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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44176 ***
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+  CHAPTER II.
+  CHAPTER III.
+  CHAPTER IV.
+  CHAPTER V.
+  CHAPTER VI.
+  CHAPTER VII.
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+  CHAPTER IX.
+  CHAPTER X.
+  CHAPTER XI.
+  CHAPTER XII.
+  CHAPTER XIII.
+  CHAPTER XIV.
+  CHAPTER XV.
+  CHAPTER XVI.
+  CHAPTER XVII.
+  CHAPTER XVIII.
+  CHAPTER XIX.
+  CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+
+
+  "WHITE DANDY _OR_ MASTER AND I"
+
+  A HORSE'S STORY
+
+  25
+  CENTS.
+
+  BY VELMA CALDWELL MELVILLE.
+
+  A COMPANION BOOK TO "BLACK BEAUTY."
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  J. S. OGILVIE, PUBLISHING CO.
+  57 ROSE ST. NEW YORK.
+
+
+
+
+  "WHITE DANDY"
+
+  OR,
+
+  MASTER AND I.
+
+  A Horse's Story.
+
+  BY
+
+  VELMA CALDWELL MELVILLE.
+
+  _Author of "Queen Bess."_
+
+  A Companion Story to "Black Beauty."
+
+
+  THE SUNNYSIDE SERIES. No. 102. July, 1898. Issued Quarterly.
+  $1.00 per year. Entered at New York Post-Office as second-class matter.
+
+  (COPYRIGHT 1898 BY J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING CO.)
+
+
+  NEW YORK:
+  J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
+  57 ROSE STREET.
+
+
+
+
+"WHITE DANDY"
+
+OR,
+
+MASTER AND I.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Master is Dr. Richard Wallace and I am Dandy, the doctor's favorite
+horse, long-tried companion and friend.
+
+Neither of us are as young as we once were, but time seems to tell less
+on us than on some others, though I have never been quite the same since
+that dreadful year that Master was out West. He often strokes my face
+and says: "We're getting old, my boy, getting old, but it don't matter."
+Then I see a far away look in the kind, blue eyes--a look that I know so
+well--and I press my cheek against his, trying to comfort him. I know
+full well what he is thinking about, whether he mentions it right out or
+not.
+
+Yes, I remember all about the tragedy that shaped both our lives, and
+how I have longed for intelligent speech that I might talk it all over
+with him.
+
+He is sixty-two now and I only half as old, but while he is just as busy
+as ever, he will not permit me to undertake a single hardship.
+
+Dr. Fred--his brother and partner--sometimes says: "Don't be a fool over
+that old horse, Dick! He is able to work as any of us." But the latter
+smiles and shakes his head: "Dandy has seen hard service enough and
+earned a peaceful old age."
+
+Fred sneers. He says he has no patience with "Dick's nonsense;" but then
+he was in Europe when the tragedy occurred, and besides I suppose it
+takes the romance and sentiment out of a man to have two wives, raise
+three bad boys and bury one willful daughter, to say nothing of the
+grandson he has on his hands now; and I might add further that he is a
+vastly different man from Dick anyway.
+
+It is a grand thing to spend one's life for others; that is what my
+master has done, and it is what we horses do. Of course he is looking
+forward to his reward, but we are not expecting anything, though he
+insists that there will be a heaven for all faithful domestic animals.
+Fred says there is no Bible for it, but Dick says that they could not
+mention everything in one book. He says, too, that while he believes
+everything to be true that is in the Bible, at the same time he knows
+many things to be true that are not there; then he tells about a good
+old minister, who, when asked to lend his influence in the organization
+of a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, replied that if
+Paul had written a chapter on the subject he would consider it worth his
+while to countenance the movement, but as he didn't, he must be excused.
+
+For the benefit of such men, Master says he wishes the apostle had had
+time and inclination to write a chapter, and since he did not--with due
+reverence for Paul--it would have suited him better, and met a
+nineteenth century need closer, if he had omitted suggestions on ladies'
+toilets and dealt a few of his sledge-hammer blows at the man who
+oppresses the defenseless. Of course I know nothing about such things
+myself, but Dr. Dick has always had a fashion of talking all sorts of
+things to me, and I have a retentive memory.
+
+But I must begin my story, for I have set out to give you a history of
+"Master and I" and, incidentally, of many another man and beast.
+
+I will begin shortly after the tragedy; maybe before I get through I
+will tell you about that, but to-day I do not feel equal to it.
+
+Poor Master!
+
+Well, he came into my stall, where I had literally shivered with terror
+ever since that dreadful morning four days before, and, throwing his
+arms about my neck, burst into tears. A long while he sobbed there, and
+then growing calmer, he began caressing me, and said:
+
+"Dandy, boy, you are going home with me, to live with me while I live,
+to walk beside my coffin, and to be shot beside my grave, if so be you
+outlive me."
+
+Sad words, but they were a comfort to me, feeling as I did.
+
+Presently the boy came in and groomed me until my snowy coat shone like
+silk.
+
+"I hate to part with ye, Dandy, fer fact I do!" he said, standing off
+and looking me over, "but then ye'd a gone anyhow, I s'pose." Then he
+put a halter on me and led me out to where the doctor's horses were
+standing hitched to a buggy and tied me fast to the back.
+
+All the folks came out of the house and surely they cried harder than on
+either of those other days, but the doctor, with his lips white and set
+close together, hurried into the buggy and, with a backward nod, drove
+off. I glanced back and neighed good-by, then took up my journey with a
+heavy heart. I wanted to go and yet I wanted to stay. Certainly it was
+not enlivening to have to watch my master's agony all that weary seventy
+miles to his home.
+
+Of course we stopped over night, and my first night it was away from
+home. I assure you that I felt lonely and wretched enough.
+
+"Give all my horses the best of care," Master said to the hostler,
+"especially the white one."
+
+The man promised and led us away.
+
+"Don't s'pose they're any better'n other nags," he muttered, the minute
+we were out of hearing, and he took us to the pump, tired and heated as
+we were, and gave us all the water we could drink.
+
+"What would Dr. Dick say?" Queen, one of the span of bays, said, as we
+turned away.
+
+Of course the man did not understand, but thinking she was calling for
+more water he pumped another pailful and offered it to her. In surprise
+she turned her head aside, which so angered him, that he dashed the
+whole of the water right on to her.
+
+Then he led us into dark, dirty stalls, roughly removed the harness from
+the bays and threw us some hay. When he was gone, at least we could not
+hear him, Queen said:
+
+"I am all of a shiver; I believe it was the cold water inside and out.
+Dear me, I wish Master would come out."
+
+"So do I," said Julie. "One thing is sure, we will have to stand up all
+night, I can never lie down in this filthy place."
+
+"I don't think I could if I wanted to," responded Queen, "I am tied so
+short."
+
+Meanwhile, I was nosing the hay, but it smelled so musty and something
+in it tickled my nostrils.
+
+Presently I asked them if they could eat it.
+
+"Oh, yes," Julie answered, "if you are going to be a doctor's horse
+you'll get worse than this."
+
+Being pretty hungry, I nibbled away at it until a groan from Queen
+startled me. "Ain't you any better?" queried Julie. "No, I am shaking so
+I can hardly stand; how I do wish I had a blanket!"
+
+"Wonder he don't see to rubbing us down," I said.
+
+"Rubbing us down!" Julie spoke with scorn. "Unless Master comes out
+himself, as he generally does, there'll be no rubbing down to-night.
+About daylight they'll come around with an old currycomb and all but
+take the skin off us, along with the mud that will be formed out of the
+sweat and dust that ought to be rubbed off to-night."
+
+"Oh, I wish Master would come!" moaned Queen; "I am almost burning up
+now."
+
+"Got fever," remarked her mate, who seemed to have been around the world
+a good deal and grown used to everything.
+
+After what seemed an age, a light flashed into the barn and two strange
+horses were tied in the next stalls. The same man led them. After
+throwing them some hay he came into my stall.
+
+"Here, you fool, why don't you eat your hay, not muss over it?" he cried
+angrily, pushing it together with one hand while with the other he dealt
+me a blow across the nose. It was the first blow that I had ever
+received, and it hurt me in more ways than one. Just then a boy came in
+with a peck measure of oats.
+
+"There hain't none o' these critters tetched their hay hardly; 'nd their
+boss hez gone to bed sick, so I guess we'll 'conomize on the oats till
+mornin'."
+
+"All right."
+
+"Humph!" said Julie, but Queen groaned and I felt like it.
+
+Before morning of that wretched night I lay down; I could not help it, I
+was so tired, hungry and sad.
+
+Sure enough, by daylight (or lantern light in that windowless barn) the
+man and boy were at us with currycombs as if we had had no more feeling
+than barn doors. Then we each had a meager portion of oats. Julie and I
+ate ours readily enough, but poor Queen was too ill.
+
+When the man noticed this he swore a little, then lengthened her halter
+strap and ordered the boy to scatter some straw over the filth in all
+our stalls.
+
+By and by Master came out looking wan and haggard in the dim light.
+"Poor girl!" he said, tenderly, running his fingers along the edge of
+Queen's jaw to the pulse.
+
+"Mercy, Queenie, what a pulse--ninety!" Then he questioned the man as to
+his care of us, but never a word of truth he got in reply, but we could
+not tell.
+
+"Lead her out into the daylight," Dr. Dick ordered, adding: "Haven't you
+a lot or yard where all my horses can be turned in for awhile?"
+
+The man demurred, but Master soon brought the landlord and we were taken
+out into the sunlight. So busy was the former administering a dose of
+aconite to Queen that he did not at first notice me, but when he did an
+angry ejaculation escaped his lips as he pointed to my side. I was
+astonished, too, when I saw instead of my spotless coat, a great yellow
+stain.
+
+"Is that the kind of beds you provide?" he cried, turning to the
+landlord.
+
+"I am sure there seemed to be clean straw in the stalls," the latter
+replied, "I'll ask the man."
+
+"No need," answered the doctor, curtly, "I am the one to blame for
+trusting any man to take care of these good servants who cannot speak
+for themselves."
+
+It was almost noon before we started and then the bays walked every step
+of the way.
+
+Just before leaving, the span of horses that came in after us the night
+before were brought out, one of them limping painfully.
+
+The owner unconcernedly seated himself in his buggy and took up the
+lines.
+
+The doctor spoke of the animal's lameness.
+
+"Oh, that is nothing, Jerry is always lame when he first starts, and
+nearly all the rest of the time, for that matter," he added, as if it
+were a good joke.
+
+"Why don't you have the trouble investigated?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know; never thought much about it; he's an old horse," and
+with this he drove off.
+
+Dr. Fred's first wife and her two boys were waiting to--but you can't
+understand what for yet. There were not so many railroads and lines of
+telegraph then, and no intimation of the news we brought had reached
+her. She cried and petted Dr. Dick as if he had been her own child. She
+put her arms about my neck and kissed me, too, making me think of other
+arms and other kisses. Ah me!
+
+That Mrs. Fred was a lovely woman, more fit for Dr. Dick than his
+brother.
+
+The Wallaces lived in the small country village of K---- and controlled
+a large practice. The brothers were ambitious, but had started poor, and
+not until the year before had they felt that either could spend a few
+months abroad. Fred was the elder, and there were other reasons why Dick
+preferred to go later, so it happened that the former was the last of
+the family for me to know.
+
+The Wallace barn was a large frame building, warm in winter, cool, from
+having perfect ventilation, in summer, and well lighted.
+
+Dr. Dick would have no hay mowed to be dropped into the mangers, nor
+would he have it stored directly above us all. He insisted that the dust
+would inevitably sift down and be the cause of various diseases of the
+eye, ear, throat and lungs.
+
+He was particular about the stalls and feed boxes, too. He said it was a
+shame for an animal with a low body and short neck to be expected to
+take any comfort eating from a box put up for a high horse with a long
+neck. He had each stall fitted up with reference to its occupant, nor
+would he allow us to be put where we did not belong.
+
+Queen and Julie were regular long, clean-limbed roadsters and their feed
+boxes were much higher than mine. I am of heavy build, with short legs
+and neck. The first time Dr. Fred looked me over--when Dr. Dick was
+absent--he remarked: "A pretty horse for a doctor! Slow and clumsy! No
+endurance!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Besides the bays, the Wallaces owned one other horse, old Ross, a
+somewhat worn and battered veteran, who entertained me for hours at a
+time, when we were standing alone in the shady pasture or in the barn,
+with tales of what he had seen, known and experienced.
+
+"You look like a nice young fellow," he said on the second day of my
+arrival; "but I'd rather be myself, all battered up as I am, than you,
+for I have the satisfaction of knowing that I can't live many years
+longer and you may happen to suffer through a long lifetime yet."
+
+"Why," I said, "is it so bad as that to live? I have always had a good
+time."
+
+"Yes, it is very bad to live if you are owned by some people. Of course
+I am happy and contented here, only I know I shall be sold by and by. I
+am about worn out, and Dr. Fred said before he went away that I was
+getting too stiff for a doctor's horse."
+
+"But my Master is never going to sell me!"
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"He says I am going to live with him always, and be shot on his grave."
+
+"Well, Dr. Dick is an exception among men; but he don't always get his
+way."
+
+The season following my coming to K---- proved to be a
+never-to-be-forgotten one. Cholera raged for many weeks, and I had to
+take my share of the work, especially as Queen was not strong. She was
+never as well again before that night in the livery stable. She took
+cold easily and could not endure fatigue. Days and nights together
+Master never rested and scarcely ate anything, but in one sense it was
+a good thing; it helped him forget.
+
+One day he had had the bays out since just after midnight and Ross had
+fallen terribly lame the day before, so when a call came for him to go a
+dozen or more miles in a pouring rain he was obliged to saddle me.
+
+"Poor little Dandy!" he said, "your legs are too short for such a
+journey, but it is life or death to the mother of seven little ones."
+
+That was enough for me; my legs might be short but they were strong, and
+though the doctor was heavy I felt equal to the task. I started off on a
+swift canter but Master drew rein, telling me to husband my strength for
+the last half of the way.
+
+It had long been dark when we arrived--inky dark, too, with no cessation
+of the rainfall. A trembling hand held out a lantern while a hollow
+voice fairly sobbed: "I'm afeard ye're too late, doctor, my woman is
+sinking fast."
+
+"Now, see here, my man, you take good care of my noble little horse here
+and I'll pull the wife through, or fail doing my best."
+
+By the uncertain light of the lantern I saw that I was being tied in a
+sort of shed. My saddle was removed, but its place was soon supplied by
+a stream of water that trickled through a hole in the roof. Move which
+way I would, a leak was directly over my back. The man laid some
+newly-cut grass across some poles, barely within my reach, and went
+away.
+
+All the while I was aware that the place had another occupant, though I
+could see nothing. Presently a horse's voice in the darkness asked if I
+had come far. From the first tone I noticed a sadness, but I replied to
+the question, adding that I would rather be out of doors than in this
+leaky place.
+
+"Oh," she said, "this ain't bad now, but it is a dreary place in winter
+with the snow drifting in and the wind whistling through."
+
+I was too much surprised to answer at first, and in a minute she gave a
+long, piteous whinny.
+
+"Whom are you calling?" I asked.
+
+"My baby, my pretty, little roan colt; they took him from me last week
+and have not brought him back. It seems as if my heart must break! We
+were never separated an hour before, and I don't see how he will get
+along alone. My baby, oh, my baby!"
+
+I expressed my pity for her, and she said it did her good to have some
+one to talk to.
+
+"Oh, it is a dreadful thing to be a mother, loving your offspring as
+much as human mothers do, and yet be speechless and helpless," she
+moaned.
+
+"They tied me in here and drove Selim into a corner and caught him. I
+jerked and neighed until master kicked me and bade me shut my head. By
+this time the others had got Selim out, and I could hear him calling to
+me. His voice grew fainter and fainter and then all was still."
+
+"I suppose your master sold him. Ross, the old horse at our place, says
+he was taken from his mother and sold."
+
+"Oh me! if colts must be taken from their mothers in that way, why can't
+they get us used to the separation by degrees, not tear us apart without
+a moment's warning or word of farewell?"
+
+"Why can't they?" I repeated, then added: "But I guess your master is
+getting pay now for his cruelty. His wife is almost dying with cholera,
+and my master says there are seven little children."
+
+"I shall certainly pity the children if they are deprived of a mother's
+care, but they will feel no worse than little Selim does."
+
+After awhile Dr. Dick came out to the shed. I suppose the rain had
+ceased by that time, at least the stream of water on my back had, but I
+was standing in some sort of filth, with the mud hardening on my legs. A
+long while he scraped and rubbed my legs and back, then turned me out
+into a little pasture.
+
+"It will be better than this dirty place, Dandy," he said, and it was.
+
+It was just growing gray in the morning when a man rode past the pasture
+on a horse that fairly swayed from side to side, he was so exhausted,
+and blood and foam poured from his mouth and nostrils.
+
+In a minute more Dr. Dick was calling me.
+
+"Likely you'll have a time to ketch the colt," the owner of the premises
+was saying as I came up. The doctor laughed.
+
+"Why, that is queer," the man said. "I can never get near the old mare
+even, when she's out."
+
+"Well, sir," replied Master, looking very serious, "I would be ashamed
+to treat a dumb animal so badly that it would fear to come at my call.
+My horses know that I am their friend, and that, though I may have to
+work them hard, I will not require more of them than they can do, and
+that they can trust me in all things."
+
+Then he stroked my face, and I put my cheek against his.
+
+"Dandy and I love each other," he added. Then he went for the saddle and
+bridle. My companion of the evening before was still neighing pitifully,
+and Master inquired the cause.
+
+"Sir, if your wife or any of your children die," he said severely, when
+the other had told about the colt, "just remember that you deserve it,
+for having no regard for the feelings of a dumb mother. The God who
+noteth the sparrow's fall, will measure unto you as you measure unto the
+helpless. There is a merciful and humane way of dealing in all these
+matters. If I were in your place, I'd send one of the boys to bring that
+colt where its mother can see it for a day and then let her watch it go
+away. 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.'"
