"I'll Be There With Bells On!"

"I'll be there with bells on!"  That's an expression I've heard all my life.  Now I know where it came from and what it means!

Immigrants coming west needed large, sturdy wagons.  The Conestoga. originating in the Pennsylvania area, was a great favorite.  In the early part of the 1700's, these wagons were made with a broad wheel base to carry lots of stuff and to be more stable in transport.  Because of it's size, six horses were required to pull the load.  The collars of these horses were often fitted with bells, and those bells were sometimes customized by their owners to a particular sound.  They were a source of pride amongst the teamsters

By the 1800's when folks began moving west in huge numbers, the bed of the wagon was built high in the front and back so that when a wagon was going up or down a hillside, goods wouldn't tumble out.  The white hood on these "inland ships" was raised at either end to make it easier to climb in and out, and the hoops leaned out at each end to provide a bit of shade.  For all of their size, they appeared to be pretty graceful.

However, because they carried such enormous loads, they tended to get stuck.  The teamster that came to the rescue might ask for a set of those headdress bells as a reward.  That meant that the guy that got stuck reached the end of the line with no bells on - a serious blow to a teamster's pride!  Getting to the destination with the bells ON was a matter of great satisfaction - hence the saying, "I'll be there with bells on," meaning, I'd be delighted to be there!

It's a revelation to me to discover where some of these old sayings come from.  There's another one that comes from the time of President Andrew Jackson.  He fought in the Creek Indian War of 1813 as a young man.  The Creeks under a leader by the name of Red Stick, killed about 250 white settlers in Alabama in a pretty brutal fashion. (I keep tellin' ya, all Native Americans were not kum-ba-ya kinda guys and gals...)  Jackson and some others put together about 2500 men and went after the Creeks so as to prevent them from getting any ideas about starting something like the French and Indian Wars of the 1700.  If they had, it would have been the Spanish and Indian Wars of the 1800's!

When folks invited you over for a hoe-down, they'd answer, "I'll be there if the Creeks don't rise!"  Well, I always thought they were talking about creeks and rivers, etc.  Nope, that saying came from the time of Jackson and the Creek Indian wars.  I guess you could combine the two and say, "I'll be there with bells on, if the Creeks don't rise!"  That'd work!