This was the beginning of turbulent times between master and servant.
When my doctor drove Prince, all went well; but from that morning Fred
and he were always in a row. Many a time have I been reluctantly turned
over to the elder brother to keep peace and save Prince from a pounding.
On sunny days, as it came on spring, we horses used to be turned into
the pasture for a little run; and on one of these occasions Prince spoke
of his hatred for his master.
"But you were to blame in the first place," I said.
"Well," he answered, "I suppose I am ugly. I never thought so, though,
till I came here and saw you and the bays. But it is no wonder. When I
was a tiny colt I was badgered and tormented by boys until I learned to
use my teeth and heels in self-defence. The harder I fought, the more
they teased me. Then when the men came to break me, I was naturally wild
and unmanageable; and they yelled and whipped me until I was fairly
beside myself with fear. I learned one thing, and that was that by
kicking and biting I could conquer some of them.
"Had I been treated with quiet, kind firmness, I might have had a
different history. I am not the only otherwise fine horse that has been
ruined in the training. Everybody has been hard and cruel with me, and I
have just made up my mind to fight it out and die game.
"What's the fun or comfort in living, anyhow? You give your time,
strength and life for the little you can eat (when you happen to get
that), and if you live past your usefulness you're turned out to starve
and freeze. Men are working for themselves and laying by for old age,
but we, who work much harder, have nothing but starvation and death in
anticipation.
"Where I lived last there was an old horse that had outlived her
usefulness. She had raised fifteen sons and daughters, worth none of
them less than $800 when four years old, and had scarcely missed a day's
work since she was two years old. But we will suppose that she had
worked only three hundred days in the year and put it at the low
valuation of fifty cents a day, ought she not to have had something laid
by for old age? Well, at thirty-four she was worn out, and master said
he couldn't afford to feed a horse that couldn't work, so the hired man
led her out in the woods with the gun over his shoulder. He put her in
position, stepped off and fired. The ball cut through her cheek and
passed on. Frightened and hurt, she turned and tried to run away. He
called her, and do you believe it? she was so used to obeying that she
turned back and came toward him, stopping when he told her to, even
though the gun was again pointed in her face. That time he shot her
dead.
"I've seen so much of such work no wonder I am ugly!"
Before we went into the barn, Prince admitted that he liked Dr. Dick.
"Had I had him for my master I might not have hated and distrusted men
so. I am as gentle as a lamb with women and little girls."
In the years since, I have found that the vicious horse with bad habits
is universally the one that was spoiled in its early training. I wish
people were more patient and could understand that colts need only
gentleness and firmness. From my earliest babyhood I was taught by
loving hands to wear a halter and be led. I early learned to obey and
not to fear. When once we horses learn a thing we almost cannot forget
it; then, if we are only taught good things, we are all right.
It had not grown quite warm enough for Grim to go back to his bed on the
porch, so he still slept in my manger, when we were startled one night
by an unfamiliar step on the barn floor. Stealthily some one flashed a
lantern into my stall and a strange hand rested on my back. The next
moment Grim had flung himself out of that box and had his teeth fastened
in the intruder's leg.
A volley of muttered curses burst from the man's lips as he wildly tried
to kick and pound his adversary off. With one blow of my left foot I
smashed his lantern all to pieces, and then began neighing as loud as I
could, in which the other horses immediately joined.
All the while a terrible struggle was going on upon the floor.
It seemed an age before Master, closely followed by Bob, came; but I
suppose it was only a few minutes.
In the dim light they could just make out two figures rolling about, but
Bob's lantern hung right by the door and it was the work of a moment to
light it, and of another for Dr. Dick's strong arms to pinion the
horse-thief.
Poor Grim was pretty badly gashed up from the pocket-knife in the man's
hand, but he had proven himself faithful. The man was soon handed over
to justice, the dog being cared for by Dr. Dick and Mrs. Fred. I did not
see him again for several weeks, as they removed him at once to the
house. I missed him very much, especially nights when the other horses
were out.
One circumstance that he told me, among many others, I want to mention.