+
+We now joined the other man standing beside his heaving horse at the
+gate.
+
+"Follow at your leisure; that poor beast is well-nigh done for; I will
+hurry on and do all I can," Dr. Dick said to the stranger, whose sister
+had been attacked by the epidemic; and away we flew.
+
+My training had all been for the saddle, and, whether built right or
+not, I was at home under it. We turned in at the Wallace gateway just
+forty-eight hours after going out of it.
+
+"How did the colt stand it?" was the hired man's first query.
+
+"Dandy is a jewel, Bob!" Master replied heartily, "a perfect saddle
+horse and with ambition and sense enough for a dozen horses."
+
+And thus began my actual experience as a doctor's horse; and from that
+time on our names were continually associated together, first by the
+family and finally by the whole town and neighborhood.
+
+I remember one small boy, coming in haste for the doctor, breathlessly
+announced that he had come for "Dick and Dandy."
+
+I was soon trained to drive in a sulky, and grew to like it better than
+the saddle, only that I could not hear quite as well what the doctor
+said to me--in common conversation--as we traveled along.
+
+The news of the epidemic brought Dr. Fred home some little time before
+he intended coming, but his coming brought no additional happiness to
+the stables, whether it did to the house or not.
+
+He rushed about everything, spoke in a loud, confusing tone, issued one
+order only to countermand it by another, used profane language
+and--drank whisky.
+
+"We've had our good time," Ross remarked significantly, and Julie gave
+an acquiescent snort.
+
+Meanwhile a new blacksmith had bought out the old one in K---- and Dr.
+Dick was wondering if the former was a bungler. Ross did not get over
+his lameness, and Master had had his shoes removed and turned him out
+into the pasture.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+The epidemic abated with the early frosts, and the Wallace brothers had
+a little more leisure. Dr. Dick was thin and pale, but assured Mrs.
+Fred, when she worried about it, that he would soon pick up.
+
+One day Dr. Fred drove home with Julie and a new mate. He had traded
+Queen off. The new horse was named Kit, and she did not match Julie in
+color as Queen had.
+
+Mrs. Fred cried. She said it seemed just like trading one of the family
+off, and she could not endure it.
+
+Dr. Dick looked dark, but only added, "I regret it exceedingly."
+
+"You're a--pair of fools," growled Fred, "and I have had enough of this
+nonsense! A horse is no more than any other piece of property, and I'll
+trade every one on the place if I please."
+
+"You dasn't trade Dandy," cried the eldest of the family hopefuls,
+saucily; "he's Uncle Dick's."
+
+Bob unhitched the new mare and led her into Queen's stall.
+
+How we all felt!
+
+But before her harness was fairly off, the unwelcome stranger lay flat
+on her side, her whole frame quivering and her four legs stretched
+straight out.
+
+Bob yelled, and both men hurried back to the barn.
+
+Fred stood staring helplessly, and then I surmised, what I afterwards
+learned to be true, that with all his headstrong swagger he was as
+helpless as a child when things went wrong.
+
+"Poor thing!" said my Master pityingly, "it is some disease of the
+foot."
+
+He examined her feet as well as he could and then sent for the smith to
+remove her shoes.
+
+"There is nothing particular wrong with these shoes," the smith said,
+"but her feet are in a fearful condition from wrong shoeing and
+senseless cutting and rasping in the past. I am ashamed of our
+craftsmen. Blacksmiths are, as a class, the most unenlightened,
+pig-headed men in the world. I can trace the history of this poor
+beast's sufferings right down. First some man, with more theory than
+sense, took her feet, perfect from the hand of the Creator, who, knowing
+enough to make a horse, knew enough to make its feet, and with his knife
+trimmed the frog and thinned the sole until he could feel it yield when
+he pressed on it. (This is an important part of the average farrier's
+creed). Next, I suppose, he 'opened the heel,' and then proceeded to
+nail on a shoe, regardless of whether it fitted or not. The chances for
+its fitting would be about equal to yours or mine if we shut our eyes in
+a shoe store and picked out a pair of boots at random. As the shoe
+didn't fit the foot, the foot must be made to fit the shoe, so down came
+the ever-ready rasp, and the business was finished up speedily. From
+that hour, doubtless years ago, this poor creature has suffered untold
+torture. Meantime, dozens of bunglers have tried their knives, rasps and
+hammers on mangled feet. God forgive them!"
+
+"I don't know," put in Dr. Dick, "whether one ought to pray for
+blessings or curses on such men."
+
+"Well, such things will go on until owners of horseflesh inform
+themselves on this subject, and then insist upon having the work done
+right.
+
+"I often think, as I watch team after team pass along the street, of the
+dumb agony, unguessed at, moving by. Two-thirds of our horses suffer
+daily with their feet. Most cases of stumbling are from diseased feet,
+induced by improper shoeing, and yet men are forever jerking and cursing
+the stumbling horse."
+
+"You are a man after my own heart!" Dr. Dick said in his frank, hearty
+way.
+
+"Just see these nails," went on the farrier, presently, "as large again
+as they need or ought to be; and look at her hoofs all picked to pieces
+with the things. Well, Dr. Fred can't drive his 'trade' in many a week."
+
+When the latter came out again and learned the true condition of things,
+he began to bluster about the man who had cheated him, and swore he'd
+make him trade back, but he never tried it. During the weeks that poor
+Kit was under treatment, he used Julie in the sulky and Dr. Dick rode
+me, excepting once in a while they drove Julie and Ross in the buggy.
+Fred wanted to drive me with Julie, but my master said "No," most
+emphatically.
+
+"I will not be guilty of such barbarity," he declared, "and it is
+barbarous to drive a short-legged, heavy horse with a long-legged one;"
+but, despite his care, I was still to have a trial of it.
+
+Perhaps I ought to mention that the first thing they did for Kit was to
+soak her feet, by having her stand in tubs of warm water. When the dry,
+cramped horn and stuff was thoroughly softened, they poulticed them with
+boiled turnip occasionally and kept her standing the most of the time
+in moist sawdust. In the day she ran out in the pasture if she liked,
+and all the time her feet were greased. In about two months the humane
+smith put some shoes on her, but they were very unlike those worn by the
+rest of us; they were made on purpose. He said they must be changed
+often. Then the Wallaces sold her to a farmer, after explaining the case
+to him--at least Dr. Dick did. He said she would be all right for farm
+work, but could never stand fast driving.
+
+Imagine our joy, not long afterward, when Master came home one night
+with Julie in the sulky and Queen tied at the back. Dear Queen, how her
+eyes wandered to every familiar spot and how she neighed with gladness!
+
+Ross and I answered lustily, and even Grim, the dog, barked and capered
+in welcome.
+
+"I have been so homesick," she said, "oh, so dreadfully homesick, but I
+couldn't tell it! Again and again I opened my mouth and tried to
+articulate just the one word, 'Don't,' when Dr. Fred was making the
+trade, but of course, it only ended in what people call a whinny. If
+they would only try putting themselves in our places, maybe they could
+guess what we are trying to say."
+
+Speaking of Grim, a little way back, reminds me that I should have
+introduced him before. Strange I could neglect to mention anything
+belonging to my master, or if not really belonging, indebted to him for
+home and existence. It all happened before I came, but the others told
+me of it. Dr. Dick had gone to a neighboring city on business, and while
+walking along the street one day was startled by the cry of "Mad-dog."
+Turning quickly, he saw a long, slender brown dog running toward him,
+pursued by a band of hoodlums with stones and clubs. Everybody cleared
+the way without question, even the policeman. In one glance he
+recognized, not a mad-dog, but an abused, frightened creature running
+for its life. He had thick driving-gloves on, and acting on the impulse
+of the moment, as well as on the impulse uppermost with him to defend
+the defenceless, he turned and clasped his hands about the panting
+animal's neck, at the same moment speaking gently and reassuringly to
+it. On pressed the mob, scattering and surrounding him, half-a-dozen
+clubs and knives raised to dispatch the dog.
+
+"Fools, this dog is not mad; get out and let me manage him," he roared.
+A couple of police ventured near by this time, and he appealed to them
+to disperse the crowd.
+
+I heard Master say myself that that dog looked up into his face with
+eyes of human intelligence, from which thanks and trust plainly shone
+out.
+
+Of course, the dog wasn't mad, but somebody had started the story; and
+Ross says give a horse, cow, dog, cat, or any creature that cannot speak
+for itself, a bad name and it is worse than killing it outright. Well,
+Master fed and petted the half-dead creature, and finally brought him
+home to Chet and Carm, Dr. Fred's boys.
+
+Grim was quite a character in his way and much respected, inasmuch as he
+gave warning once in the night when the house was on fire, and saved the
+little daughter of a neighbor when a vicious cow was about to gore her.
+
+Dr. Dick says that either here or hereafter all kind deeds shall be
+rewarded; "and unkind ones, too," he usually adds.
+
+As the nights became cold, Grim left the rug on the front porch and came
+to the barn. I invited him to sleep in my manger and soon we became
+intimate friends.
+
+One night when the other horses--that is, the bays--were out and Ross so
+far off that our talk would not disturb him, I asked Grim about his
+early life.
+
+"Well," he said, "there is not much to tell. I cannot remember when I
+did not live in the pretty brown cottage on South street, in the city
+where Dr. Dick found me. My constant playmate was a little girl with
+sunny curls and a sweet face. Ruthie her name was. They were all kind to
+me there, feeding and petting me continually, but one day something
+happened, I don't know what, but Ruthie and her mother went off in a
+strange carriage early in the afternoon. I watched for their return, but
+it came on dark and master came home, and still they weren't there. I
+trotted around after him until he picked up a letter that lay on the
+dining table. I noticed that his fingers trembled and he grew very white
+as he read it. At last he began rushing madly about the room, crushing
+the letter in his hands and fairly hissing.
+
+"Suddenly he dropped on his knees beside me and gathering me in his
+arms, sobbed out: 'I am going to find Ruthie, Brownie [I was called
+Brownie then] and maybe I'll----,' but he did not finish the sentence.
+He was in the bedroom awhile, then he came out, dressed for traveling,
+told me to go out, went out himself, locked the door and was soon lost
+to sight in the darkness. I could not understand, but felt that some
+dreadful thing had happened. I did not feel hungry that night, nor did I
+sleep much. In the morning I dug up a buried bone and made a very poor
+breakfast. Night found me still more lonely and hungry. Thus many days
+passed, and I was obliged to beg my meals at the neighbor's over the
+way. Such a sad life as I led, lying most of the time on the porch
+guarding the shut door. I felt myself responsible. Toward fall a strange
+man and woman came, unlocked the doors and took possession; but they
+would have nothing to say to me, only to bid me 'begone.' It all seemed
+worse yet. While the house was alone I felt that I had a home, but now I
+was ordered from even my old rug. No wonder that I got poor and thin and
+people thought that I acted strangely. I heard the woman tell a neighbor
+that she and her husband had rented the house, all furnished, till
+spring. She grew more unkind to me every day, and was always wondering
+what that 'horrid dog hung skulking around for.' Once her husband told
+her that it was because it was my home. 'Well,' she said, 'it ain't now,
+and I'll have him shot, or I'll scald him if he don't keep away.'
+
+"I am sure she was the one to start the story about my being mad.
+
+"Well, I was saved by Dr. Dick, and I love him and all that belongs to
+him as only a grateful dog can love."
+
+"What a terribly cruel thing for your people to leave you there
+unprovided for!" I cried, indignantly.
+
+"Yes, it was cruel, but I am sure some great trouble came to them else
+they never would have done it. Anyway, it is no uncommon thing for folks
+to leave their pets that way; I have known many instances. While I lived
+in the city an old lady in the next street went away to spend the
+winter, leaving her pet cat to forage for itself. The poor creature was
+dreadful shy, but I used to see her sit day in and day out on the cold,
+icy step, looking piteously up at the door and waiting for it to be
+opened. One very cold morning I noticed her there and thought I would
+carry over a piece of my meat. She always ran away when she saw me, but
+I thought I could lay it down and she would come back to it. Imagine my
+surprise when she never moved. At last I stood beside her, and then I
+saw she was dead; starved and frozen, her sightless eyes still looking
+up at the door-knob."
+
+"How terrible!" I said.
+
+"Yes, and some other time I will tell you of other things I knew about
+there, but we have had enough for one night. Hark! I hear Master's
+bells!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+That was a severe winter, with plenty of snow and ice after the middle
+of December. How I did enjoy skimming over the smooth roads, with Master
+in the light cutter behind me, and the merry jingle of the bells keeping
+time to my flying footsteps. No matter how great the hurry when we
+stopped, he never neglected to blanket me, and blanketing with him does
+not mean merely to throw a robe or blanket loosely over a horse's back,
+but it means to put a thick covering that buttons or buckles over the
+chest and far up onto the neck. He grows righteously indignant every
+time he gets to speaking of people who think their duty done when the
+back of an animal is protected, while the part containing the lungs,
+etc.--the most delicate, susceptible part of the horse's anatomy--is
+left exposed to the pitiless blast.
+
+My doctor is one of the few sensible, consistent men in the world;
+heaven bless him!
+
+My heart always aches for the thin, neglected animals, many of them
+without even the pretense of a blanket, that stand for hours shivering
+in the wind and storm. The man who will button his own warm coat around
+him and hurry indoors, leaving his helpless servants tied unprotected
+outside, must have a heart of flint.
+
+One day the humane blacksmith came to Master and told him he thought
+something had ought to be done. That he had just found out that a span
+of horses had stood in an old shed, belonging to a saloon, for two whole
+days and nights, the week before, with neither food nor water. The owner
+was on a protracted spree. Dr. Dick was furious. He never shows anger
+excepting under some such circumstance as this. He immediately wrote two
+letters, one to the saloon-keeper and the other to the man who had
+neglected the team, boldly signing his name and warning them not to
+repeat or be party to such an offence again.
+
+Further than this, between himself and the smith, the sheds and alleys
+of the little town were closely watched.
+
+Several times in daylight, when Master knew that animals had stood for
+hours unfed and unwatered, he would send Bob to untie them and bring
+them to our barn. There they would be rubbed and cared for, then
+returned to their post; and as fast as our blankets grew shabby he found
+some poor, shivering beast whose back needed them.
+
+One day while Bob was unhitching a sorry-looking horse that had stood
+unprotected and uncared for for eight hours in a cold wind, the owner
+rushed out of the saloon and began a tipsy tirade, threatening to have
+the youth arrested for horse-stealing if he dared take the creature a
+foot.
+
+Bob came home to report. Dr. Fred bade him mind his own business and let
+other people's property alone.
+
+Dr. Dick told him that so long as a man did not abuse his property, he
+proposed to let it alone; but that when a living creature was being
+imposed on and abused, that he had a right--a God-given right--to
+interfere, so long as he did not injure the man or make him poorer.
+
+Fred had been drinking a little himself, and becoming furious, shook his
+fist in Master's face and called him hard names. The latter, without
+replying, turned away and bade Bob attend to the work at home. Supposing
+that he had won the day, Fred strutted off to the house. No sooner was
+he indoors than Dr. Dick was striding down street, and in ten minutes
+more the half-frozen subject of the trouble was being rubbed and fed in
+the stall to the right of mine.
+
+When the animal was finishing her oats the owner came swearing in.
+Expecting something of the kind, Master was on hand. I can't begin to
+tell you all he said to that poor, drunken wretch, but it was a sermon,
+a temperance lecture, and a humane plea all in one. When the fellow went
+away he seemed pretty well sobered and ashamed, and even thanked Master
+for his kindness and promised to use the blanket given and go right
+straight home.
+
+"Dr. Dick is a queer un," Bob remarked to a neighbor lad to whom he
+related the incident later. "Most folks let on they hain't no right to
+meddle with what they call other people's affairs, but I guess it's more
+'cause they're too lazy and cowardly. He says he ain't afeard of devil
+nor man, but is afeard of doin' wrong. Now, ain't he queer?"
+
+"I should snicker!" replied the other emphatically, not looking in the
+least inclined to do so, though. I suppose it was his way of saying yes.
+
+What do you think?
+
+In spite of all the family could say Dr. Fred sold Ross toward spring. I
+shall never forget the look of sadness in the poor old fellow's eyes,
+and the mournful whinny he gave as he turned his head at the barn door
+and looked back at the empty stall. It happened that the man who bought
+him came for him when both doctors, the bays and Bob were away. The
+little boys were playing in the barn.
+
+"I've come for the old horse I bought," he said.
+
+"It's that 'un," Chet answered, pointing to Ross, so we knew there was
+no mistake. I called after him as long as I could make him hear.
+
+He said he wished he could die, that there was never a moment that he
+was not in pain. He had stringhalt, I think, and Dr. Fred said he was
+getting less worth every day and after awhile would not be fit to
+travel.
+
+Master said, better put him out of his misery, then, but he belonged to
+Fred, so that settled it.
+
+Before I forget it, I want to tell of a former mate of Ross that he used
+to talk about.
+
+His name was Billy. They belonged to a very passionate man, who, when he
+became excited, would pound them unmercifully. Some little thing went
+wrong one day, nothing that the team was to blame for, and the man dealt
+Billy several blows on the head with a linch-pin. He staggered, and the
+man, fearing he had killed him, cooled down and quickly brought some
+water, giving him some to drink and pouring some on his head. This
+seemed to help him and he worked on all day. Before morning, though,
+Ross said the animal woke him, but received no answer, only groans and
+queer sounds. By this time Billy had knocked down the thin partition
+between their stalls and was dealing him some terrible blows with his
+heels. He crept as far away as he could and longed for daylight. When it
+came Billy lay on the floor bruised, exhausted and almost choked from
+the wrenching of the halter strap.
