THE STRENGTH OF THE WEAK
ONE day while Queen, for want of something better to do, was dozing over
her empty manger from which she had eaten up every spire of hay, she
heard the dog, outside, bark with unusual excitement. By the increasing
rapidity with which his barks succeeded each other, she knew that
something was coming. She soon heard the rumbling of a wagon and when
that sound came very close and stopped it was followed by the clatter of
many voices. She had allowed herself to worry about many sounds that had
resulted in no harm to her and experience was teaching her not to worry.
So she soon went back to her dozing, especially since the rapid patter
of hoofs, as the horses drawing the wagon pulled into the yard, had
quickened her memory of life with the herd.
In the midst of her dreaming she was suddenly disturbed by the entrance
of two strange horses whose heavy feet beat the floor of the barn so
hard that she felt every beat. The harness on these two huge horses was
massy and bits of metal on it flashed with the reflection of the light
of the doorway. They were led into the stall next to Queen and with
absolute indifference to her they began to rummage in the manger and the
oats boxes, calling greedily for food. Queen watched them with no little
interest. She was afraid of the men who had come in with them but in
spite of the men she could not resist the desire to touch noses with the
horse nearest to her. She pushed her nose anxiously through an opening
in the partition and the big horse touched it with his nose a moment,
but immediately returned to his voracious search for oats. But the touch
of the big nose had only intensified the burning desire in her heart for
companionship, and she called more loudly and with greater appeal.
Suddenly, she felt a slap upon her back and when she almost flounced
into her manger in fright, she heard laughter behind her. The man who
had slapped her then went round to the front of the manger and when
Queen’s eyes fell upon him she recognised him. It was he who had helped
the man of the place capture and brand her. The smell of him was most
repellent and she backed away as far as she could go; but he untied her
ropes and pulling their ends together, around a steading of the back
wall of the manger, he pulled on them, dragging her forward till her
knees struck the manger, and her head was over his shoulder as he
stooped. He held on to the ropes keeping her head immovable; while her
owner, coming from the other end of the barn with a bunch of straps,
threw them upon her head.
She struggled desperately to pull her head away but the ropes were
relentless. The evil-smelling hands of her owner moved all over her face
and she was powerless even to show her resentment. His big thumb forced
its way between her teeth and while her jaws were apart a piece of iron
slipped in between her teeth; and before she could dislodge it, the
straps were forced over her ears and fastened around her neck.
With teeth and tongue she struggled to eject the annoying iron from her
mouth but try as she would she could not move it to the edge of her
teeth. They then loosened the ropes and her owner seized them all with
one hand. Taking the reins which hung from the bridle bit in the other
hand, he jumped over the manger. Seeing him she sprang back nervously
and he followed her. She started for the doorway and when she got out
into the open, she was going a little too fast for him. With a vicious
jerk on the reins he halted her. The iron in her mouth was bent in the
centre and the least jerk on the reins forced the bend to strike the
tender palate with the force of a hammer.
The full light of day to which she was no longer accustomed hurt her
eyes and her limbs seemed stiff, the joints paining her with the
exertion of her first activity in so long a time. A wagon stood not far
off with its tongue extended before it. On the seat was a fur robe. It
appeared to her like some sort of animal and she was afraid of it.
Against its wheel leaned the boy. He was pounding the earth with a stick
and was looking at her. Under the wagon sat the dog on his haunches. As
soon as he saw her he raised his muzzle and barked at her.
She tried to back into the barn but the man who stood in its doorway
struck her with a stone which he threw at her. She dashed forward and
reared. Her owner pulled down on the reins and once more the bend in the
centre of the rider’s bit struck her tender palate. The pain terrified
her. It seemed as if her enemies were able to strike her from within.
She jumped involuntarily but she realised at once that every jump
inflicted its own punishment. So she tried very hard to control herself,
though her every nerve was on edge.
The man then walked forward and pulled on the ropes. She did not know
what he wanted, so she braced herself against his pull. Again he jerked
the reins and to avoid the force of his pull she moved hastily toward
him. At once he moved off again and a few repetitions of this taught her
to follow when led. Around and around the yard the man led her and with
eyes aflame with fear, her skin quivering with nervousness, Queen
hastily followed him, desiring to resist but anxiously afraid to do so.
She was beginning to think that that was all they wanted of her when the
man in the doorway of the barn came forward with a heavy leather affair
from which straps and things hung and dragged on the ground. She was
standing quite still, breathing rapidly when this new apparition
appeared. As the man swung it upon her she jumped to the side in fright.
The man at the bridle immediately jerked the reins and with impatient
force. Her palate by this time was sore and the pain was so excruciating
Queen again lost her temper and for ten minutes both men were obliged to
hang on the ropes and the reins as she reared and kicked and balked. But
in her enraged kicking one of her hind legs struck one of the rear
wheels of the wagon and the pain that shot through her whole body had a
quieting effect upon her. While they had her up against the wagon from
which the boy and the dog had fled, they placed the saddle upon her.
