner and in order to hide it from grandkids he unloaded it in his neighbors pasture… just for safe keeping til christmas arrived… weeks passed….
then one foggy christmas eve tommy o’neal came to say… chipper let’s have a few drinks to celebrate the season…they proceeded to drink up everything on the ranch… til sometime after dark on christmas eve… chipper remembered the kid’s pony…. it needed to be caught and brought to the corral for the christmas morning surprise…
he commandeered tom’s assistance in the search for the shetland…. two drunks searching fifteen hundred acres of rugged ranchland for the grandkids pony…. the montague mount was nowhere to be found…
ya see chipper was just drunk enough to remember the horse….but not sober enough to remember that he put it in the neighbors pasture… he and tom continued to drink and search til the wee hours of the morning.. to no avail..
finally about two in the morning they decided it was too drunk to continue… they gave up the desperate search… tom dropped chipper off at the ranch-house and headed home…
chipper arrived at the back door only to discover he had been locked out… no key and no response from the bride……
not to be denied, chipper began throwing all the firewood out of the wood-box… unloaded a quarter-cord of seasoned oak before crawling through the wood box like a copperhead to gain entry to the house….
next morning … chippers standing by the window drinking some black coffee…rubbing his head…trying to focus….. wondering what in creation has happened to the grandkids pony , when he sees ol’ trigger standing by the fence… in his neighbors pasture… right where he left him….just in the” nicker” of time for the christmas tree…
montague county moments 
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