+
+As far as he could reach in every direction things were demolished.
+
+The owner seemed much frightened when he came out, and at once put a boy
+on Ross to go for a veterinary. The latter, after an examination, asked
+if any blow had been given on the head. Shamefacedly the master
+acknowledged the truth.
+
+"Well," replied the other, "if you got any satisfaction out of it at the
+time it is all you ever will get. This horse is ruined. There is
+inflammation of the brain. He may get better, but I think he will have
+one or two more spells of delirium and then die. It is something similar
+to mad staggers."
+
+They bled the horse [I am so glad that the barbarous notion of
+blood-letting is a thing of the past] and put some cloths wet in cold
+water on his head. He seemed to get better and was put to work again,
+but a week or so later, while plowing corn in the hot sun, another
+attack came on, and rearing, he fell backward, narrowly missing crushing
+his master. When better again, he was taken some distance from home and
+sold.
+
+Some two years passed and Ross himself had changed hands, when one day
+as he was standing tied to a post before a country grocery, a weary,
+shabby-looking horse near him asked if he did not know him.
+
+"It's Billy's voice," said Ross, "but this never can be Billy."
+
+"But it is," said the other, mournfully, "or what is left of him; I'm
+pretty well used up."
+
+Then he told how he had passed from hand to hand and something of his
+bodily sufferings. He had been experimented on by every quack in the
+country, but each augmented his torture.
+
+"One man," he said, "helped me. He was kind and gentle; never yelled at
+me (oh, how I wish they knew how noise hurts my head!) and always gave
+me water every hour through the day, and left it where I could reach it
+at night. Sometimes cold water throws off a fit. He used to work me
+early and late in the day, but through the hot part kept me in the
+shade. He also used cold pads on my head and gave me pills of
+belladonna, one or two a day, when my head was hot and my eyes red. He
+sometimes gave aconite, too; and when I had been in the sun, gelseminum
+was the remedy. I think I might have recovered had he lived, but when I
+had been there four months he died, and soon I was sold and abused worse
+than ever. Strange, how we dumb brutes can linger and suffer!"
+
+Ross never saw him again, and often wondered if he still lived.
+
+Dr. Fred soon bought a new horse--a gay fellow, with wicked eyes and a
+temper to match. His name was Prince. He was a well-built, dark
+iron-gray about eight years old.
+
+"He's mighty nervous!" commented Bob. "Jest acts as if he expected me to
+hit or kick him every time I come round him, 'nd jerks his head back if
+I so much as put my hand on the manger. He's ugly, too, fer he lays his
+ears back and shows his teeth mighty frequent."
+
+Our stalls were so far apart that we could not talk much, so I knew
+almost nothing about him until one morning Bob put me in one sleigh for
+Master and Prince in another for Dr. Fred.
+
+Such a time as the boy had to get that horse hitched up. He would not
+stand, and was rearing and jerking the whole time.
+
+"Ain't he a beauty?" cried Dr. Fred, proudly. "Most too much of a horse
+for you to manage, ain't he, Bob? Here, Prince, be quiet, sir!" The
+animal quieted a little and looked at him.
+
+"See, he minds me. You must use authority in your tone when--" but the
+sentence never was finished, for just at that moment the "beauty"
+reached out and caught his admirer by the shoulder, lifting him off his
+feet at the first shake.
+
+Then there was a scene! That brute shook his master as a cat would a
+rat, despite the frantic blows dealt by Fred's left hand and Bob's
+vigorous fists. Dr. Dick was in the office, but the noise drew him
+barely in time to see his brother flung a dozen feet or more into a
+snowdrift.
+
+I am afraid that Master smiled, it seemed so to me, anyway; but he, of
+course, rushed to the rescue.
+
+No sooner did Fred get on his feet than he flew at that horse with the
+butt of a riding whip, raining down the blows alike on the face, over
+the head, anywhere he could strike in his wild anger.
+
+"I'll teach you, you wretch! I'll make you suffer!" and kindred remarks,
+shot explosively from his mouth.
+
+Master, white to the lips, now interfered, but only conquered by
+superior muscle, for Fred was crazed with pain and anger. Of course, had
+he been a horse he would have had to endure ten times as much suffering
+and injustice quietly, but he was a man and bent on revenge. I do not
+think Prince did right, indeed he did very wrong, but he had far less
+than most horses have to endure. Oft-times I had seen Dr. Fred strike
+Ross or the bays for nothing at all; simply he was out of sorts, so I
+could not pity him much.
+
+"Don't call the entire neighborhood together," said Master, "you are
+acting very silly! Go in the house and have Nannie bathe your shoulder,
+and I will try the new horse awhile. Bob, you may put Dandy back."
+
+After considerable more fuss Fred limped off to the house and Dr. Dick
+stepped to Prince's head. Back went the latter's ears and his lips
+quivered. Calmly Master looked him in the eye, then began stroking his
+face and talking to him. He gradually quieted down, but his glance was
+both treacherous and distrustful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+Before I had been in M---- long I was willing to admit that hitherto I
+had seen and heard little of the dark side of life for the dumb
+creation.
+
+The doctors rented stalls for us in a big livery barn, usually trying to
+keep one or two of us at a time out at the farm on pasture.
+
+At this latter place I learned considerable of the beauties(?) of
+country life from our standpoint.
+
+The Stringers were average people, ambitious, but erring in judgment.
+They were thoughtless and ignorant, rather than cruel--intentionally
+cruel, I mean; but it does not alleviate in the least the pangs of
+thirst and hunger, the pain of extreme heat and cold, the tiresomeness
+of long continuance in an uncomfortable position, or the woes of a
+mother torn from her offspring, to know that carelessness is the cause
+of the trouble.
+
+I tell you I used to pity even the chickens on that place, and, in
+conversation with other animals, there and elsewhere, I have found that
+the Stringers represent the majority of farmers. There are so many what
+they call "big things," to attend to, that there is no time for either
+attending to dumb creatures' comforts or stopping the small leaks in the
+grain sacks.
+
+I am not surprised at all that so many farmers die poor, and so many go
+fretting through life declaring that farming don't pay. It will never
+pay the great "Stringer" majority.
+
+Speaking of the chickens, I have seen them trailing their wings through
+the hot dust, day in and day out, peering everywhere with their anxious
+little eyes for one drop of water.
+
+On that farm there was only a well, and the water was drawn by means of
+a pole with a hook on the end of it. It was pretty slow, hard work, so
+that no animal got all the water it really needed at any time; besides
+we are just like "other folks," we need to have water where we can drink
+if we are thirsty, not be obliged to gulp down a lot when we don't want
+it, simply because we know it is all we will get for hours. Men feed us
+things that burn and irritate our stomachs just as salt fish does
+theirs. They drink when they are thirsty if that is every few minutes,
+but with an equal longing for water we must wait their convenience, if
+that is all day.
+
+We are ofttimes sick and feverish, too, just the same as people, but we
+can't speak, and so we must endure the torture, after being driven
+furiously through the dust and under a pelting sun.
+
+It is terrible to suffer from a burning thirst, but no worse for a man
+than for a horse, and no worse for a horse than for a canary bird. We do
+not suffer always in proportion to our avoirdupois or mental caliber.
+
+Mrs. Stringer was in the habit of shutting hens up, who differed with
+her on the subject of sitting, in boxes or barrels without food or
+water, and a good many times she was surprised, after leaving them there
+three or more days, to find them dead. A terrible death to die, to all
+but literally burn up with "setting-fever," inward thirst and lack of
+fresh air.
+
+If I were a man what I am going to say now would be wicked, but I am
+only a horse. Well, I have often thought that a place I hear men around
+livery barns speak of, said to be heated by fire and brimstone, will
+like as not receive many recruits from among ministers and deacons who
+have neglected to water and shelter their horses and stock here, and
+among the so-called Christian women who let their chickens, especially
+setting hens, die of thirst.
+
+People who are so stingy of God's cold water here will know what thirst
+means in eternity, or I am mistaken. And the hogs on that farm--how they
+beg (squeal) for something cool and clean to drink.
+
+Somebody, who thinks just as the Stringers did, laughs at the idea of a
+hog wanting a clear, cool drink. More is the pity! Why, time and again
+have the poor swine told me that they only drink swill and such stuff
+because nobody ever offered them anything better. They don't mind having
+decent swill used to mix their messes with, but they can appreciate a
+clean drink as well as a man can. I get out of patience, too, hearing so
+much about the "dirty hog," when the poor creature would be clean if he
+had half a chance. Of course, his ideas of cleanliness differ from a
+dainty maiden's; he enjoys a mud bath, but he will always take clean mud
+if he can find it, and he doesn't enjoy wading around in a filthy pen
+more than you or I would. Is there anything cleaner or prettier than a
+young pig? Take one and give it decent care and surroundings and it will
+never disgust you with its filth. The majority of swine are fed on
+rotten, putrid things, simply because they are swine.
+
+One blessing, the careless owner of either hog or fowl, who allows it to
+eat that which is unclean, will get it all back second-hand if he eats
+the creature.
+
+There were not less than a dozen calves in a barren lot on this place,
+and I used to actually dread my day out there, because of the ceaseless
+bellowing for water kept up by the helpless creatures.
+
+It was the business of the hired man to fill up a tub over in the lot
+for their convenience, but there was always "so much to do," and
+everybody was in "such a hurry" that it was forgotten or neglected more
+often than it was attended to, and then the owner wondered why his
+calves were such "scrawny things."
+
+The cows were little better cared for, though they usually got a small
+allowance of water once a day. They did not begin to give the milk they
+would, had they been abundantly watered, though, and suffered in
+proportion. There was one thing that Mrs. Stringer was righteously
+diligent about and that was salting them. This would have been most
+commendable had there been drink supplied in connection; as it was, it
+only augmented their misery.
+
+We horses fared better, because Park was sent out with strict orders to
+refill our trough with cold water twice a day. Of course, he did not
+always obey, and I suffered enough, long sweltering days, to make me
+pity the other creatures that fared worse.
+
+The most trying thing of all would be when, during the day, we--cows,
+calves and all--could hear the familiar sound of that well-pole as the
+family drew and appropriated the cooling liquid. It did seem they might
+understand the bellowing on all sides; but if they did they heeded not.
+
+My master was so busy the first year that he paid little attention to
+the farm, but the second summer, toward the end, he had a pump put in
+the well. That worked wonders for awhile, and then they grew as
+neglectful as ever.
+
+Of course, we did not stay out there much in winter, but were back and
+forth sometimes. For my part, I wished I might not go at all, but the
+lecture my master gave Mr. Stringer one evening paid me for being
+present. It was coming on a cold sleet storm, and his cattle were
+huddled on the leeward side of the barn, otherwise unprotected. Their
+piteous lowing could not but attract the attention of a man like Dr.
+Dick.
+
+"Why did you not provide shelter for them?"
+
+"Hadn't lumber."
+
+"There seems to be a good many boards and pieces of timber going to ruin
+around here, and there is all the straw decaying in the field where the
+machine left it. You could have built sheds, and any essential that was
+lacking we would have provided."
+
+"Well, it don't hurt critters to stand out; it jest hardens 'em."
+
+"I tell you, sir, you are mistaken. All domestic animals need shelter,
+clean bedding and plenty of food. They need it, and it is their right.
+They furnish you with food and much of the money you have; do they not,
+in turn, deserve something? Besides you are defrauding yourself when you
+defraud them. The neglected cow will not begin to do as well in the way
+of milk and butter as the one that is well cared for. The food she eats
+must go to keep her from freezing; it acts in the place of fuel, as it
+were, while if you attended to keeping her warm, it would go to make
+milk and meat. These are unalterable laws of nature; disregard them and
+you pay the penalty, not only here but hereafter. God has promised mercy
+only to the merciful."
+
+We went on, then, for the storm was increasing, but a few days after I
+noticed that rude sheds were in process of construction, and the straw
+was being brought in to help in the work.
+
+I am so glad that my master dares to speak his mind, and yet he never
+does it in a way to offend. Any one can see that he feels every word
+that he says, and above all he practices what he preaches.
+
+Speaking of the care of cows reminds me of one that used to hang around
+the livery stable and pick at the straw that was thrown out from our
+bedding; and at night, especially very cold ones, she would come and lie
+on the manure pile. Some of the men said it was for the sake of the
+little heat in the manure, and they thought she must have a wretched
+place at home, and be almost starved into the bargain. I watched my
+chance, and asked her about it. She said her owner was quite well off,
+but that he looked upon an animal as having no more feeling than a
+wagon; indeed, that he took better care of the latter than he did of
+her. That she was hungry all the time, and "oh, so cold." She was not
+giving milk just then, so they paid no attention to her. She said she
+had been in the pound twice, and that was dreadful, but she would as
+soon be there as at home.
+
+I guess the pound man thought she belonged at the livery stable until
+Park Winters called his attention to the matter, and she was driven off
+and I never saw her again.
+
+It seems strange that people can sit down to well-filled tables, knowing
+that their animals are starving; and lie in soft, warm beds, knowing
+that they are freezing. Master says that for all these things man shall
+be brought into judgment, but it don't help the dumb creatures now.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Such a variety of horses as one meets when boarding at a livery stable,
+and what stories they can tell!
+
+A tough-looking pair of mustangs gave a little of their experience one
+night. They said they were once wild, roaming over the western prairies
+at will; but that some Indians caught them with a lasso, and then sold
+them to a cowboy. The latter named them "Daredevil" and "Wildcat," and
+began to break them.
+
+"Regularly, as he took us in hand," said Daredevil, "he knocked us each
+down from ten to fifty times. Why, I used to be just crazy from fright
+and pain, but he called me vicious, and said he would pound it out of
+me. Sometimes he would strike me on the head and stun me so that he
+would think me dead, but he never seemed to care. Had he used us kindly
+I do not think we would have been hard to manage at all, after the
+strangeness and fright wore off a little, but such treatment as he gave
+us brought out all that was bad and wild; I guess it would have made a
+daredevil and wildcat out of any creature. He did not mind at all if the
+bit tore our mouths till the blood poured out, or the whip laid open our
+shoulders and flanks till he could lay his three fingers in; a mustang
+can stand anything. How frantic we were for release from such torture,
+and how hard we tried to kill ourselves."
+
+"And then," put in Wildcat, "when he considered us broken, he used to
+ride us almost to death. Many and many a mile have I run without
+stopping for breath, with those dreadful spurs pressed deep into my
+bleeding sides."
+
+"Indeed," said Daredevil, "the wound never healed in mine; it was just
+tearing a little deeper each day."
+
+Then it seems they were stolen by a half-breed Indian and sold to
+another white man, who treated them no better. His business was to
+assist emigrants across the mountains, and he used to overload them and
+goad them with a sharp pointed staff until they were obliged to move on,
+some way. They lived this sort of life for three years; then being
+almost worthless, he sold them to an Eastern man who was buying up
+mustangs. They were shipped to Chicago in a close, wretched car, being
+forty-eight hours at a time without food or water.
+
+"I can give you no idea of the horrors of those days," said Wildcat. "It
+was just like what burning alive must be, and we all got so ugly that we
+kicked and bit furiously. Two or three of the weaker ones were trampled
+to death, but when once the agony was over, they were objects of envy.
+We all wanted to die. A few became delirious and had to be shot when we
+were taken out.
+
+"Daredevil and I match so perfectly that we were at once sold together
+again to a little fellow from Wisconsin. He seemed to think that being
+mustangs we would require a good deal of abuse and hard work and not
+much to eat. Anyway he only paid a few dollars apiece for us. I have
+noticed that the more an animal costs, usually, the better care it
+receives. This fellow used to pound us till the neighbor women would
+come out, wringing their hands and crying, and beg him to stop. He would
+tell them that it was the only way to manage a mustang.
+
+"Desperate at last, Daredevil watched her chance, and planted both her
+hind feet in the small of his back, one day, and doubled him up. It did
+me good to see the folks venture gingerly up, expecting us to scalp
+them, I suppose, and bear him off. He'd knocked us down a good many
+times, and then without pity kicked us till we got up.
+
+"We were immediately sold to an easy-going individual who worked us very
+hard, but was decent in his treatment. This was the best place we had
+had, and we tried to please him. His easy-goingness got him into debt,
+though, and we had to go for that to the man who now owns us. He is a
+notion peddler, and well enough when sober, but he is usually drunk. He
+may start in the morning and drive us till after dark without a drop of
+water or bite of food."
+
+"There is one thing," said Daredevil, as her mate paused, "if only men
+knew half as much as they think they do, they would never pound and
+abuse a mustang pony. There is lots of work and endurance in us, if well
+treated; and we can appreciate kindness as well as a thoroughbred, if
+they will give us time enough to realize it. We have no sort of chance
+to be good, and the way they treat us would spoil any creature."
+
+There was a little silence after the mustangs had ceased speaking, and
+then "Jennie," a livery horse, spoke.
+
+"Well, you certainly have had a hard life and probably always will, but
+if there is any fate to be prayed to be delivered from, it is the fate
+of a livery horse. We are always on the road. Why, this is the first
+night I've been in this week, and every sound I hear I think they are
+coming for me. I have grown so nervous that I can't sleep, and my whole
+body aches.
+
+"A drummer hired us last week on Wednesday, to drive out to S----,
+nineteen miles. Said he would be there all day and possibly all night.
+Do you know he only stopped there about half an hour, gave us--Nellie
+and I--some water and then drove fifteen miles to L----; there he had us
+fed and watered, and in an hour was off fourteen miles to K----. It was
+late when we got there, and by daylight he was on his way here, a good
+forty miles by the nearest route. We had barely been rubbed and fed,
+when a young man wanted a team to take his girl to a party ten miles
+out. The boss, supposing we had been in the barn at S---- all the time
+since the morning before, only while going the thirty-eight miles there
+and back, sent us out again.
+
+"It did seem to me when they began to harness us that I should scream
+right out; how I longed for the power of human speech!
