“Do horses think?” asked a lady of my acquaintance, and I hastened to
assure her that they did. I told her of the horse my boy drives every
Saturday evening to sell newspapers to the farmers near our home. Just so
soon as the horse sees that the boy is delivering papers he turns into
the gate of every regular customer and stops. If strangers get into the
buggy old “Vinci” turns his head to see who it is and what they look like.
“Yes,” replied the woman, “and they have melancholy thoughts, and become
home-sick, like human beings, too. The saddest thing I recall from my
farm life happened when I was a girl of twelve years. We had a little
team of bay horses named Colonel and Rock. When they were seven years old
father sold them to a man who lived away back on the mountains. I cried
when the man drove them away—cried because I hated to part with them,
and because the poor horses did not realize that they were sold and were
being driven away, never to return to the old barn and eat from the old
manger. And every time I met the horses on the road I noticed how lean
they were getting, and how melancholy and dejected they appeared. I could
see sorrow written all over their faces.
“I used to lie in bed and think of the long weary trips they were obliged
to make out over the rough mountain roads, and always pictured them
leaning in their collars and drawing the heavy load to their new home.
I don’t believe they were ever satisfied and contented with their new
master, but always dreamed of returning to the old home some glad day.
“Two years after they were sold they were turned out into the pasture
field for the night. Somehow I went to sleep thinking of Colonel
and Rock that same night. Were they thinking of me? Some believe in
the transmission of thought waves, and if this is true, why not the
transmission of animal thoughts, as well as human thoughts that go out
unspoken to distant friends?
“At midnight a storm came up and the fence surrounding the pasture field
was blown down in several places. After the storm was over both horses
found a broken panel in the fence and walked out of the inclosure. It
was ten miles back to their old home. I can see them look a ray of
intelligence into each other’s eyes, and then mutually start southward
over the lonely mountain road. They could hear the sound of the
locomotive whistle coming out through the night air, and they knew that
near the old barn there was a railroad track where these iron monsters
passed many times every day.
“And I was at home dreaming of just such a trip as they were making, only
I dreamed that I was with them and talking to them and telling them how
much I missed them since they were taken away.
“Early in the morning I awoke from my dreams and rushed to the back
window and looked toward the barn. ‘Mother!’ I shouted, ‘out yonder at
the barn stand dear old Colonel and Rock! They have come back home!’ She
came to the window and looked and gave a glad shout of surprise, for she,
too, felt sorry ever since the horses were driven away. How glad I was to
see them! but how my heart smote me when I saw how lean and dejected they
looked. I would put on my clothes and go out to feed them out of their
old manger.
“But while I looked a man came dashing up on a big black horse. It was
the owner of Colonel and Rock. He had gone out early in the morning and
saw that the horses were gone. He found the place where they left the
field and saw that their tracks turned toward the river. Did he, too,
realize that Rock and Colonel were never satisfied, and were always
longing for the old home?
“Mother went out and begged that the horses might be fed in their old
stalls before taken away, but the man was angry, and cursed Rock and
Colonel, and jerked at their bridles viciously and cut them severely with
a wicked whip as he lashed them into a trot and started back over the old
home-sick mountain road. At the bend of the road both horses turned and
looked back longingly, and I burst into bitter tears.”