The saddle securely fixed, they led her off again, but walking was now
difficult and painful. The cinch, the strap that keeps the saddle in
place, was so tight that it was almost completely hidden by the skin
which lopped over it from both sides. It cut her painfully every step
she took. In two places on her back some hard parts of the saddle
pressed against the backbone.
But all this, miserable as it made her, was as nothing compared with the
horror that swept over her when the man suddenly seized the horn of the
saddle and threw himself upon her back like a beast of prey. She sprang
forward to get away from the farmyard; then on the open prairie she
began in real earnest the attempt to throw him. He pulled on the reins
till she felt the bend in the bit boring into her tongue. He dug his
spurs into her sides. He lashed her savagely with the knotted ends of
the ropes. But in her desire to rid herself of the frightful weight she
seemed to have lost her sensitiveness to pain. She shook her body as a
horse will shake water from him. She reared. She kicked backward. She
shook the rear of her body while she braced her front legs against the
earth. Then failing in all these attempts, she threw herself to the
ground.
He jumped in time to avoid a broken leg. Thinking that she had conquered
she struggled to her feet intending to fly, but to her consternation,
she was no sooner on her feet than he jumped back upon the saddle. She
was determined to get rid of him and was about to throw herself again
when she received a blow upon one ear that almost stunned her. The man
had leaned forward and struck her with his hand in which he held his
hat; but she thought it was some ferocious bird come out of the air to
assist him. She turned in the opposite direction and dashed away. When
he wanted her to turn back he struck her on the other ear and this time
when his wing-like hat reached her ear, he sent forth a most fiendish
shriek.
Away she leaped over the plains as if some awful monster were at her
heels. She seemed to get relief in the running. Her rider ceased pulling
on the reins and ceased poking her sides with his spurs. He showed no
displeasure in any way and Queen began to realise that that was what he
wanted. When with his reins he pulled her head sideways she
involuntarily turned in that direction and as soon as she turned he
stopped pulling.
She was finally so worn out running, that she dropped back into a weary
walk and as she looked up she was surprised to find herself but a few
rods from the barn. Rebellion was futile. All her failures proved it to
her, yet when the man near the barn-door came forward to take hold of
her, she tossed her head wildly, gripped the bit between her teeth and
reared. Then when he ran off to the side to get away from her hoofs, she
fell back and rushed for the barn-door.
But while her rider drew her head back till her ears touched him, the
man on the ground hurried over to the barn-door and seized her by the
bridle, holding her till the man jumped from the saddle. She was glad to
get back into her stall and allowed them to tie her without a protest.
The saddle was removed from her wet back and sides and the bit was
removed from her blood-stained mouth.
She was dizzy and her heart pounded at her sides. From her wet distended
nostrils the breath came like the roar of the ocean. Two sores on her
back itched almost unendurably. Both sides were pierced by the cruel
spurs and blood-stained. An aching pain gnawed in her palate and she
could not throw off the painful sensation of grating iron from her
teeth. Her body throbbed as a steamer throbs with the pounding of its
engines.
They threw hay into her manger but she only sprang back and looked at
them with moist, glowing eyes. They stopped in front of her manger and
talked. While they talked she held her terrified eyes upon them,
watching for what they might show evidence of wanting to do next. In the
next stall, the two big horses, apparently unconcerned about the weight
of harness still on their backs and indifferent to her troubles, stood
with their greedy heads right over the hay in their manger and noisily
and rapidly ground the hay in their mouths as if they were afraid that
they would be taken out before they could devour all that lay before
them. When the men walked into their stall and untying them started out
with them, each one eagerly stretched his head backward to take a last
large mouthful.
Queen looked after them as they went and experienced a sense of relief
at their departure, worried only by the fear that they would be coming
back again. When a few minutes passed and the doorway remained
unobstructed, she turned her head back again and sank into a doze which
was constantly disturbed. What troubled Queen most was the shattered
condition of her nerves. The slightest sound sent her into paroxysms of
fear, making her heart beat with a sense of impending calamity and
sending chills and waves of heat, by turn, over her body. The voices she
heard coming from the yard oppressed her with a constant threatening
suggestion of the men’s return.
Then, some time later, she became aware of the fact that the noises were
withdrawing. She heard the wagon rumbling away and even the barking of
the dog grew fainter in the distance. A sweet silence, as refreshing as
the cold water she longed for, fell upon the little farmyard; and the
feeling of being alone was like an opiate.
But she was suddenly alarmed by the sensation as of some one present and
turning hastily about, discovered a woman in the doorway of the barn.
Queen was badly frightened. This creature was different from man but it
was only a different sort of man. She gazed at the apparition which was
talking in a voice that was softer than that of the men. The woman was
carrying a pail full of water and came with it to the front of the
manger. When she lifted it to set it down into the manger, Queen sprang
back, frightened.
“Drink, Dora, you poor little wild thing,” said the woman, backing away
a bit and looking at her commiseratingly, “you’re taking it so hard, you
poor little Dora.”