+
+"My, but didn't that fellow drive!
+
+"We acted pretty tired, I suppose, for presently the girl said: 'John,
+don't drive so fast, the poor horses seem tired.'
+
+"'Nonsense, they are livery horses, and that is one of their tricks.'
+
+"He tied us, dripping with sweat, in an open shed and left us until near
+morning. Actually we were so stiff we could not seem to get along at
+all, but he was not sparing of the whip.
+
+"We were in until afternoon some time, and one of the boys used us to
+carry a couple of women to S----. He rested us an hour and then came
+home again.
+
+"And so it has been right along, and I am so tired; and then this being
+driven by every one is ruinous on mouth and nerves. It is jerk, jerk,
+jerk! and no two mean quite the same thing by the way they twitch the
+lines, and half of them don't know how to drive anyway."
+
+"Yes," put in Crusoe, another livery horse, "and the worst of it is the
+spirit people manifest toward us. Why a clergyman had me the other day
+to go up to B----, and he drove faster than any jockey. On the way he
+picked up an acquaintance who remarked after a while on his fast
+driving.
+
+"'Well,' said the minister, 'I always like to get the worth of my money,
+and I've got three dollars invested in this animal to-day.'"
+
+"Oh me, and how they swear at us!" chimed in a small bay mare from
+another stall.
+
+"Who, the clergyman?" cried Julie, now for the first time speaking up.
+
+"No, I did not quite mean them, though I carried a bishop, or some sort
+of a big gun, once to the train and we were late. I am inclined to think
+he swore to himself, though all he said out loud was: 'I could have made
+that team cover the ground,' but I meant people in general."
+
+Then somebody from another stall spoke out in a tone quivering with
+sadness.
+
+"My friends, if you are not blind don't complain of your lot."
+
+"Amen," came softly, but distinctly, from another corner and we all kept
+silent.
+
+Presently the first voice said:
+
+"It seems strange enough to be counted old and only fit to be banged
+around without this dreadful sightlessness."
+
+She paused again, and I ventured to ask the cause of her misfortune.
+
+"It is inherited. My mother was blind and not of much use but to raise
+colts, they said. Whether they knew that blind mothers are liable to
+transmit their misfortune or not I do not know; but the fact remains. I
+could see all right until I was four years old; when one day, getting
+pretty warm, a mist seemed to come before my eyes. It remained growing
+steadily more dense, until at night I was entirely guided by my mate,
+and when loosened from him could not even find the familiar watering
+trough.
+
+"'What ails Kate?' somebody asked, while some one else added, 'She acts
+blind.'
+
+"Presently my master examined my eyes and gave it as his opinion that I
+was stone blind, and I was and have been ever since.
+
+"No words can describe what I suffer. No one has a thought of pity for a
+blind horse; it is just rush them along! I am so much afraid; everything
+startles and terrifies me; I am always stepping on stones or bruising
+myself on stumps and things that I cannot see. I stretch my neck out
+long to listen, and I am jerked and called an old blind fool!
+
+"It hurts my feelings, too; it is so dreadful to be afflicted and then
+be taunted with it and scolded about it. Nearly all my brothers and
+sisters went blind in the same way."
+
+We Wallace horses longed for a barn of our own, where we could have our
+little family visits once more, and where we should not see and hear so
+many harrowing things.
+
+Topsy was growing a fine, little animal, but between Chet and Park she
+was bound to be ruined. These two were never friends, and the latter
+was, besides, jealous of the young owner. He tried a variety of means to
+make her nervous and unmanageable, always picking at and tormenting her.
+He had her so that she would both kick and bite.
+
+Remembering his own unhappy experience, it made Prince furious, and then
+there would be trouble between him and Park. Of course, the former got
+the worst of it, because man is the stronger, in the only sense that
+tells, and the latter would tie him short and then whip him or kick him.
+Chet had no judgment, and being exceedingly passionate, he whipped the
+colt for doing what Park taught her.
+
+Meanwhile Mrs. Wallace's sister, Minnie Winters, had become almost a
+member of the family. She was not very old nor ugly, and professed the
+most unlimited admiration for "that dear little Dandy," as she gushingly
+termed me, though why she called me "little" I can't imagine, and I did
+not like it either. I noticed, though, that she did not make as much
+fuss over me when my master was not around. She said a great deal about
+horseback riding, and hinted strongly that she would like to try my
+back.
+
+"Dandy's life is like my own," said Master, "all work and no play."
+
+By this he intended her to understand that I had no time to take her out
+for pleasure. One day Master and I were starting for the country, when
+some one called him. It just happened that I was tied near an open
+window inside of which sat Mrs. Wallace and her sister, and I was
+obliged to hear their conversation.
+
+"You ain't half trying, Min," the former said.
+
+"Goodness, Fan, do you expect me to throw myself at the man's head? Dick
+Wallace is a different man from Fred; and not to be so easily won.
+Indeed, I don't believe he has any notion of marrying."
+
+"Notion of it? Of course he hasn't, but you must put him in the notion.
+He has a romantic idea that his heart is buried and all that----"
+
+"Oh, do hush, Fan. Somehow I can't bear to think of his having loved any
+woman like that, and I think Dandy was hers! It all seems like a novel."
+
+"Of course, but if I were in your place I'd be Mrs. Dr. Dick, or know
+the reason why."
+
+"I know the reason why now," laughed the girl; then growing sober, she
+added: "I am not good enough for him if he wanted me; few women are."
+
+"Nonsense! Well, you are evidently badly smitten any----"
+
+"Hush, he's coming," interrupted Min.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+There was a very learned (?) young man--a lately fledged M. D.--who,
+while spending a few weeks in the town, often sought my master's
+company. Among other things he, the young man, talked pompously and
+heartlessly of his love for using the knife.
+
+"I just delight in surgery," he affirmed. "When I first went to college
+the sight of blood unmanned me, and I was weak enough to shrink from
+cutting up even a cat; but I soon cut my eye teeth, and now I don't mind
+anything; would like no better practice than to dissect a live human
+being."
+
+As Master made no reply and the blood-thirsty young M. D. did not
+understand, as I do, a certain ominous silence on the former's part, he
+went airily on:
+
+"I intend to make a specialty of scientific research as soon as I've
+earned money enough to make it possible. There is very much to be
+discovered yet, I am convinced. By the way, I suppose you read all the
+reports of our own and German vivisectionists?"
+
+"I confess to skipping some."
+
+Strange the young fool blundered right on into the trap, but then he had
+the "big head"--whatever that is; Master says all young doctors have a
+spell of it, and that some never fully recover--and thought Master's
+silence was induced by a feeling of ignorance and inferiority.
+
+"Well," said he, "you know, of course, that chloroform is not used as
+much as formerly in the practice; our modern scientists are using
+curare, a drug, you understand, that paralyzes motion while sensibility
+is unimpaired. It is a great thing. The creature endures the greatest
+amount of suffering possible under the circumstances, and makes a fine
+study. I have a few notes here taken from recent reports. I assure you
+they are worthy of attention. Vivisection is going to prove a boon to
+suffering humanity."
+
+I knew by the tremor along the reins that Master would be unable to
+control himself much longer. And then the young man read an extract
+taken from a book he called "A Microscopical Study of Changes," that
+told of the torture of a number of kittens. Some were starved eleven
+hours and from that on up to seventeen. They were then made mute and
+motionless by means of this drug, curare, but were acutely conscious.
+After this stimulation was continued for five hours. In another case the
+sciatic nerve in various creatures was stimulated with electricity from
+one-half to seven hours. There was a good deal more telling of the work
+along this line in various noted universities and medical schools.
+Speaking of instances where the sciatic nerves of cats are divided and
+the spinal cord experimented upon in rabbits, it told of their wild
+shrieks of agony. In dogs the thyroid glands were removed and their
+consequent sufferings described. A noted Eastern scientist excites
+inflammation in the eyes of small animals by passing a thread through
+the corner and applying croton oil, hot irons and the like. Another
+professor "hobbled" over 140 dogs, and then dashed them from a height of
+twenty-four feet upon bars and ridges of iron. And so he went on telling
+of cutting up live animals, even of a horse that was vivisected. At last
+he was describing, with evident relish, the sufferings of a dog that
+some New York professor had twisted all out of shape and fastened in a
+plaster of Paris cast for several weeks, the creature's sufferings being
+so great that it scarcely took any food at all, when Master burst forth.
+
+Well, I can never begin to tell what he said; his words were like
+thunderbolts, and the very atmosphere was blue with the lightnings of
+his righteous wrath. Out of it all I learned that he considered
+vivisection (cutting up live animals) not only unnecessary to the
+interests of humanity and science, but a most criminal proceeding. He
+denounced the vivisection professors as bloodthirsty scoundrels, who,
+under the pretense of making scientific research, are merely satisfying
+a bloodthirsty curiosity of their own. He said such men are never public
+benefactors, that, in truth, they care nothing about alleviating human
+ills or prolonging life. It is a mania with them to cut, cut, cut,
+torture, torture, torture. He further said that something must be done
+to stop vivisection in our common schools and colleges; that ordinary
+pupils have no need for even lessons in dissecting dead bodies.[A]
+Physiology, he said, can be taught all that is needful without recourse
+to hardening, brutalizing experiments. For his part, when his hour of
+suffering comes, he said he wanted a physician with a heart as well as
+head, and he would sooner that a boy or girl, dear to him, would grow up
+unable to read or write than to be a scholar without feeling and
+humanity. His conclusion was something like this: "And now, my young
+friend, pardon me if I have spoken hotly, but I feel deeply on these
+matters. You, with thousands of other youths, are more sinned against
+than sinning. You admit that you were tender-hearted when you went away
+from home influences, and seem ashamed of it. Crush that feeling, my
+boy; the manly man is always tender-hearted; in other words, God-like.
+Pity and tenderness are God's own attributes. Further, you will never be
+a truly successful physician unless your touch is tender as well as
+firm, unless your heart is as full of sympathy as your head of wisdom. I
+do not say that there may not be some experiment necessary in medical
+schools, but none where entire insensibility is not induced. I know what
+I am talking about, and thousands of our older and better physicians at
+home and abroad bear me out in this statement."
+
+I guess the young M. D. was glad that Master reined up, at this
+juncture, before a pretty white cottage; anyway, I noticed that he
+neither resumed the conversation nor attempted to patronize Master
+during the remainder of the drive.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] It is exceedingly to be regretted that vivisection is creeping into
+our common schools and lower institutions of learning. Nothing can be
+more useless and harmful, and it behooves patrons and school officers to
+be on the alert. We have enough of bloodshed and anarchy menacing our
+commonwealth without training our youth to disregard the rights of the
+helpless and inure them to the shedding of innocent blood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+That morning my master stopped first at a farmhouse where everything
+betokened plenty, but not thrift. A man was slopping hogs. The latter
+were in a small inclosure, wading in mud almost up to their bodies. How
+hungry they seemed, and how vigorously he dealt blows right and left,
+with a club he carried!
+
+The low troughs were one-third full of mud, and into these he poured the
+swill.
+
+"Dear me," I thought, "they can never eat it," but they did; that is,
+some of them. A few of the weaker ones were crowded back and got
+nothing.
+
+Often in passing that place in winter, I have noticed that in feeding
+cattle, the fodder was thrown on the ground to be pawed over, stamped
+in, and the greater part of it wasted. The cattle here were thin-looking
+in the spring, with apparently no ambition but to find a tree or rail
+against which to rub. I was not surprised when I heard that that man had
+mortgaged his farm.
+
+Toward noon of the day first mentioned we drove into a farmyard where a
+boy unhitched me and turned me into a nice pasture. There were several
+horses and cows beside. One of the latter ran ceaselessly from side to
+side of the inclosure, calling piteously. No need to inquire her
+trouble; one look into her dark, pleading eyes and any one could
+recognize a sorrowing mother. One of the horses told me that it had been
+just that way for almost a week; that day and night it was the same.
+Said he: "She has not eaten a mouthful since her little one disappeared.
+You see they let it run with her until it was seven or eight weeks old.
+She was so proud of it; and an uncommonly cunning calf it was. They were
+always together; but one day some men came and drove it away and she has
+been almost crazy ever since."
+
+Just then the poor animal passed near us in the endless circuit, and
+such a look of agony and entreaty as she wore! Presently a man came to
+the bars; straight she rushed toward him, bellowing piteously. Of
+course, he passed indifferently by, and then, turning, she walked to a
+little clump of trees.
+
+"See!" said my companion; "she will stop under that oak at this corner;
+there is where she used often to lie with the calf." And sure enough she
+paused there, smelling the ground over and calling in a low tone; then
+down on her knees she went, laying the side of her face against the sod
+and moaning and crying as any human mother would. Oh, it was pitiful,
+pitiful!
+
+"One has to stand a good deal like that in this world," the big roan
+said, turning his face away, "and yet people think we dumb creatures
+have no feeling. I wish we hadn't. A while ago, the family let another
+cow and calf run together in the same way, and then butchered the little
+creature right before its mother's eyes. She has never been the same
+since; doesn't eat, and her milk isn't good. Poisoned with the grief and
+fretting, but the folks don't understand."
+
+Another day I was grazing in the pasture of one of Master's patients,
+when I noticed a cow standing in the shade of a tree contentedly chewing
+her cud.
+
+"A happy looking creature," I remarked to the old family horse, who was
+quietly grazing away his days.
+
+"Yes," he said, with a smile. And right here let me say horses do smile.
+"She thinks her calf is over on the other side of that high board fence,
+in the calf pasture, while in reality it was sold a week ago. You see
+our master is a merciful man; he separates the mothers from their young
+almost from the first. For a while he lets the calf through a door in
+the wall, to its mother, three or four times a day, then twice, and
+finally not at all; but all the while each is content, because they
+believe the other is right there. The cow is not worried, and gives down
+her milk bountifully; the calf is content and thrives. My master is not
+only merciful, but shrewd."
+
+"And you seem to have an easy time," I suggested.
+
+"Easy, to be sure. He says I have done hard work enough to retire, and
+have earned money enough for him that he can afford to keep me on the
+interest of it."
+
+One event of interest, to part at least of the Wallace family, I have
+not mentioned. It was when we had been at M---- about a year. Grim had
+been down street with the boys, and on reaching the gateway of home he
+fell in a fit. Master and I had just driven up. Mrs. Wallace, from the
+piazza, gave a cry and began to scream, "Mad dog." Poor Grim, coming out
+of it, rolled his eyes piteously from one to another. With a desperate
+struggle he regained his feet and attempted to walk, but his back gave
+way and before the doctor could reach Grim he lay writhing in another
+spasm. Mrs. Wallace screamed the louder from a safe place inside the
+door; and Master, speaking rougher than I ever heard him speak to her
+before, bade her be still, adding that the poor fellow had been
+poisoned.
+
+"Bring me a bottle of sweet oil from the office," he commanded Park,
+"and be quick about it."
+
+Grim was coming out of the fourth fit when the oil came, and among them
+they managed to pour a gill or so down his throat. He had ever so many
+more spasms, but finally got better; that is, he did not die then, but
+never got well; just pined away and finally died.
+
+By this means we became aware that M---- had a cat and dog poisoner; "a
+man too mean to live and too wicked to die," the neighbors said of him.
+
+Many handsomer and more valuable dogs than dear old Grim fell a victim
+to his rascality, but few were more sincerely mourned. So officious was
+this individual that it was nothing uncommon to see little girls bending
+their curly heads over pet kittens stiff as death, or ladies wringing
+their hands in agony over the sufferings of some canine or feline pet.
+
+And the sufferings of the latter were terrible to witness.
+
+But I have heard say that every town has one man in it so far lost to
+human decency that he assumes the right to thus torture other people's
+pets.
+
+Master says there is nothing uncertain about the future of such men. I
+don't quite know what he means, do you?
+
+Minnie Winters professed to be "not over strong"--these were Mrs.
+Wallace's words--and the latter frequently asked Dr. Dick to let her
+sister go with us when we were out for short drives. He could hardly
+refuse. Of course, I heard every word of their conversations and
+noticed how commonplace all the doctor's remarks were, and how adroitly
+he parried all sentimental or even personal allusion on his companion's
+part; but nevertheless I was uneasy. I did not think so badly of Minnie,
+but Mrs. Wallace I believed capable of any treachery.
+
+After a while I remarked that all the men and boys about the livery
+stable smiled significantly when my master came in; and by and by, when
+he was out, I heard them saying among themselves that he was going to
+marry Miss Winters.
+
+Remembering the past as I did, I was sure they were mistaken; but still
+the way Dr. Fred had done had somewhat shaken my confidence in men.
+Indeed, I worried not a little, and one day when my master announced
+that he was going to Chicago for some weeks, I could not decide whether
+the move meant bad or ill. The last thing before starting he caressed me
+and whispered loving words in my ear. Surely he could not do that, I
+thought, if he were untrue.
+
+It seemed a different world to me when he was gone. Mrs. Wallace and her
+sister used me continually, and I had no idea that women could be such
+merciless creatures.
+
+They demanded that I trot all the time, up hill and down, and then kept
+up a continual nagging that made me quite frantic. My mouth was all sore
+and chafed from the ceaseless jerking and slashing of my back with the
+lines; and, no matter how strictly I obeyed them, it was all wrong.
+
+Part of the time they rode on my back. The saddle did not fit me, and
+there was a rough place inside that wore a sore. Nobody noticed this,
+though; in fact, I was scarcely curried or rubbed at all. Every time the
+saddle went on my back I grew worse, until one day the pain became
+unendurable and I ran away.
+
+Think of me, Dandy, running away! I left Miss Minnie in a heap by a
+roadside, but on I went, that wretched saddle tearing deeper into me
+every moment.
+
+Somebody saw me, and called out:
+
+"Dr. Dick's Dandy running away, as I live!"
