I do not believe that the most enthusiastic lover of that "useful and
noble animal," the horse, will claim for him the charm of geniality,
humor, or expansive confidence. Any creature who will not look you
squarely in the eye--whose only oblique glances are inspired by fear,
distrust, or a view to attack, who has no way of returning caresses,
and whose favorite expression is one of head-lifting disdain, may be
"noble" or "useful," but can be hardly said to add to the gayety of
nations. Indeed it may be broadly stated that, with the single
exception of gold-fish, of all animals kept for the recreation of
mankind the horse is alone capable of exciting a passion that shall be
absolutely hopeless. I deem these general remarks necessary to prove
that my unreciprocated affection for Chu Chu was not purely individual
or singular. And I may add that to these general characteristics she
brought the waywardness of her capricious sex.
She came to me out of the rolling dust of an emigrant wagon, behind
whose tailboard she was gravely trotting. She was a half-broken
colt--in which character she had at different times unseated everybody
in the train--and, although covered with dust, she had a beautiful coat
and the most lambent gazelle-like eyes I had ever seen. I think she
kept these latter organs purely for ornament--apparently looking at
things with her nose, her sensitive ears, and sometimes even a slight
lifting of her slim near foreleg. On our first interview I thought she
favored me with a coy glance, but as it was accompanied by an
irrelevant "Look out!" from her owner, the teamster, I was not certain.
I only know that after some conversation, a good deal of mental
reservation, and the disbursement of considerable coin, I found myself
standing in the dust of the departing emigrant wagon with one end of a
forty-foot _riata_ in my hand and Chu Chu at the other.
I pulled invitingly at my own end and even advanced a step or two
towards her. She then broke into a long disdainful pace and began to
circle round me at the extreme limit of her tether. I stood admiring
her free action for some moments--not always turning with her, which
was tiring--until I found that she was gradually winding herself up _on
me_! Her frantic astonishment when she suddenly found herself thus
brought up against me was one of the most remarkable things I ever saw
and nearly took me off my legs. Then when she had pulled against the
_riata_ until her narrow head and prettily arched neck were on a
perfectly straight line with it, she as suddenly slackened the tension
and condescended to follow me, at an angle of her own choosing.
Sometimes it was on one side of me, sometimes on the other. Even then
the sense of my dreadful contiguity apparently would come upon her like
a fresh discovery, and she would become hysterical. But I do not think
that she really _saw_ me. She looked at the _riata_ and sniffed it
disparagingly; she pawed some pebbles that were near me tentatively
with her small hoof; she started back with a Robinson-Crusoe-like
horror of my footprints in the wet gully, but my actual personal
presence she ignored. She would sometimes pause, with her head
thoughtfully between her forelegs, and apparently say, "There is some
extraordinary presence here: animal, vegetable, or mineral--I can't
make out which--but it's not good to eat, and I loathe and detest it."
When I reached my house in the suburbs, before entering the "fifty
vara" lot inclosure, I deemed it prudent to leave her outside while I
informed the household of my purchase; and with this object I tethered
her by the long _riata_ to a solitary sycamore which stood in the
centre of the road, the crossing of two frequented thoroughfares. It
was not long, however, before I was interrupted by shouts and screams
from that vicinity and on returning thither I found that Chu Chu, with
the assistance of her _riata_, had securely wound up two of my
neighbors to the tree, where they presented the appearance of early
Christian martyrs. When I released them, it appeared that they had been
attracted by Chu Chu's graces, and had offered her overtures of
affection, to which she had characteristically rotated with this
miserable result.
I led her, with some difficulty, warily keeping clear of the _riata_,
to the inclosure, from whose fence I had previously removed several
bars. Although the space was wide enough to have admitted a troop of
cavalry, she affected not to notice it and managed to kick away part of
another section on entering. She resisted the stable for some time, but
after carefully examining it with her hoofs and an affectedly meek
outstretching of her nose, she consented to recognize some oats in the
feed-box--without looking at them--and was formally installed. All this
while she had resolutely ignored my presence. As I stood watching her,
she suddenly stopped eating; the same reflective look came over her.
"Surely I am not mistaken, but that same obnoxious creature is
somewhere about here!" she seemed to say, and shivered at the
possibility.
It was probably this which made me confide my unreciprocated affection
to one of my neighbors--a man supposed to be an authority on horses,
and particularly of that wild species to which Chu Chu belonged. It was
he who, leaning over the edge of the stall where she was complacently
and, as usual, obliviously munching, absolutely dared to toy with a pet
lock of hair which she wore over the pretty star on her forehead. "Ye
see, captain," he said with jaunty easiness, "hosses is like wimmen; ye
don't want ter use any standoffishness or shyness with _them_; a stiddy
but keerless sort o' familiarity, a kind o' free but firm handlin',
jess like this, to let her see who's master----"
We never clearly knew _how_ it happened; but when I picked up my
neighbor from the doorway, amid the broken splinters of the stall rail
and a quantity of oats that mysteriously filled his hair and pockets,
Chu Chu was found to have faced around the other way and was
contemplating her forelegs, with her hind ones in the other stall. My
neighbor spoke of damages while he was in the stall, and of physical
coercion when he was out of it again. But here Chu Chu, in some
marvelous way, righted herself, and my neighbor departed hurriedly with
a brimless hat and an unfinished sentence.