He was speaking of the hardships endured by street-car mules. In the
city where he lived they used all mules on the street cars. One day he
was riding down town with his master (Ruthie's father) when, through the
carelessness of the conductor in neglecting the brakes on the down
grade, the car ran right on the poor creatures, cutting them very badly
and breaking a leg for each.
That was the first occurrence of the kind I had ever heard of, but very
many have come to my knowledge since. Just of late years humane
societies are looking for such things a little in our Northern cities,
but what is being done along this and other similar lines is but a drop
in the bucket, compared to what there is to be done.
That spring Julie became the proud mother of a handsome roan colt, and
as it was born on Chet's birthday, it was given to him. He named it
Topsy. Chet was all father, hasty, passionate, headstrong, yet a coward
withal, who must have a guiding hand to keep him anywhere near the
right. This "hand," so far in his life, had been the slender white one
of his mother.
Carm, three years younger, was more like the gentle being who gave him
birth; naturally refined and good, but, unlike her, easily led and
controlled. Could a sad calamity that visited the family the next fall
have been averted, how different might have read the story of these
lads' lives.
The summer was not particularly eventful, so far as I could see, but I
had a premonition of coming ill. Master seemed dispirited, and
frequently told me that life was not worth the living. One morning I was
surprised to feel a side-saddle on my back. Master put his face close to
mine and whispered words that put me all of a tremble; it was a sad
hour. Tenderly Dr. Fred lifted his wife to my back, while Dr. Dick
mounted Prince. For the first time I noticed how pale Mrs. Fred was and
how worried her husband looked. After that I carried her often for a
time, sometimes accompanied by my master, as on the first morning, but
more often by Dr. Fred on Julie. He dared not mount Prince.
After awhile the saddle was given up for the single buggy, and then the
gentle woman ceased going out at all. It was late one morning before Bob
came out to attend to us, and I noticed that he was crying softly.
"She's just been like a mother to me," he burst out at last, "and now
she's gone. I'll never have another sech a friend."
I was wild to ask some questions, but of course could only paw and
whinny softly until Master came slowly in. The first thing he did was to
lean his head down on my shoulder and murmur.
"She's with Annie now; God help us all!"
I understood it then; our sweet mistress was dead.
The year following was a dreary irritating one, and yet better than its
successors. The boys grew perfectly lawless, save when their uncle Dick
spoke. Dr. Fred drank a good deal "to drown trouble," he said. Bob and
my master only remained unchanged.
Mrs. Fred had been dead one year and nine days when Fred brought home
another wife. She was so different from the first one, and so silly, it
seemed to me. I had not forgotten my mistress and I wondered if her
husband had. Dr. Dick told me again and again that it was "a perfect
shame!" and Bob made faces at her back. Chet and Carm--mimicking their
father, tone and all--called her "my dear;" and, when bidden to call her
mother, replied that their mother was dead. She became furious before
she had been Mrs. Wallace a week. Her husband sided with her, and there
was one continual row. After her "bridish sweetness"--as Bob called
it--wore off, she was quite able to hold her own, and either flogged the
boys herself, or had Dr. Fred do it, every day. Often, when the latter
was intoxicated, my master had to interfere to save the children from
being maimed.
All that was evil in those two boys grew and flourished; all that was
good withered and, apparently, died. They grew cruel and unjust to us
horses, but for all that, I pitied them, especially Carm.
By spring Mrs. Wallace had tormented her husband into the notion of
selling out there in K---- and removed to M----, the growing little city
from which she came. Further, she turned Bob off, and installed her
brother Parker in his place.
We horses used to talk the changes over sorrowfully, and wonder if she
would manage anyway to get Dr. Dick out of the way.
The night before Bob left, he and Master were talking in the barn.
"I would stay here and let them go by themselves," the latter said, "but
Fred can't get along without me; he is not himself all the time, and I
feel so badly for poor Nannie's boys; in fact, I promised her to stay
with Fred and do the best I could by him. I'll stick by him. Life is
nothing to me anyway, only as I can help some person or thing."
I know he found Bob a good place, but it was a sorry day for us when
Park Winters became hired boy at the Wallace stables.
Well, we all moved to M----.
The doctors bought a house in town, but the office was two blocks away.
They also bought a farm a mile out, and put a man, named Stringer, on to
farm it.