+
+This seemed to bring me to my senses, and when they yelled, "Whoa," I
+stopped. I was all of a tremble. They led me back till they came to
+Minnie, crying by the roadside and rearranging her hair. At first she
+refused to get into the saddle again, and I hoped she'd hold out, but
+she didn't, and I had all I could do to keep from running again, her
+weight hurt that sore so.
+
+The next day we went again, with Park on Prince for escort. The saddle
+hurt as badly as before--worse, I guess--and presently, when they
+undertook a race, the torture was too much, and I reared, throwing my
+lady off again. Park caught the bridle with a jerk that almost threw me
+to the ground, and while I was recovering myself he slid from his horse.
+Tying the latter by the roadside, he removed the saddle, and proceeded
+to give me the dreadfulest whipping, with the whip he carried.
+
+I had never been really whipped before in my life, and I scarcely know
+which hurt me the worst, the lash or the injustice and humiliation;
+probably the lash, though, for it cut mercilessly into the sore.
+
+Suddenly Minnie screamed:
+
+"Don't, don't, Park; just see the blood! Oh, what will the doctor say?"
+
+But the young man was mad, I suppose; anyway he thrashed away until he
+was tired.
+
+Sobbing hysterically, Minnie wiped the blood from my back with her
+handkerchief, and refused to mount again. They had a quarrel, but I was
+too faint and sore to pay much attention.
+
+And to think I could never tell my Master one word about it. That was
+four days before he came home, and I was not out of the stable again.
+
+Dr. Fred came in the morning after my whipping, examined my back and
+swore frightfully. Said he'd a notion to horsewhip Park, and promised
+him his dismissal when Master came home. It all tended to make the
+fellow ugly, and every one of the Wallace horses have cause to remember
+those four days. They seemed a veritable reign of terror.
+
+All the while he was putting something on my back that smarted it
+dreadfully.
+
+Of course, Dr. Dick visited my stall the first thing. I laid my head on
+his shoulder and could have cried with relief. The moment he moved away
+I would recall him with a whinny, and he finally led me out with his own
+hands for some water.
+
+That spot on my back was the first thing to catch his eye in the perfect
+light, but Park was ready with a plausible story about Minnie trying a
+side-saddle on me "just because I needed exercise," and it rubbed my
+back.
+
+That was all. I never heard any more about it, except that Master pitied
+and petted me even more than before. Thinking of the thousands upon
+thousands of poor creatures that are abused much worse every day, and
+never receive a kind word or pat, I felt that my lines were cast in
+pleasant places.
+
+Anyway I never heard any more about Master marrying Miss Winters, and
+after awhile she went away.
+
+Just prior to this last event, she and Mrs. Wallace drove out with me,
+and I heard the former say: "I hate Dandy, I believe I am jealous of
+him."
+
+Such a pretty dapple gray was brought into the barn one night, her back
+one mass of ridges made by a whip.
+
+"What a shame!" one of the stable men said, "and she's a willing piece
+of horseflesh too."
+
+"Yes," said another, "but some fellows think it looks big to whip like
+that; shows their power and importance."
+
+"Shows they're ---- fools!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+At stated times buyers came down, and people from all through the
+country brought in their horses, cattle, sheep and hogs. Of course, one
+set of buyers did not deal in all these, but there were horse buyers,
+cattle buyers and so on.
+
+When the horse buyers were coming, our barn, and even the sheds outside,
+used to be full of horses, many of them already sad and homesick.
+
+People may think that dumb animals cannot be homesick, but I tell you
+they can. All there is of life, for the average domestic creature, is
+the comfort it takes resting at night in a familiar place, and eating
+and drinking where it is accustomed. We have few joys, and the future
+holds no hope. A familiar voice, even though an abusive one, is dear to
+us.
+
+I have seen dogs cringe and fawn on most inhuman wretches because they
+acknowledge them as their masters, and so it is, in a less degree, with
+almost all of us.
+
+Soon after Master came home from Chicago there were an unusual number of
+horses and men in need of accommodation, and about twenty of the latter
+slept in the haymow. In the evening they all sat talking overhead, and
+it so happened that I could hear their conversation.
+
+"I tell you I kinder hate to sell them there black ponies o' mine," said
+one. "I've raised them from colts, and I think a heap of 'em, but I've
+got to have money to raise that mortgage, and it's the only way."
+
+"Jest the way I feel about them there bays 'o mine," put in another,
+"and I can't help fearin' they will fall into hard hands."
+
+"It is kinder rough," said number three, "to think of fetchin' 'em right
+away from their homes where they been fer so long, 'nd turnin' 'em out
+amongst perfect strangers to be taken, land only knows where. How would
+we feel if it were us or our children?"
+
+"Horses don't sense sech things ez we would," said another.
+
+"Don't ye fool yerself, Billy, they do. I raised a fine colt onct, kept
+her till she was nine years old, then sold her to a man twenty miles
+away. He came for her, 'nd when he went to take her she seemed to know
+she wasn't jist lent or hired, and such mournful whinnying I never heard
+before nor since. She was always such a willing creature, but then she
+pulled back and all but balked. My, how the children cried 'nd took on!
+I felt myself as if I'd committed a crime. Well, do you think when I got
+up in the morning that creature was back in her old stall, tired and
+muddy, but jest as happy! She had traveled the forty miles and was home
+again.
+
+"The next day the man came again. She resisted and plead harder than
+ever, but of course he took her. He shut her in safely that time. Six
+months after he was driving by our place when she set up sech a
+neighing, and, despite his best efforts, she turned in at the gate. I
+went out and she acted so tickled. I persuaded him to stop to dinner,
+and I assure you she was bountifully cared for in her old stall.
+
+"She again left reluctantly. Three or four months later, she got out of
+her pasture and came home. Five years after she came again; and the
+queerest thing was, she hadn't forgotten us a bit. It always makes me
+blue to think what she had suffered from pure homesickness in those
+years."
+
+"That 'minds me," said another man, "of a big gray horse my daughter
+used to own. She sold sewing machines, and drove the animal nearly every
+day for two or three years; then she sold him.
+
+"It was, maybe, two years after that, that she was crossing a pasture
+one day, when she saw a big gray horse making swiftly towards her. It
+scared her a bit at first, but when he neighed she knew it was old Jim.
+Would you believe he came straight to her, and laid his head on her
+shoulder? If that ain't memory and affection for ye, what is it?"
+
+"Yes, 'nd the wonder is that folks ain't better to 'em than they be.
+They get mighty rough used some times. I knew a man down East; he
+purtended to be a sort of a preacher, too, that used to pound his horses
+fer just what was his own fault. One day he overloaded 'em, 'nd because
+they couldn't pull up a steep place he got back of 'em 'nd jabbed 'em
+with the tines o' a pitchfork till the blood jest trickled down. At
+another time he got mad at one of 'em, 'nd, taking her out of the
+harness, beat her till he knocked her down, then he hitched the other
+horse to her and made him drag her all over a stony, rough pasture. When
+the neighbors see him, the trail her body made was marked with blood.
+There was a fuss, but he let 'em know he'd do as he pleased with his
+own. Her side was all tore to pieces, 'nd, after sufferin' a while, she
+died."
+
+"I see a fellow jest last week," put in another, "knock his horse down;
+then, because she couldn't get up, he kicked an eye out."
+
+"Mercy on us!" cried the first speaker, "if I thought them 'ere black
+ponies of mine would ever fall into such hands, I'd take 'em home 'nd
+let the blamed mortgage foreclose."
+
+"There's no tellin'," answered another.
+
+"Well, I'm sellin'," said still another, "because I'm afraid my horse is
+getting the poll evil, 'nd I've had one trial of that."
+
+"It ain't hard to cure; take it in time," said another. "I've cured
+several."
+
+"Well, I'd like to see it done," said the other. "I tried everything far
+and near, 'nd she jest got worse. Some of the things jest made her
+crazy. Onct she started and walked a dozen miles before she knew what
+she was doin', I guess, poor thing!"
+
+"Well, you see, poll evil generally comes from a blow on the head, or
+from the wearin' of a heavy bridle, and if taken in time, and the cause
+removed, the treatment ain't much, just rubbin' in arnica. But if matter
+forms, then something else has to be done. I, fer one, don't believe in
+a raw hand choppin' into horseflesh no more'n human flesh. Get somebody
+that's used to the business to cut open the hard swellin' 'nd put in
+lint saterated in glycerine, calendula 'nd water. Put iled silk over
+this 'nd fix a linen hood over, leavin' places fer the ears. Tie it
+under the throat, and wet it three or four times a day with the same
+stuff ye put in the opening. If the lump gets soft, the doctor kin open
+it 'nd let the stuff out, cleanin' it all out careful. Sometimes they
+say it ain't safe to open 'em, 'nd they inject weak sulphate of
+zinc--ounce a day. When the matter gets thick 'nd white it's better to
+inject the glycerine, calendula and water again. The animal needs care
+'nd tonin' up."
+
+"There is getting to be less poll evil than there used to be," some one
+remarked.
+
+"Yes, since new barns with high doors have taken the place of the old,
+low log stables; and we use lighter bridles."
+
+It was with a heavy heart that I saw the poor horses hurried off in the
+morning, but it made me feel better toward men that some of the owners
+looked sad and gave a kindly parting pat.
+
+Master had to make an early trip, and it so happened that we were
+passing the depot when the poor creatures were being driven into the
+car. Strange surroundings, strange voices, strange everything! I thought
+of the story the mustangs told, and wondered if these horses would fare
+better or worse.
+
+Presently we overtook a pedestrian, and Master invited him to ride. I
+soon discovered that the latter's mind was full of the same subject that
+filled mine.
+
+"I tell you, Martin, I wish there were mercy shown the dumb beasts. Of
+course, we have to buy and sell and all that, but things are at a
+fearful pass, especially on railroads and in large cities. I never
+realized it as I did while I was in Chicago a few weeks ago, and the
+scenes I saw there have haunted me ever since.
+
+"Carload after carload of wretched-looking cattle were brought to the
+stock yards, having come thousands of miles, some of them without one
+drop of water. It turned me faint, used as I am to suffering, to see the
+piteous pleading in their sunken, frightened eyes. Great heavens, it was
+a sight to remember!
+
+"And then the way they unloaded them! There were thousands of them, and
+people were in a hurry. The poor beasts, weak and terrified as they
+were, did their best to obey the rough, unintelligible orders, but
+assistance (?) was inhumanly rendered by the men using heavy poles with
+great iron spikes in the end. Prod, prod, prod! time and again the cruel
+iron pierced the hide and buried itself in their quivering flesh. The
+air was full of the cries and moans of fright and pain. Many were hauled
+out dead or dying. Something of what they endured may be conceived when
+one witnesses their frantic greed for water. It is terrible to think of
+the torturing thirst that had lasted for days.
+
+"I tell you, man, there's a day of reckoning coming when men will cry
+unto the mountains and hills to fall on them and hide them."
+
+"But why do they abuse them so? Water is plentiful," Martin asked.
+
+"Well, I suppose it saves time and trouble, but the main reason is
+greed. They starve them for water, then give them a chance to drink all
+they want just before they are weighed, thus increasing their weight
+dishonestly. Then, when Saturday night comes, the water is shut off, and
+the poor animals in the stockyards get no more until Monday; and of all
+dreary, hot, dusty places on earth those stockyards take the lead.
+
+"But the worst of all is the cruelties of the slaughter houses. Hundreds
+of cattle crowded around awaiting their turn to be butchered, and gazing
+with staring eyes at their mates' bloody fate. You know how the smell of
+blood terrifies such creatures. Their whole systems are doubtless
+poisoned with the agony. Such meat cannot be healthy.
+
+"Now there could be humane means devised for all these proceedings if
+only men cared."
+
+"If only they cared," echoed Martin, much impressed by Master's words.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+One autumn Master determined to "go West." Why he went I do not know,
+but he was to stay "some months," they said. How I did hope he would
+take me along, but he did not.
+
+"Be kind to Dandy," was his parting injunction, as usual, to Herman, the
+man who had succeeded Park Winters as hostler.
+
+Of course, I did not know what going West means, and could not think
+that "some months" were longer than the time he had spent in Chicago.
+
+The morning he started he came into my stall and talked to me a long
+while. Among other things he said: "Be a good boy, Dandy, and when I
+come home we'll go and live at the farm--you and I."
+
+I did miss him so! The days were all dreary, and I dreaded to go to
+sleep at night, because I would be obliged to awake to a fresh sense of
+my loss.
+
+I cannot begin to give all my experience during his absence, but will
+note a few instances. Of a truth, I realized as never before what it is
+to be a horse.
+
+Dr. and Mrs. Wallace were not a happy couple. The latter was less
+outspoken than in the early days of her married life, but she was
+equally as self-willed, only more cunning and underhanded about it. Fred
+drank all the time, but people could not ordinarily tell when he was
+intoxicated. The barn boys said he could "carry a good deal."
+
+The two boys, Chet and Carm, were wild and lawless. The former was smart
+and a great student, though. Poor Carm, better but weaker, was always in
+disgrace. His teacher and father called him a "numbskull," and gradually
+the latter came to indulge Chet in everything and deny Carm just as
+prodigally.
+
+There were two other children in the house now--Tommy and Elizabeth, or
+"Bobby," as the little girl called herself, and others fell into the
+habit.
+
+I liked Bobby from the time Master first held the little yellow-haired
+creature on my back, for a ride; and she always clapped her little
+hands on seeing me, and cried, "Dandy! Dandy!"
+
+I liked her for herself, and also because Dr. Dick loved her. It did me
+good to know that he had this little child to pet and think about.
+
+Things went well enough for a week or so after Master left, then Chet
+began to drive me.
+
+Sometimes when the doctor would use me for a long drive in the day, soon
+after dark, while I was yet eating my supper, the boy, with some
+companion, would come into the barn and put my harness on. Herman would
+object, and there would be a fuss between them, always ending in my
+being hitched in a buggy or road-cart and driven out.
+
+It was the second time that this occurred that I discovered that Chet
+was under the influence of liquor, as was also his companion, and they
+carried bottles with them. Chet used the whip freely, and I went as fast
+as I could; but the oftener they touched those bottles the harder they
+drove. After what seemed to me hours of agony, they pulled up before a
+brilliantly lighted old building out in the country, hitched me and
+staggered in.
+
+The wind was raw and cold, and the sweat pouring off me. I surely
+thought Chet would remember my blanket, but he didn't, and there I had
+to stand one, two, three, four or more dreadful hours. Long before they
+came out I was alternately chilling and burning. I ached and trembled.
+
+They drove home as fast as they came, whipping nearly all the way,
+though I was doing my best.
+
+Herman swore profusely (people did not do that around the barn when
+Master was home) as he rubbed me down rapidly with a coarse cloth before
+blanketing me closely.
+
+How I felt!
+
+And thirsty--it did seem I must have water or choke, but he gave me none
+for some reason.
+
+By morning I was so stiff I could scarcely move, my breath was short and
+came hard, and my skin was hot.
+
+Dr. Fred ordered me early.
+
+"I don't think Dandy is able to go out, sir, to-day," Herman replied.
+"The young gentlemen had him out all night almost, and he is all
+stiffened up."
+
+Dr. Fred muttered something and ordered out the bays, calling out to
+Herman, as he drove off, to get Dr. Dick's box of horse medicine and
+give me aconite--two-drop doses of the tincture every two hours--until
+the fever was gone; then to alternate bryonia, and thus according to
+directions given in the book with the box.
+
+I noticed that I began to feel better pretty soon, and by afternoon Mrs.
+Wallace said she wanted me hitched up. Herman demurred, but had to
+finally give in. I was as stiff as ever when I got home again.
+
+That very night Chet harnessed me again, despite Herman's angry protest,
+and drove me ten miles. If only he had taken the trouble to look in my
+eyes, I am sure he must have seen how wretched I felt. This time he
+carelessly threw a blanket over me, but did not buckle it over my chest,
+and in a little while the wind had blown it half off me. It would have
+been entirely off--and it might as well have been--but for a corner
+catching on the top of the collar. That time gray was showing in the
+east before he started for home.
+
+With vile, profane words he bade me "Get up," emphasizing by stinging
+blows of the whip, saying to his companion that he must make the ten
+miles before his father was up.
+
+I suppose no man was ever compelled to stand tied to a post all night;
+if there had, he would surely be going up and down the earth preaching
+mercy and justice to those who have the power over horses.
+
+Another thing that made that night especially wearing was the fact that
+I was tied short, and my front feet were much lower than my back ones.
+Such a strain as I was on!
+
+It does seem that horses deserve the little consideration necessary to
+tie them in a decent spot. I have heard many of my kind speak of this
+matter. In some villages the hitching places along the sidewalks are
+most uncomfortable, the animals being obliged to stand on a twist,
+ofttimes with the front feet lower and in a mud puddle.
+
+Is it any wonder we sometimes protest by vigorously pawing the
+sidewalks, if we can reach them?
+
+Give us fair play.
+
+Well, I was too lame to get out at all, after that night, for a week. I
+had rheumatism. Had Master been there to treat me, I might have
+recovered, but Herman knew nothing about horse-doctoring, and so it ran
+on. If I did get a little better, it was only to be overdriven and
+exposed. Another time there was to be a horse-race five miles off, and
+Chet drove Prince and I in the buggy.
+
+Then I found out how it hurts a heavy-bodied, short-legged horse to be
+driven with a light-bodied, long-limbed one. He drove, as usual, just as
+fast as he could make us go, uphill and down the same. More than once I
+thought I should fall, and by the time he stopped I was whiter than even
+nature intended me to be, being covered with foam.
+
+Prince was not nearly so tired, but he said it irritated and fretted him
+to be driven with a horse of my build.
+
+It was only a little country horse-race, and the animals were chiefly
+working ones with neither inclination, strength nor training for the
+race-track.
+
+The men were wild with excitement, and betting was going on all around.