Despite her fears, Queen’s ears went up straight and the glow of fear in
her eyes dulled slightly. The woman went on talking to her in the same
low tones, so different from the harsh, staccato sounds of the men and
the boy. When the woman went out of the barn Queen turned her head and
looked after her till she had disappeared. Then she turned to the pail
of water and sticking her burning lips into the cool liquid she drank
without a stop until there wasn’t a drop of water left.
The woman came back again driving a cow. Behind her, pushing its little
muzzle into her hand, came a little calf. The cow walked into the stall
next to Queen and there, like the horses, she rummaged about for food.
For some reason known only to the cow, she did not like the hay that the
horses had left, but cast her cowy eyes upon the hay that was heaped
much higher in Queen’s manger. She thrust her peculiar wide muzzle
between two beams into Queen’s manger and with her long tongue gathered
some of the hay and pulled it into her own stall where she chewed it
with apparent great relish. Queen took a mouthful and chewed it as if
the cow had reminded her of what she ought to do.
“Some more water, Dora?” said the woman coming around to the front
again, and as Queen jumped back frightened, she went on, “Don’t be
afraid of me, Dora. I won’t hurt you.”
She took the empty pail and went out with it, coming back a few minutes
later with the pail refilled and setting it once more into the manger.
She talked to her a few minutes, then went away. Queen saw her sit down
beside the cow and soon heard the peculiar sound of milk streams beating
against the walls of a tin pail. She watched her and listened for a
while but since the cow who was most concerned in the matter seemed not
the least worried, she turned to her water.
When the woman was through milking, she drove out the cow and fed the
calf and then sending it out too, she came back to Queen. She stood
leaning forward against the manger and talked to her for a long time.
There was something about that voice that made Queen think of ducks
paddling on the surface of a pond at night, or the songs with which they
sang themselves to sleep. It was a sound as of birds on branches of
trees overhead pushing into each other and expressing the desire for
warmth or the comfort of having it. The words followed each other slowly
and softly and there was neither threat nor authority in them. Queen
studied the strange face with the light playing upon it. She was still
slightly uncertain about the eyes that she was afraid of and that
strangely fascinated her. She was afraid to look into them, yet there
was something in them that was in a way overcoming her. Was it the
wetness about those eyes that in some way, perhaps never to be known,
affected Queen? Was it the sympathy that the suffering have for the
suffering that Queen recognised and that made her blindly place her hope
in this new and mysteriously different human being?
When the woman went out Queen felt as she had felt on many a winter
night in the wilds when some warm body next to her suddenly got up and
left one side of her disagreeably cold. For the rest of the afternoon
she kept turning her head toward the doorway and pricking her ears with
more hope than expectation, and throughout the long disappointing hours
the voice of the woman poured through her mind like a stream, like a
long persistent melody, and its even flow was rhythmically measured by
the one word that she remembered most clearly. “Dora!” What it meant she
did not know, but she felt in a vague way, when she heard it, that it
applied to her.
Next morning her owner put the saddle on her again, and though she was
very nervous and afraid and would have fled at the first real
opportunity, the lesson went by without much of the pain and agony of
the first lesson. She began to understand what every pull of the reins
meant and even the differences she heard in the man’s voice helped her
to avoid trouble, as for instance, when by the sound of his voice she
knew that he was impatient with her going too slowly and she sprang
forward into a more rapid gait before the man felt it necessary to apply
the spurs.
In the afternoon the woman came into the barn to give her water and to
talk to her. When she patted her forehead, Queen did not resist and in
time began to crave the touch of that hand, as she craved the sound of
that voice.
Day after day she had her little run over the fields and as her fear of
the farmer lessened slightly, she began to enjoy the exercise. It broke
the crushing monotony of standing in the barn and gave her a chance to
look at the plains she loved. So too it gave her a chance to see the
other horses, none of whom were kept in the barn any longer. She found
that the group in the corral had been very greatly reduced and the
mysterious reduction worried her. The brown stallion was gone and with
him all the horses she had known, except the little bay mare, who did
not seem to be on friendly terms with the other two horses in the
corral. She was always off by herself and at the call of Queen would
come rushing to the wire fence and beg her to join her.
One day the boy jumped upon her back. The man stood by and watched. The
boy annoyed her by the way he sat and by the way he held the reins and
she could hear the man angrily instructing him. She could feel him
changing his ways and realised that the man was taking her part,
somehow; but when they got away off on the fields, he tormented her. He
kept digging his spurs into her sides even while she was running her
best and he pulled steadily on the reins, hurting her palate and her
lips and making it difficult for her to see the stone or holes in her
path. But much as she hated and feared this boy, he was as yet afraid to
mistreat her. What he really was capable of doing to torment her, she
was yet to learn.
The old touch of melancholy just barely perceptible on Queen’s beautiful
head deepened rapidly as submission took possession of her soul. She
learned her lessons hastily and learned them well for fear of the pain
that inevitably followed mistakes; yet somewhere in the very heart of
that submission crouched an indestructible hope that sometime, somehow,
she would break the chains of her bondage and go galloping back to her
wilds.
------------------------------------------------------------------------