My next intermediary was Enriquez Saltello--a youth of my age, and the
brother of Consuelo Saltello, whom I adored. As a Spanish Californian
he was presumed, on account of Chu Chu's half-Spanish origin, to have
superior knowledge of her character, and I even vaguely believed that
his language and accent would fall familiarly on her ear. There was the
drawback, however, that he always preferred to talk in a marvelous
English, combining Castilian[145-1] precision with what he fondly
believed to be Californian slang.
"To confer then as to thees horse, which is not--observe me--a Mexican
plug![145-2] Ah, no! you can your boots bet on that. She is of
Castilian stock--believe me and strike me dead! I will myself at
different times overlook and affront her in the stable, examine her as
to the assault, and why she should do thees thing. When she is of the
exercise, I will also accost and restrain her. Remain tranquil, my
friend! When a few days shall pass, much shall be changed, and she will
be as another. Trust your oncle do thees thing! Comprehend me!
Everything shall be lovely, and the goose hang high!"
Conformably with this, he "overlooked" her the next day, with a
cigarette between his yellow-stained finger tips, which made her sneeze
in a silent pantomimic way, and certain blandishments of speech which
she received with more complacency. But I don't think she ever even
looked at him. In vain he protested that she was the "dearest" and
"littlest" of his "little loves"--in vain he asserted that she was his
patron saint, and that it was his soul's delight to pray to her; she
accepted the compliment with her eyes fixed upon the manger. When he
had exhausted his whole stock of endearing diminutives, adding a few
playful and more audacious sallies, she remained with her head down, as
if inclined to meditate upon them. This he declared was at least an
improvement on her former performances. It may have been my own
jealousy, but I fancied she was only saying to herself, "Gracious! can
there be _two_ of them?"
"Courage and patience, my friend," he said, as we were slowly quitting
the stable. "Thees horse is yonge, and has not yet the habitude of the
person. To-morrow, at another season, I shall give to her a foundling"
("fondling," I have reason to believe, was the word intended by
Enriquez)--"and we shall see. It shall be as easy as to fall away from
a log. A leetle more of this chin music which your friend Enriquez
possesses, and some tapping of the head and neck, and you are there.
You are ever the right side up. Houp la! But let us not precipitate
this thing. The more haste, we do not so much accelerate ourselves."
He appeared to be suiting the action to the word as he lingered in the
doorway of the stable. "Come on," I said.
"Pardon," he returned, with a bow that was both elaborate and evasive,
"but you shall yourself precede me--the stable is _yours_."
"Oh, come along!" I continued impatiently. To my surprise, he seemed to
dodge back into the stable again. After an instant he reappeared.
"Pardon! but I am re-strain! Of a truth, in this instant I am grasp by
the mouth of thees horse in the coat-tail of my dress! She will that I
should remain. It would seem"--he disappeared again--"that"--he was out
once more--"the experiment is a sooccess! She reciprocate! She is, of a
truth, gone on me. It is lofe!"--a stronger pull from Chu Chu here sent
him in again--"but"--he was out now triumphantly with half his garment
torn away--"I shall coquet."
Nothing daunted, however, the gallant fellow was back next day with a
Mexican saddle and attired in the complete outfit of a _vaquero_.[147-1]
Overcome though he was by heavy deerskin trousers, open at the side
from the knees down, and fringed with bullion buttons, an enormous flat
_sombrero_,[147-2] and stiff, short embroidered velvet jacket, I was
more concerned at the ponderous saddle and equipments intended for the
slim Chu Chu. That these would hide and conceal her beautiful curves
and contour, as well as overweight her, seemed certain; that she would
resist them all to the last seemed equally clear. Nevertheless, to my
surprise, when she was led out, and the saddle thrown deftly across her
back, she was passive. Was it possible that some drop of her old
Spanish blood responded to its clinging embrace? She did not either
look at it nor smell it. But when Enriquez began to tighten the "cinch"
or girth, a more singular thing occurred. Chu Chu visibly distended her
slender barrel to twice its dimensions; the more he pulled the more she
swelled, until I was actually ashamed of her. Not so Enriquez. He
smiled at us, and complacently stroked his thin moustache.
"Eet is ever so! She is the child of her grandmother! Even when you
shall make saddle thees old Castilian stock, it will make large--it
will become a balloon! Eet is trick--eet is a leetle game--believe me.
For why?"
I had not listened, as I was at that moment astonished to see the
saddle slowly slide under Chu Chu's belly, and her figure resume, as if
by magic, its former slim proportions. Enriquez followed my eyes,
lifted his shoulders, shrugged them, and said smilingly, "Ah, you see!"
When the girths were drawn in again with an extra pull or two from the
indefatigable Enriquez, I fancied that Chu Chu nevertheless secretly
enjoyed it, as her sex is said to appreciate tight-lacing. She drew a
deep sigh, possibly of satisfaction, turned her neck, and apparently
tried to glance at her own figure--Enriquez promptly withdrawing to
enable her to do so easily. Then the dread moment arrived. Enriquez,
with his hand on her mane, suddenly paused and, with exaggerated
courtesy, lifted his hat and made an inviting gesture.
"You will honor me to precede."