+
+After a while three men got on their horses' backs and started. The
+crowd yelled and clapped their hands; the riders buried the cruel spurs
+in the horses' sides, and leaned as far forward as possible.
+
+Of course, some one had to beat, and it was a long-legged, bony creature
+that won the first heat.
+
+Three times the same ones ran, and twice the long-legged one won, but
+the others had done their best; yes, more than that, I may say.
+
+Poor things! there they stood, sweat and blood covering their sides,
+every nerve and muscle overstrained, and their masters cursing them for
+their defeat. The entire afternoon was consumed in this manner. Among
+others Prince was taken on the track. I knew by his eye, and the poise
+of his head he did not like it, but he behaved nicely until a
+cruel-looking fellow got on his back and dug the rowels in; with one
+bound he was off, and the rider had hard work to keep his seat. He won
+the heat, and I was scarcely enjoying his victory when, quick as a
+flash, he reached out and catching the fellow by the shoulder flung him
+headlong some feet away.
+
+Some one caught the bridle strap, and, as soon as the fellow could pick
+himself up, he flew at the offender, dealing him a blow between the eyes
+with a club chancing to be handy.
+
+"Hold on!" Chet cried, but another, and another blow followed. My noble
+gray friend staggered, gathered up, staggered again, then fell. A
+half-dozen convulsive shivers passed over his frame and he was dead.
+
+In a fury of anger and terror the young master sprang upon Prince's
+slayer. They grappled, but strong hands separated them, and Chet had
+only to put my harness in the buggy, get on my back and ride sorrowfully
+homeward.
+
+Dr. Fred was in a temper, to be sure, and immediately had an officer
+after the man who had killed his horse.
+
+All night and, for many nights, I could not close my eyes without
+seeming to see poor Prince in the death-throes, and all because he dared
+to resent unfair treatment. I heard Herman say that the fellow had paid
+for the horse, that Chet and his father had had a quarrel, and that Mrs.
+Wallace insisted on the former leaving home.
+
+"Yes, she's mighty keen fer the first woman's boys to leave home,"
+remarked an old man who worked around the barn. "She's wantin' 'em out
+of the way so her young uns 'll git the property."
+
+"Guess there won't be enough to fight over if Dr. Dick stays away long,"
+Herman replied.
+
+Speaking of horse-races reminds me to say that if all race-horses, or
+those that are made to run, could tell their stories they would fill
+volumes with tales of injustice and suffering. All animals will, if
+humanely treated, do their best for their masters; but a kind word and
+reassuring pat will go much further toward winning a race than all the
+spurs and curses in the world.
+
+Many a race has been lost through the very efforts made to win it.
+
+Coolness and self-possession are indispensable in both horse and rider.
+
+I remember of being at a State fair with my master some years later, and
+witnessing a race. Among the competitors was a handsome little black
+horse, all grit and goodness, but, owing to its owner being partly
+intoxicated, it lost the stake, in consequence incurring his wrath. And
+how he did pound the noble little beast!
+
+A number of disapprovals arose from the multitude, but no one ventured
+to interfere.
+
+The animal was his, you know.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+I had no idea before that year's experience that little things--at least
+what men call little things--could so affect the health and spirits of a
+horse. I had even felt a little scornful sometimes when I saw
+strong-looking animals go along with drooping heads, and noticed how
+dull and stupid they looked.
+
+But when I came to endure hardships and have no petting (though Herman
+was better to me than most men are to their own horses) I felt
+differently about it.
+
+We need encouragement.
+
+Chet did not take me out after Prince's tragic death for some time, but
+Dr. Fred drove me a great deal, as there was only the bays and myself
+then.
+
+Topsy had had no regular breaking yet, but Chet declared his intention
+of attending to the matter at once.
+
+When he did undertake it he frightened the poor thing almost to death,
+and what the outcome would have been I can only surmise, had not a
+humane man noticed him one day and chided him for his method, or rather
+lack of method. "Let me show you my way," he said. I suppose Chet was
+getting tired of the job, so surrendered.
+
+From being always handled, Topsy was all right, so long as no harness
+was introduced, or any unusual noise made near her; but at the first
+unfamiliar sight or sound she was a bunch of terrified, prancing nerves,
+expecting the worst, and usually getting it, in the form of a whipping.
+
+"She's got to learn that I'm boss," was a favorite expression of Chet's.
+
+"Well, my boy," said the gentleman, "I suppose it is necessary for a
+horse to know it has a master, but it is equally necessary for us to
+recognize that they have rights, and also that bullying an animal is not
+being, in a manly sense, its master. Now I have broken scores of horses,
+and never yet whipped but one, and I have always hated myself for doing
+that."
+
+Then he began to gently rub Topsy's head and neck with his hands, and
+later with a brush. She seemed to enjoy this, and when he let the latter
+gradually pass over her shoulders and back, she offered no resistance.
+
+He worked with her fifteen minutes or longer, then turned her into the
+little enclosure she occupied during the day. I think I neglected to say
+I was resting out at the farm for a day or two when this occurred.
+
+In two or three hours the man came again, and repeated the handling and
+brushing, only this time he touched the whole body, talking kindly and
+reassuring all the while.
+
+"She is going to be an uncommonly easy subject, I predict," he
+announced.
+
+"But who'd have patience for such slow getting on?" Chet scornfully
+asked.
+
+"I should imagine a little time apparently wasted in the beginning less
+loss than a fine horse ruined in the end," the old man quietly answered.
+
+When he let the young mare go that time she seemed slow to leave him,
+though he had brushed her even to her heels.
+
+The next time he handled her with greater freedom, brushing and talking
+and finally showing her a little sack of straw. She eyed it awhile,
+smelled it and then seemed not to care for it. The man now began to rub
+her with this, gradually increasing the noise it made. Of course, she
+was a little shy of this, and inclined to go away. A few gentle touches
+of the brush reassured her. Then he put a halter on her. She had often
+worn one before. After this he applied the straw again, stopping every
+little while to brush and smoothe her. In a little time she paid no
+attention either to the noise or the touch of the sack.
+
+The next day he gave her four lessons of similar character. Later he
+rattled tin cans and the like about her from head to heels, and had
+small boys blow tin horns in all directions.
+
+Topsy told me afterwards that so long as she could hear that man's voice
+or feel his touch, she was not afraid of anything.
+
+Afterward he gradually introduced the bridle and harness.
+
+Like all horses, she objected to the bit, and I fancy people would make
+more fuss than we do, if they had to wear it. It was the first night
+that Topsy was at the livery barn after her "breaking," and she was
+saying she minded the bit worst of all.
+
+An old horse replied that well she might hate it.
+
+"For years," she said, "my tongue has been in a measure paralyzed. It
+always hangs out of my mouth when the bit is in, and I can't help it.
+Sometimes it is more helpless than others and I almost starve. I get
+better at times where some one owns me who puts a bit in my mouth that
+don't hurt; but I am getting used up anyway, and change hands often, and
+the majority of bits makes the trouble worse."
+
+"I was once troubled that way," spoke up another horse, "and my master
+kept changing bits until he got one that was all right and then I got
+over it."
+
+"I, too, had a paralyzed tongue," said another, "but it was not the bit,
+it was genuine paralysis--might have been caused by that in the first
+place, though I never thought of it. Anyway they applied electricity to
+the nerves and gave me some medicine three times a day--'strychnia,'
+they called it, one-hundredth of a grain at a dose. I soon got well."
+
+"My tongue was all torn to pieces once with a frosty bit," put in
+another. "And how I did suffer! No one noticed it until it was all
+ulcerated, and I could not eat and scarcely drink. My master was one of
+those careless fellows who never examines his horse, and seems to forget
+that, however much they suffer, they can't speak for themselves.
+
+"He did not know what to do for me and so sent for a neighbor, who told
+him to use alum wash until the ulcers were all gone, and leave the bit
+out until my mouth got well, meanwhile feeding me soft food."
+
+And still another spoke of her teeth becoming long and rough, and
+lacerating her tongue badly. She said they filed the teeth and wet her
+tongue and mouth with a lotion made of calendula and water.
+
+Topsy was a beauty in harness, and Chet was proud of her in his way, but
+from the first I feared hers would be a hard life, but my darkest
+forebodings came short of the dread reality.
+
+Among other experiences that winter was one in horse-shoeing.
+
+Master had been exceedingly particular always about my feet, but Herman
+was like a majority of other men; knew nothing of the business himself
+and trusted entirely to the smith, who chanced to be a new one.
+
+I had often heard Master and the good blacksmith in the old home
+denounce the fashion of trimming the frog and thinning the sole until it
+yielded to the pressure of the thumb, and that was just what this smith
+did. And then he put on great, heavy shoes, driving in spikes rather
+than nails.
+
+I admit that I kicked and plunged, but it was all wrong, and I knew it;
+then the last spike went through into the foot. This made me rear and
+plunge worse than ever, and the blacksmith struck me with the hammer.
+
+"See here, Dr. Dick Wallace won't stand that," cried Herman. "He allows
+no man to strike Dandy."
+
+"Don't reckon he's better than other horses," he answered.
+
+"Folks might differ on that," said Herman.
+
+Well, I got out of there at last, but my foot hurt intolerably, and I
+limped. Herman spoke of it to Dr. Fred, but the latter was in one of his
+gruff moods, and only answered:
+
+"It 'most always lames 'em at first."
+
+That night a man came for a doctor in great haste; some one had taken
+poison by mistake. Dandy was ordered.
+
+If I could have spoken, how soon I would have convinced Herman that,
+with that terrible torture in my foot, I could not go, but I could only
+mutely look at him, and he, half asleep, paid no attention. It was a
+good many miles we went, and the doctor drove like mad. It seemed to me
+that running through fire would have been easy compared with the pain in
+my foot, aggravated by the ceaseless concussion of the hard roads.
+
+With a blanket thrown over me, I was left tied in a shed. How I longed
+to lie down on something! All I could do was to hold up that leg. The
+pains extended clear into my shoulders, and the cords of my neck were
+growing stiff.
+
+After a long time, a man came out and unhitched me from the road cart.
+The moment I was free I lay down. Directly the man ran and brought Dr.
+Fred. They bade me get up, and, rather than to disobey, I tried it, but
+the moment I threw any weight on that foot had to immediately lay down
+again.
+
+Presently the man noticed me holding that foot, and asked if I was not
+newly shod. Then Dr. Fred remembered.
+
+"Well, Dandy," he said, "we must get home. Try it once more."
+
+I got on my feet, but had to hold that one up for awhile. Gradually I
+compelled myself to put it down, for I knew we must go, as he had said.
+
+That was long years ago, but even now I can feel some of the agony of
+that slow journey.
+
+He went with Herman and me to the shop, and fiercely ordered that shoe
+removed. The smith was not nearly so independent then. When the doctor
+saw the heavy thing he raved more than ever.
+
+"Do you put such shoes as those on a horse like this?" he cried.
+
+The result was that all the shoes came off, and I was put in my stall
+till my feet got well.
+
+"An ounce at the toe means a pound at the withers," quoted the old
+stable man. "And there's truth in it; glad the doctor had sense enough
+to refuse them."
+
+It was four weeks before I could be shod again, and in the meantime I
+had a very sore foot. They gave me aconite to keep down my fever, and
+used arnica on my foot after paring away the horn and poulticing until
+suppuration ceased. My one thought was: "Will Master never come home?"
+
+And so the winter and spring passed. "Several months," I thought as
+much! My experience was pretty much the same right through, but I felt
+years older when once again I rested my head on my beloved Master's
+shoulder.
+
+There was a new stable boy when he came back; Paddy, they called him.
+Dr. Fred and Herman had quarreled some time before.
+
+There was a new span of horses, too; John and Jean.
+
+The old stable man privately told Master of some of my hardships, and
+with tears in his eyes, the latter whispered: "Forgive me, Dandy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+One morning while waiting for Master to finish talking with a man, we
+heard a scream, and the next moment Bobby came rushing out, crying:
+
+"Uncle Dick! Uncle Dick! come! come! Tommy has stalded my little kitten
+all dead; hurry! hurry!"
+
+With two bounds her uncle cleared the space between himself and the door
+and disappeared for a moment, to appear again in the kitchen, the window
+of which was open.
+
+Plainly I could see the dripping kitten rushing frantically about the
+room, and Mrs. Wallace flourishing the broom at it as if it were the
+offender.
+
+Tommy complacently looked on. By the stove stood the pail of hot water
+into which he had dipped it.
+
+Quickly Master put the kitten in cold water, then, drying it, gave a
+brief order.
+
+Reluctantly Mrs. Wallace brought a bottle from somewhere, and he
+carefully worked some of the contents through the fur on the skin.
+
+Mrs. Wallace's face wore a sneer, but Bobby's, sweat and tear-stained,
+turned confidingly up to his.
+
+And then the good man's indignation got the better of his chivalry, and
+he gave "My lady" a lecture that greatly offended her.
+
+Among other things, I heard him say:
+
+"As you sow, so you must reap. You may see the time that you will
+remember this little burned kitten. I would not be a prophet of evil,
+nevertheless, I say the hand that ruthlessly puts a pet to such torture
+as this to-day may in in the future as readily slay a fellow man."
+
+Were his words prophetic?
+
+We shall see.
+
+Very often after his return did I hear Master speaking of things he had
+seen in the "West," and while, like other men, he spoke often of the
+country and people, unlike them, he told of the dumb creation.
+
+"You're a regular crank, Dick," Fred would say, "soft-hearted as a
+baby;" but then he would pat him on the shoulder, and I know that there
+has always been a tender reverence in his heart for this noble brother.
+
+To me they were wonderful stories, those about the horses of the plains
+and the cattle of the ranches.
+
+"Seeing is believing," Master said. "I went there in the fall when the
+creatures were in good condition, and watched every phase of their
+existence until they--or their survivors--were in the same condition
+again; but what they endured meanwhile no earthly computation could
+estimate; I doubt not the record is being all kept straight above.
+
+"I made my headquarters with an old friend and schoolmate--one of the
+most humane ranchmen on the plains, I presume. I told him I wanted no
+varnish, but reality; and he said I should have it.
+
+"He owns a large ranch, his nearest neighbor being eighteen miles
+distant. There is, in the clearing, the usual ranch-house, stables,
+sheds, horse corral and the like.
+
+"Their horses all come from the wild ones, and a few of them become
+truly tame. My friend has one--old Mark--who follows him like a dog, and
+obeys him as readily as Dandy does me, but he is an exception. Sometimes
+those not in use wander off and are gone for months. When they find them
+they are as wild almost as ever, and have to be broken all over again.
+And this breaking was one of the things that seemed so inhuman to me,
+but you would not believe flesh and blood could stand what they do
+anyway, and live. And such looking creatures! apparently nothing but
+skin and muscle, and so hardy that men grow naturally, I suppose, to
+think they have no feeling. But to me they presented a piteous picture
+of dumb faithfulness and brute misery. Despite their hardiness, they are
+as capable of suffering as the man who rides them. Of course, old Mark
+can endure more hardships than Dandy, just as his master can endure
+more than I, but that does not alter the fact that we can all be
+overworked, abused and suffering.
+
+"Immediately after breakfast the men on my friend's ranch gather the
+horses into the corral. In the centre is what they call the
+snubbing-post; here the men stand with ropes, and, as the animals race
+around the corral, they lasso the ones they want to use that day, and
+then the rest are turned loose again. Some of them get quite tame. I
+told Charley that if I were a ranchman I would have them every one
+obedient to my voice. He assured me that--as a rule--it ain't bronco
+nature.
+
+"He had a professional breaker--'bronco busters,' they call them--break
+a few new horses while I was there, but I only watched the operation
+twice; that was quite enough for me. These 'busters' get big-wages, for
+their work is extremely dangerous, and they are always in such a hurry
+that what they do is done in the quickest way, which is generally the
+roughest.
+
+"Time and again they jerk the poor creatures up, causing them to turn
+complete somersaults, and sometimes breaking their necks, of course.
+Then, by the roughest of main force, they saddle and mount them. True to
+his nature and common instinct for self-preservation, the animal bucks,
+doing his best to unseat his rider. This he rarely succeeds in
+accomplishing, and at the end of an hour or two he is submissive through
+sheer fatigue and pain. Three of these lessons are deemed sufficient.
+Horses broken by more mild, humane means--even ranchmen allow--make
+quieter, better servants. Then there is the branding of the ponies,
+without which the owners could not tell their own property. In
+accomplishing this, the animal is blindfolded and led up to a roaring
+fire, where a man with a red-hot branding iron awaits him. Quick as a
+flash, there is a sickening odor of burning hair and flesh, and the
+frantic animal goes forth with his owner's initials, mark or whatever it
+may be, indelibly branded on him.
+
+"These horses can climb like a mountain goat, and in winter they subsist
+on the bark of the cottonwood tree, or on the dead grass that they paw
+down through the snowdrifts to reach. Ofttimes their hoofs are worn to
+the quick, and blood marks their trail. Spring finds them mere shadows,
+and so weak they can hardly walk. They endure hardships better than the
+cattle do, though. These last lead woeful lives in the winter season.
+
+"I did not get there for the fall 'round-up,' as they call the gathering
+together of the herds; but when I did see them they were sleek and
+contented looking. Soon after, Charley and his men moved theirs into the
+broken lands, where there is some chance for shelter and a bare chance
+for their subsisting on the natural hay that abounds there.
+
+"The past winter has not been a severe one, yet more than half of his
+cattle perished. Some grew so weak and stupid that they ceased to paw up
+the frozen grass; some, very many, in fact, perished in ice-storms.
+Their coats become as cakes of ice, and they die by inches. Some die for
+want of water, some mired in the spring in their frantic rush for it,
+and so on. Wherever one goes after the snow melts, the sight that meets
+their eyes is dead carcases.
+
+"The hardened beholder thinks only of the loss to the owner, but to the
+uninitiated, each gaunt form, with his sunken eyeballs and worn hoofs,
+tells a pathetic tale, and reminds them of the lingering tragedies that
+have been enacted there.
