BALKY PEOPLE.
Passing along a country road quite recently, we found a man, a horse and
wagon in trouble. The vehicle was slight and the road was good, but the
horse refused to draw, and his driver was in a bad predicament. He had
already destroyed his whip in applying inducements to progress in travel.
He had pulled the horse's ears with a sharp string. He had backed him into
the ditch. He had built a fire of straw underneath him, the only result a
smashed dash-board. The chief effect of the violences and cruelties applied
was to increase the divergency of feeling between the brute and his master.
We said to the besweated and outraged actor in the scene that the best
thing for him to do was to let his horse stand for a while unwhipped and
uncoaxed, setting some one to watch him while he, the driver, went away to
cool off. We learned that the plan worked admirably; that the cold air, and
the appetite for oats, and the solitude of the road, favorable for
contemplation, had made the horse move for adjournment to some other place
and time; and when the driver came up, he had but to take up the reins, and
the beast, erst so obstinate, dashed down the road at a perilous speed.
There is not as much difference between horses and men as you might
suppose. The road between mind and equine instinct is short and soon
traveled. The horse is sometimes superior to his rider. If anything is good
and admirable in proportion as it answers the end of its being, then the
horse that bends into its traces before a Fourth avenue car is better than
its blaspheming driver. He who cannot manage a horse cannot manage a man.
We know of pastors who have balky parishioners. When any important move is
to take place, and all the other horses of the team are willing to draw,
they lay themselves back in the harness.
First the pastor pats the obstreperous elder or deacon on the neck and
tells him how much he thinks of him. This only makes him shake his mane and
grind his bit. He will die first before he consents to such a movement.
Next, he is pulled by the ear, with a good many sharp insinuations as to
his motives for holding back. Fires of indignation are built under him for
the purpose of consuming his balkiness. He is whipped with the scourge of
public opinion, but this only makes him kick fiercely and lie harder in the
breeching-straps. He is backed down into the ditch of scorn and contempt,
but still is not willing to draw an ounce. O foolish minister, trying in
that way to manage a balky parishioner! Let him alone. Go on and leave him
there. Pay less attention to the horse that balks, and give more oats to
those that pull. Leave him out in the cold. Some day you will come back and
find him glad to start. At your first advance he will arch his neck, paw
his hoof, bend into the bit, stiffen the traces and dash on. We have the
same prescription for balky horses and men: for a little while let them
alone.