+
+"Pitiful enough look the forms of brute mothers, lying in a way to show
+that they defended and sheltered their helpless young to the last. But,
+looking along the lines of dead, I almost decided that their fate was
+preferable to that of the survivors who must yet face the living death
+of the cattle car, and finally be inhumanly butchered. At best the lives
+of these creatures are full of pain and misery.
+
+"Another harrowing scene is the branding of the calves and young cattle
+at the May 'round-up.' I witnessed it for an hour and then turned away,
+but I could not shut the terrible din out.
+
+"The ordinary method is to corral a large number of cattle, and then
+rope the calves and unbranded animals, drag them to the fire and proceed
+as in case of the horse.
+
+"Dust, smoke, blood everywhere, and the air full of the smell of burning
+flesh.
+
+"Then there are calls, oaths, coarse laughter, bellowings, moans and
+cries of pain and fright, making wildest discord.
+
+"I pitied the poor little calves most. They are generally caught by the
+leg, or legs, and jerked rudely over the ground to the branding place.
+Here two or more other men grab them and hold them down while the cruel
+deed is done. The little things seem so terribly frightened and
+helpless. The little while I watched, I saw several of the older animals
+badly burned on their shoulders and faces. These were mothers who
+charged in defence of their young; then the hot iron struck one steer in
+the eye, completely destroying it. The men scarcely notice such a
+happening, but I could not forget the suffering. I would rather earn my
+bread far down in the mines than by trafficking in flesh and blood.
+
+"In the spring all the stock is reduced; I may say they are barely
+alive, but when the rains come and fresh grass springs up they pick up
+rapidly."
+
+Thus would my master talk until it seemed to me that we were pretty
+highly favored, but there has never been a winter since but I have
+thought often about the starving, freezing herds "out West."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+Chet drove Topsy a great deal; "too much for so young a horse," the old
+stableman said.
+
+One day when he brought her in, her back was a perfect network of welts,
+raised by his cruel whip.
+
+"Oh, Topsy," I said, "what were you doing?"
+
+The poor young thing hung her head pitifully. "I thought I was doing all
+right, but he jerked the lines this way and that, until I became so
+nervous I did not know what to do, and finally stumbled. With that he
+stood right up in the cart and whipped me. It seemed every blow cut in
+half an inch. I reared and plunged to escape the lash, but he kept on
+till I got quiet through sheer exhaustion. Oh, me! I wish I were dead;
+men have the power, and they are so cruel."
+
+Another time he drove her until she was dripping with sweat, then led
+her into a spring of cold water and dashed it all over her.
+
+Every one about the stables said it would kill her, but she got along
+with only a severe cold.
+
+About this time Dr. Fred sent Chet off to school, and I, for one, was
+relieved.
+
+Carm drove Topsy then, but she said he was never abusive, only sometimes
+forgetful.
+
+After Chet had been gone a few months there came a letter from him that
+made a deal of trouble in the house. What it was about I cannot really
+say, but Master announced to me one morning that we were going to live
+at the farm.
+
+I was glad, for I was tired of the livery barn.
+
+We moved right away, but I could see that something was sorely troubling
+him.
+
+A man and his wife by the name of Pell ran the farm now, and a breezy,
+young English couple they were. She especially pleased me with her sunny
+ways and funny pronunciation.
+
+She fixed Master's rooms up "'omelike," she called it, and was always
+tucking posies in my bridle, or feeding me with sweet cakes.
+
+I thought she would cheer Master up if anybody could, but though he
+smiled often he grew quickly thoughtful again. Plenty of people came for
+him, and after a while he bought another horse named Dexter. I knew he
+owned John and Jean just as much as Fred did, but I suppose he thought
+best to leave them where they were.
+
+After a while Queen and Julie were sent out. I wondered at first, until
+they told me they were worn out and had been sent out to pick up.
+
+"I know what it means," said Julie. "We are to be patched up and sold.
+We've served him (Dr. Fred) until we are used up; now we'll go to the
+first bidder."
+
+It proved true, and in two weeks a rough-looking man drove them away.
+Several years after, while waiting at a gateway for Master, I noticed
+something familiar-looking about an old horse attached to the separator
+of a threshing machine.
+
+I could not place her at first, but as they came nearer I saw it was
+Julie, or what might be her walking skeleton. I spoke to her as she was
+stopped near me.
+
+"Oh, Dandy!" she cried. "I am glad to see you, and you don't look a day
+older!"
+
+I asked her about herself and Queen. "It is a common story," she said.
+"Queen was run to death one night by some wild boys. First she fell
+down, but they pounded her till she got up; she staggered on a little
+further and fell again, the blood gushing from nose and mouth. They left
+her there, and in the morning she was dead.
+
+"I envy her, though," said Julie. "Better be dead than dying, I say."
+
+Just then the man belonging on the separator came up, and with an oath
+bade her hold up her head.
+
+She gave me a sad, hopeless glance as she tried to obey. The machine was
+set not far off, and as Master was a long time in the house, I had an
+opportunity to watch Julie and her mates--all thin, half-dead-looking
+creatures.
+
+The man on the horse-power shrieked, cursed and slashed right and left
+with his long whip. On Julie and an old blind horse it seemed to me it
+fell most often, though.
+
+After a long, dizzy run, during which the poor creatures staggered more
+than once, they stopped, and, without the slightest cause for so doing,
+the driver went around and kicked Julie a number of times. I have found
+by observation that this is the usual way with the world.
+
+Young horses may receive some care and consideration, but, as soon as
+they begin to fail, they are neglected or sold, and by old age their
+condition is pitiful.
+
+I wonder if the money Dr. Fred got for the bays will prove of sufficient
+good to him here to offset the record of misery he will have to face
+some day up there!
+
+Who can tell?
+
+We had a nice time at the farm. Dexter and I had plenty to do, but
+neither considered it any hardship to be tired in Dr. Dick's service.
+
+Mr. Pell had a span of quiet farm-horses, who, like ourselves, were
+contented to serve a good master. All the stock and poultry were well
+cared for, and nothing of the tales of woe from the livery stable
+reached us here, save when Topsy or one of Fred's horses came out for a
+day.
+
+After a while Master came into my stall one day, with an open letter in
+his hand.
+
+"Oh, Dandy!" he said, "what can I do?"
+
+Then he told me that Chet was drinking and gambling, and had written to
+him for money.
+
+"I feel that I ought not to send it to him, at the same time I promised
+to stand by Minnie's children. That woman has turned his father against
+him, and the latter has sworn never to send him another cent to help him
+out of his scrapes."
+
+He sent the money, though, then and once afterward.
+
+How long the estrangement between the brothers might have lasted I know
+not, had not Fred fallen ill or something. They said he had "snakes,"
+whatever that is.
+
+Paddy came in great haste, and Master was away nearly two days. He
+looked very worn and white on his return, but afterward seemed more
+cheerful, and in time I learned that his brother had quit drinking and
+signed a pledge. They were much together after that, and finally the
+town house was given up, and the family came to the farm. I was very
+sorry, only I was glad to have Bobby again.
+
+Mrs. Wallace was in poor health, too, and spent most of her time in bed.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Pell stayed on just the same, and great friends they became
+with Bobby, but the boys were trials to all of us.
+
+Tommy was his mother's boy, Master said, and I guess he did not mean it
+for a compliment either.
+
+By and by even good-natured Mrs. Pell got cross with him. He chased the
+young chickens to death, clubbed the pigs and cows, crushed the little
+chickens between two boards, trampled the flower beds and made himself
+generally hateful.
+
+Appeals to his mother met with: "Don't bother me, my nerves are all
+unstrung;" or, "Poor child, he is so full of his pranks!"
+
+Then Mrs. Pell spoke to his father, and that gentleman brought the
+youngster to the barn and whipped him with his riding whip.
+
+After that a threat to tell his father curbed him some.
+
+Chet was away two years before he came home at all. Two years at his
+time of life make great changes, and he came back a tall, slender youth,
+with a bit of dark down on his upper lip, and a thoughtful, studious air
+that was becoming.
+
+He was through sowing wild oats, he said, and we all felt very proud and
+glad--all but his stepmother.
+
+Of course, he drove Topsy out the first thing, and when I saw her, on
+her return, I knew that Chester Wallace still carried a cruel heart in
+his bosom. She said he drove as mercilessly as ever. I pitied the poor
+thing, for I knew that she loved her young master despite his cruel
+treatment. It is the way with us horses.
+
+He was home two months or more, and Topsy looked jaded and worn when he
+went away.
+
+I wonder that men do not more often notice when their horses have a
+fretted look. It is a sure sign that they are being hurt in some way.
+
+Our eyes and facial expressions speak louder than words, if only people
+cared to consult them.
+
+I noticed a horse, not long since, whose countenance was distorted with
+pain, yet his owner paid no heed, only cracked the whip and crowded him
+on.
+
+As you hope for mercy, drivers, show it to the animals you drive,
+remembering that as you measure it shall be measured unto you again.
+
+Carm had no taste for books, but was wild to be a railroad man.
+
+"Just as soon as I am old enough," he said, "I shall be a brakesman;"
+and Mrs. Wallace encouraged him. Anything, with her, to get them away
+from home. Her relations with Chet, through the summer, had not been
+pleasant, so he stayed another two years before returning.
+
+A man in stature and will he came home that time.
+
+Every one outside admired him, and he really seemed a fine man.
+
+His father suggested that he superintend the farm for a year or so,
+until he decided what he would do.
+
+The Pells had long been gone, and the help outdoors and in was
+transient.
+
+He finally decided to do it, and went to work. All was well so long as
+he did not get angry, but he lost his temper on the slightest
+provocation, and ofttimes without any. Especially was he hard on
+anything in his power.
+
+One morning I saw him get angry at a cow, because she had wandered into
+a lot where she did not belong. Grabbing hold of a pitchfork, he gave
+chase. Round and round the lot the frightened creature ran, too confused
+to see the narrow gateway, Chet jabbing the fork into her at almost
+every step. The longer the chase continued the madder he got and the
+less chance the cow had for escape.
+
+How long it was I cannot say, but it seemed an age to me before Master
+appeared on the scene, and, in thunder tones, bade him cease.
+
+Gently he drove the trembling creature from the lot. Blood trickled from
+some of the punctures, and as soon as she found a quiet place she lay
+down. Days and weeks of suffering followed, and then Master said she
+must be put out of her pain.
+
+Chet was plowing with Topsy and another horse one day. The former had a
+sore mouth, brought on by his nervous irritating way of twitching and
+jerking the lines. Exasperated at last, she worked the bit up so as to
+hold it with her teeth.
+
+Instantly flying into a passion, he drew his knife from his pocket and
+gashed her mouth far back on either side.
+
+Such a sorry sight as she was when he, shamefacedly, led her into the
+stall, blood running in a stream from either side of her face.
+
+It was not the pain--and there was plenty of that, and inconvenience,
+too, during the weeks following--so much as it was the injustice and
+cruelty that hurt sensitive, high-mettled Topsy.
+
+There was a stormy interview between uncle and nephew in the barn, while
+the lacerated mouth was being sewed and dressed.
+
+"If there was a law in this state that would touch such fellows as you
+are, I'd use it on you," cried Master hotly, "and there will be one;
+mark it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+That fall Master was elected to the legislature--whatever that is--and
+was gone pretty nearly all winter.
+
+I did not like it at all; for though Chet dare not injure me outright,
+he was at times very disagreeable, and I never felt safe a minute about
+the other animals. I did hope he would go off and study medicine, as he
+sometimes talked of doing.
+
+When Master came home to stay he seemed quite elated over some law they
+had made for the protection of dumb brutes, but he said it would be a
+long while before officials generally would be faithful in its
+enforcement.
+
+That was an unusually busy spring with the doctors, and Chet managed the
+farm to suit himself. Among other barbarous things he did, and allowed
+to be done by Paddy, who had come to work for us, was tying the young
+calves to stakes and leaving them there without food or water for hours.
+Of course, at first there was a little grass for them to nibble, but
+this was soon gone. Often their ropes became wound around the stakes
+until they could only stand helpless, with their heads drawn closely
+down.
+
+One pretty little heifer ("Rosebud," Bobby called her) was thus tied,
+and getting wound up, died a slow, torturous death. After this event he
+put all the young animals in a small, barren lot, where the scenes of
+the days of the Stringers were re-enacted. Day and night there were
+piteous calls for something besides dry hay. Once a day a large trough
+was filled with water, but this the older, stronger animals quickly
+drank up, and the younger, weaker ones had to go without.
+
+One calf had its leg broken in a vain effort to slake its burning
+thirst. With a moan of pain it dragged itself away to a fence corner and
+sank exhausted. Days it lingered there. A few times Carm and Paddy
+carried it a pail of skimmed milk or water, barely enough to prolong its
+agony, I thought. The supposition was that it had only hurt its leg, and
+would soon be better. Master was scarcely ever at home in daylight, and
+Bobby was made to believe the calf would soon be well. When they found
+it dead, its poor, parched tongue protruding from its mouth, and a look
+of mute reproach yet in its sightless eyes, they dragged it away as
+unconcernedly as if it had been a stick of wood.
+
+Several times Chet tore suckling-calves from their mother's side and
+permitted rough men to lead, or rather drag, the pleading, frightened
+creatures off, paying no heed to the mother's wild agony unless to speak
+some hard, profane word to her.
+
+Every living creature on the place soon learned to fear and hate him.
+
+In selling any living thing he seemed to try and invent the most cruel
+modes of transportation, putting calves, sheep or poultry in such small
+cases that they would be piled on top of each other. In driving sheep,
+there were always serious accidents happening, and many a time has he
+driven fat hogs in the heat and dust until one would fall by the
+wayside, and then he would kick it to death.
+
+You would not take him for such a man, just seeing him about. Ordinarily
+he had a low, soft voice, and gentle winning ways.
+
+His influence over his brothers and the hired men was very bad.
+
+Somebody sent him a fine bird dog, as a present.
+
+"At last," I thought, "he has something that he will be good to."
+
+A friend came to visit him, and, taking Topsy and Bulow, the dog, they
+went for prairie chickens.
+
+Dr. Dick and I were gone when they returned, but Topsy told me about it.
+
+She said that Bulow seemed so happy on the way out, and that the men
+sounded his praise continually.
+
+"A fine fellow, worth fifty dollars," was his master's verdict.
+
+After a while the dog scared up a covey of chickens, and the men--rising
+in their seats--shot into them.
+
+"Bring in the birds," Chet said. Bulow stood by them, but refused to
+touch them. Again and again the order was repeated, but still the animal
+refused.
+
+Chet grew white with passion.
+
+"Never mind, Wallace," said his friend. "Some dogs--good ones,
+too--never make retrievers. Something in their early training was
+wrong."
+
+"Bring those birds here!" roared Chet, paying no heed.
+
+The poor dog trembled from head to foot, but stood as if made of stone.
+
+A moment more and Chet had raised his gun to his shoulder and fired,
+filling the dumb creature's hips with shot. With a piteous whine the dog
+dropped to the ground.
+
+"Get up and come here!" roared his master.
+
+With an obedience that ought to have shamed the hard-hearted wretch, the
+animal dragged himself up and to his master's feet, blood trickling from
+a score or more shot holes.
+
+"Now, go bring that bird here."
+
+"I never saw such a look of piteous agony in eyes, human or brute,
+before," Topsy exclaimed vehemently. "It was terrible!"
+
+"Let up, Wallace; don't be a fool," cried his companion, touched by the
+mute suffering.
+
+"He'll mind me or I'll brain him," hissed Chet, quite beside himself.
+"Go!"
+
+Bulow crouched lower and feebly essayed to lick his master's boot.
+
+With an oath, the latter brought the butt of the gun down on his
+defenceless head, once, twice, thrice, and then there was a convulsive
+struggle and a dead dog lay weltering in his own blood.
+
+At another time, when Carm owned a common mongrel dog, there was a cat
+and three well-grown kittens at the barn. Master and Bobby had petted
+them until they were perfectly tame.
+
+For some reason or other, Chet determined that they must die, but
+instead of humanely killing them, he bade Tommy set the dog on them.
+
+This just suited the lad.
+
+Getting them all together, he gave the dog his orders. It happened right
+in my sight, and all I could do was to kick and neigh, but no one paid
+any attention. Carm and Tommy were enjoying what they called "the fun."
+
+The first kitten fought valiantly, but soon the cruel teeth sank in her
+throat and she lay limp.
+
+It took a long and exciting chase to get hold of another one.
+
+The boys cheered lustily as the kitten fought for the life so precious
+to it, and the dog shook and bit it.
+
+I wondered how the former could claim to be human and yet stand unmoved
+at the pleading and terror in the poor little face.
+
+So cruel to thus turn upon the happy, innocent creatures, and that, too,
+on the very spot they had learned to love as home!
+
+Little Gray (as Bobby called her) was a mangled mass of wet fur and
+blood when the dog quit her, and less than an hour before she had played
+so prettily with her mates.
+
+Just then Bobby came out, hearing the boys' shouts of glee.
+
+She screamed at sight of her dead pets, and, flying at the dog, beat him
+with a piece of board.
+
+"Tom set him on," said Carm.
+
+"I'll tell Uncle Dick, that I will, and papa, too," the angry maiden
+cried.
+
+"Chet told me to," said Tommy.
+
+"He did? Well, if there was anything in this world that he loved, I'd
+kill it," she declared with blazing eyes, "but he don't love anything."
+
+There were high words between Chet and Master that noon, and I heard the
+former mutter as he walked off:
+
+"Old meddler, I'll give you something to make a row about one of these
+times."
+
+A few days later, poor old puss, while looking for mice in a bin of
+grain, put her paw into a steel trap that had been placed there by
+Tommy, on purpose.
+
+"I'll finish this cat somehow," he said.
+
+It was late at night when puss was caught, that is, after the work was
+all done, and I cannot bear to even think of the torture she must have
+endured all those long hours until daylight.
+
+Paddy found her when he went for oats.
+
+"Mercy on us!" he cried, as he caught sight of the wild, glaring
+eyeballs. She was almost mad with the long strain and agony.
+
+Not daring to touch her, he ran for a gun, but the boys, suspecting what
+was going on, rushed into the barn ahead of him, and shouted with
+fiendish glee when they saw her.
+
+"Pull her out," shouted Tommy, and loosing the chain that held the trap,
+they flung that and the suffering creature rudely on the floor. Her paw
+was crushed at the main joint.
+
+I can never forget the look in her eyes as she watched Paddy point the
+gun, but I am thankful that the next moment ended her misery.
+
+Delighted with his success at "trapping," as he called it, Tommy
+rearranged the trap, but, unknown to him, Paddy removed and hid it.
+
+"It's jest the way with half the folks in the world," the latter
+muttered; "they have hearts like flint stones."
+
+And I knew his words were true, else people would be more considerate
+and merciful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+One year Master and I spent in the city. He was supplying the place of a
+friend in the profession, who was sick and had gone abroad.
+
+I saw a good deal of life there, but dark as some of the pictures were,
+they had in some instances their bright side. In this city a society for
+the prevention of cruelty to animals, had lately been started, and,
+though people generally did not give it much countenance, there were
+still a few brave, humane men and women who dared to speak for those who
+could not speak for themselves; who dared to do right despite the sneers
+and jeers of the world.
+
+We dumb animals have reason to thank the Creator that He made a few like
+these. Horrible cruelties had gone uncensured in this city before.
+Animals had died for lack of food and water, others had been cut and
+mangled by trains and left to die by inches, lesser creatures had been
+openly tortured to death, and beasts of burden had been kicked and
+pounded to death on the streets.
+
+Perhaps a month had elapsed, after we were settled there, when, as
+Master drove leisurely down one of the principal thoroughfares, he
+noticed a crowd gathered on a corner just ahead. Coming closer we beheld
+a mule lying on his side, attached to a heavy load of coal. Blows and
+kicks were falling fast on his head and body.
+
+"Get up, you lazy brute! get up, I say! don't try any of yer tricks on
+me," and then there were more blows, kicks and curses.
+
+The crowd grinned and seemed amused. Springing from the cart, Master
+asked a boy to hold me, and elbowed his way to the side of the driver.
+
+Touching him on the arm, he said gently, but firmly: "Don't strike
+again; there is something wrong here or the creature would get up and go
+on."
+
+"He's jest cussed lazy!"
+
+"Let me handle him."
+
+With that Master stooped down and stroked the mule's face gently,
+speaking in a kind, encouraging tone.
+
+Presently when it found it had a friend, it began to struggle to its
+feet, succeeding at last in standing upright. Then Master began to
+examine the harness, which was old, stiff and full of knots.
+
+"If you would grease this harness until it is soft, and take more pains
+in mending it, your dumb servant would thank you for it," he said. At
+that moment he noticed that when he touched the collar the animal
+flinched and his fore-leg trembled. Lifting that part of the gearing,
+there was revealed a spot as large as the hand of a twelve-year-old
+child, all raw and bleeding.
+
+"No wonder, sir, the poor thing could not draw this heavy load, with
+such an affliction as that," the doctor said, almost angrily.
+
+"It wasn't so bad this mornin'," the man answered, "and anyway that
+ain't much of a sore to use a mule up."
+
+"A mule, my man, has just as much feeling as you or I. If you think you
+would be willing to pull right along, enduring the torture he is
+enduring, then there is some excuse for you working him, but, if you
+don't, then there is not. God made these creatures to serve us, but he
+made us intending we should be just and kind to them."
+
+Then he took a silk handkerchief from his pocket, folded and put it over
+the bruise under the collar.
+
+"Now," said he, "a few of us will push until we get this load well
+started, and you may take it a little way, wherever you can leave it,
+and then you must promise not to use the mule again until his shoulder
+is thoroughly healed, and to pad and fix that collar and harness."
+
+"See here, now, Mr. Whoever-you-be, this yer mule is mine, and I don't
+have to promise no stranger nothin'."
+
+"Oh, well, if that is your game, all right. I meant to be easy with you,
+but, if you prefer, I will have you arrested and fined at once."
+
+"Fined! great blazes, ain't that mule my own, and hain't I a right to
+cut him into sarsage if I want to?"
+
+The crowd (part of it) laughed, but the rest watched Master earnestly.
+
+"Maybe you have not heard, my good fellow, that there exists in this
+city to-day a society for the prevention of such abuses as this; and
+that it has power from the State to arrest, try and fine you for the
+deeds you have just committed. In the first place, you used the animal
+when he was unfit for service, and, in the second place, you kicked and
+pounded him. Unless you promise the two things I mentioned, and this one
+added, that you will be kind and humane in your treatment hereafter, I
+will complain of you at once."
+
+"But I don't b'lieve there is such a s'ciety; leastway, I've allers used
+my critters as I pleased 'nd nobody's meddled before."
+
+"Exactly, and that is the reason the society has been founded; there are
+too many like you who use dumb animals as if they were made of granite
+instead of flesh and blood like ourselves. However, if you don't believe
+what I say I will prove its truth at once."
+
+"Wall, you look like a man as knows what he's talkin' about; anyway it's
+kind of you to tuck that fine handkerchief in there. I'll promise."
+
+"Keep the handkerchief as a sign of your promise," said Master; "now,
+boys, let's all lend a hand."
+
+It only took a few minutes to get the cart to the top of the up-grade,
+and after that the mule walked slowly but readily off. Master kept him
+in sight, however, until he saw him unhitched and led away.
+
+Another day we met a man driving a horse that limped very badly. Master
+pulled up and spoke to him. The fellow was about half drunk and very
+ugly.
+
+"Mind your own business; this brute belongs to me," was the leering
+answer.
+
+"No matter who it belongs to, it is unfit for travel. You can either
+drive at once to No. 12 T---- alley, where a veterinary will examine it
+free of charge, or you will be arrested on charge of cruelty to
+animals."
+
+The man began to curse and whip the horse.
+
+"Hold on, sir, every blow you strike will increase your fine or term of
+imprisonment."
+
+The fellow paid no heed, and Master signaled a policeman, who put him
+under arrest. I learned afterward that he was fined twenty dollars and
+costs, besides losing the use of his horse for many weeks and having to
+pay for its board during the time. The treatment was given free. A
+little later Master obtained a policeman's star for himself.
+
+(It is quite common in cities for the humane detectives to wear their
+star under a civilian's coat.)
+
+He engaged actively in the work all the year, reporting a hundred cases
+or more. For the benefit of persons who think such a society
+unnecessary, and who imagine there are few cruelties being perpetrated
+on the dumb creation, I will mention a few of the cases where Master
+interfered.
+
+A woman scalded a dog until his hide peeled off his back; a man got
+angry at a neighbor and shut the latter's dog in a cellar until the poor
+animal starved to death; two young fellows raced their horses until one
+horse dropped and had to be shot, and the other was practically ruined;
+a drunken man drove a horse ten miles with a dislocated knee; a jockey
+drove a horse a mile with one hoof torn off; another disemboweled his
+horse with spurs; three men, in fits of anger, cut pieces from horses'
+and mules' tongues; another shot a mule and went away without waiting to
+see if it was dead, and it was found alive two days after; a colored man
+overloaded his team, and when they were unable to start the load he
+buried an axe in the shoulder of each; dozens were arrested for driving
+lame and galled horses, several for using unshod animals on the ice;
+four blacksmiths for inhumane treatment of horses they were shoeing; two
+men for leaving cows and calves unprotected until they froze; some for
+underfeeding domestic animals; a number of butchers were fined heavily
+for rough and inhumane treatment of animals to be slaughtered, such as
+punched their eyes out and the like.
+
+Then there were countless cases, not on record, where kindly advice
+induced people to be more humane, and I heard Master say that he had
+spent two hundred dollars out of his own pocket for horse-blankets, new
+collars, easier bits, etc.
+
+And now, if there is any evidence lacking to convince the indifferent
+and skeptical of the need of humane societies and brave men to work, I
+wish they might hear some of the tales of woe and abuse that were
+repeated to me that year while boarding at a city livery barn.
+
+I remember one handsome pair of imported Arabian horses that were
+stalled one night there.
+
+To look at them, I suppose they were proud and happy, but they said they
+were neither, they had had to leave their own homes, and be brought
+across the ocean; and through all that dreadful voyage, they said, they
+had been obliged to stand up. The swaying of the vessel made them
+dreadfully sick, and every cord and muscle in their bodies was strained.
+They were very home-sick, and neither the climate nor the food agreed
+with them.
+
+At another time a noted race-horse was there, "Queen of the Turf," they
+called her.
+
+She said she would willingly exchange places with an old cab horse. So
+much was expected of her, and she was too proud to fall below her
+record.
+
+"But, oh," she said, "it is a hard life. I long for some freedom and
+real rest, but it is all training or care. I hate the race-course!"
+
+And here, for the first time in my life, I saw horses wearing the
+over-draw check, and going about with tails and manes cut off.
+
+It all seems so unnaturally inhuman, that, even yet, I think sometimes I
+must be dreaming.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+When we returned to the farm Master saw at a glance that Chet's farming
+was "poor farming."
+
+Some new and scientific methods had been introduced, that were well
+enough as methods, but when used by a person unable to modify and apply
+them to practical use, they fell flat.
+
+Moreover, Chet was engaged--"badly engaged," Bobby said--to be married.
+
+Something else had happened while we were gone, that, for very shame,
+the girl had not written to her uncle, and now I will tell it in Topsy's
+words:
+
+"After Chet cut my mouth so badly, he seemed to hate me worse than ever,
+and rarely spoke in other than a savage tone of voice.
+
+"Once, or rather, a good many times, he spoke of selling me; said he
+would sure, but 'the old fool' raised nice colts.
+
+"Dear me, it almost kills me to think of his handling my pretty, tender
+babies. He has always been so unfeeling; keeping them from me long hours
+at a time, when I knew they were suffering from hunger, and then letting
+them nurse while I was overheated.
+
+"But after Dr. Dick went away there there seemed nothing to check his
+fits of fury. He don't mind in the least what his father says, and
+several times boxed Bobby's ears when she interfered. Of course, it
+makes the trouble between him and Mrs. Wallace worse for him to misuse
+the girl, though she has never seemed to care much for her herself. It
+is all 'Tommy' with her.
+
+"Well, Chet drove me hard, worked me hard and beat me hard, but I tried
+to be obedient and do my duty, until one day my colt, which he had tied
+to my side as Jean and I plowed, got so tired and hungry it could hardly
+go another step. Indeed, it was fairly dragging along by the strap. He
+was in a great hurry to get the piece done, as he was going to see his
+girl; so would not stop, but kept striking the colt. I endured it just
+as long as I could, then stopped in the furrow.
+
+"Poor baby made a feeble lunge for her dinner, but, with a stinging
+blow, Chet bade me go on. I had made up my mind that that colt should
+have a minute or two of rest and a few drops of milk if he killed me for
+it. When I stood still he dropped the plow-handle and lines, and, coming
+around in front of me, cut me full in the face with that whip lash until
+the blood flew. I tried to shut my eyes and turn my face away, but it
+was no use, the blows continued until, in my agony, I opened an eye, and
+the knot on the end of the lash cut right into it. After that I was so
+frenzied I remember nothing distinctly, but Jean says he cut away until
+Paddy, who was working in the next field, rushed over and pulled him
+away by main force. The colt was so badly choked in the row that it died
+before morning, and I tell you I am glad of it. I never want anything to
+suffer as I have suffered, and bad masters are to good ones as fifty to
+one.
+
+"So, as you see, I am blind of an eye. It makes it hard for me, but, if
+I can keep the other one, I won't fret."
+
+Bobby had grown a willful girl, though still as sweet and tender-hearted
+as when a baby. She was the idol of her father and uncle, but had no
+training. As intimated before, she had never been a favorite with her
+mother, and I think she secretly realized and resented it.
+
+Chet had spells of being very good to her, and when he chose to be
+agreeable it was hard to resist him.
+
+Carm had fallen in with a bad lot, and was going the downward way fast.
+
+In a moment of anger his father turned him out of doors, but Master
+followed him--he was Nannie's boy.
+
+"Find me a place on the railroad, uncle, and I'll reform," he said.
+
+"For the sake of your dead mother, Carm," Master pled, "change your
+ways and strive to be a man. She is waiting for her two boys up there.
+Must I tell her, when I meet her, that they are lost?"
+
+"But I tell you I will reform if I can be engaged in the business I
+like," the boy persisted.
+
+"It is too dangerous, Carm. Reform first, and then I will try and secure
+for you the position you desire. You are too young yet, anyway."
+
+"But father has turned me out, I must do something."
+
+"I will pay your bills if you will go to school two years and behave
+yourself."
+
+"I hate books!"
+
+Nevertheless, Master overruled at last, and Carm entered a business
+college.
+
+There was in our stable at this time, a span of young black horses,
+high-spirited and stylish. They belonged to the two doctors--"the firm,"
+as they were called.
+
+Chet had a pair of young bays--Topsy's children--that were built more
+for endurance, and, at their request, a trade was made.
+
+The blacks, Romeo and Juliet, were as gentle and obedient as they were
+high-bred and handsome.
+
+Every one admired them, and they were proud themselves, especially proud
+of their flowing manes and tails.
+
+After awhile Chet married the peaked-faced girl to whom he was engaged,
+and they went to Boston for the honeymoon. This is what Bobby said,
+anyway, and I know they were gone a little while. When they came back
+she trotted about with him all over the farm, and just went into
+ecstasies over Romeo and Juliet.
+
+"Aren't they just too lovely, dearest?" she cried every time she saw
+them. "Won't you give them to me for my very, very own?"
+
+I suppose he gave them to her, or pretended to, for she called them hers
+after that.
+
+I found out about this time, from hearing Master and Bobby talk, when
+they were out riding, that "Cleo"--that was Mrs. Chet--was a Boston
+girl, and that she and Chet had become acquainted during her visit to a
+relative in M----.
+
+After that I heard her telling Chet one day that it was the fashion in
+Boston now to dock the stylish ponies and cut off the manes.
+
+Why, I could not have been more astonished had she said they cut off
+their legs.
+
+"It is so English, you know," she added, sweetly.
+
+When Master heard her, he said:
+
+"You mean so barbarous, don't you?"
+
+"Oh, deah, no," she answered, "all the nabobs and--and tony people have
+their horses that way."
+
+"All the fools," muttered Master.
+
+"What an old beah your uncle is," she said, poutingly, to Chet when
+Master was out of hearing.
+
+"Oh--well, you must not mind Uncle Dick; he is cranky on some points,
+but not a bad fellow, after all, when one is in a tight place."
+
+Cleo shrugged her bare shoulders--her shoulders were always bare--and
+resumed her plea to have poor Romeo and Juliet maimed and disfigured for
+life. All the horses were talking about it, and the blacks were
+terrified half to death.
+
+"I hope it is no worse than having one's mouth cut back and eye whipped
+out," said Topsy.
+
+"May be it don't hurt at all," said John, and we all tried to comfort
+the intended victims by this hopeful suggestion.
+
+It was a cool, May morning, some months later, when a couple of strange
+men came to the farm, and, under their supervision, Chet and the hired
+man began to build a queer looking structure of heavy timbers.
+
+(The doctors were off at a convention, to be gone several days.)
+
+By and by Bobby came out wringing her hands, her yellow curls all
+tumbled about her tear-stained face, and begging, first her brother,
+then the strangers, not to do something, I could not hear what.
+
+All the men laughed but Chet; he bade her go in the house and not be
+bothering with what was none of her business.
+
+Then her temper got the mastery, and she called him "a cruel wretch,"
+and told him he was bad enough before he married the "wizened fool from
+Boston," but was worse now.
+
+At this, he grew angry, and, grabbing her by the arm, he dragged her
+into the house.
+
+She was back, however, almost as soon as he was, and turning up her
+loose white sleeve, she exhibited a plump arm bearing blue finger marks.
+
+"See there!" she cried to the strangers, "you are witnesses to Chester
+Wallace's brotherly treatment. I have always heard that a man who is
+unkind to animals will be equally cruel to woman, or any weak,
+defenceless thing."
+
+The men looked annoyed. Finally one of them said:
+
+"We are very sorry, Miss, but your brother has hired us to come some
+distance, and we are obliged to perform the operation and go. It really
+does not hurt the horses much, and it only lasts a minute. All the
+stylish turnouts in cities are now drawn by docked horses."
+
+"But uncle says it is barbarous and ought to be prohibited by law, and
+he knows."
+
+It did seem pitiful, the two mute, dumb beasts standing, trembling with
+apprehension, and only the sobbing voice and puny arm of a mere child
+between them and a dreadful fate.
+
+In a rage Chet spoke out fiercely:
+
+"Either go in the house, Miss, or else stand by and enjoy it; the
+business is going on."
+
+"Then I shall stand by, for I mean to report everything to papa and
+Uncle Dick."
+
+"Little tattler!" he hissed.
+
+"Yes, sir, and further you will find yourself, your 'deah lambie
+darling' from Boston, and your mutilated horses all out of shelter when
+papa comes home. I guess when he sees my arm your cake will be dough."
+
+Nothing but the presence of witnesses restrained the infuriated man from
+striking the young girl down, as she stood. But the merciless work went
+on.
+
+Bars of heavy timber were so arranged that no horse living, when once
+strapped in there, could escape or scarcely move. I could see it all
+from where I stood in the small pasture near the barn. When all was in
+readiness, Juliet was brought around, and then I saw that her beautiful,
+flowing mane was already chopped off, so that just a short bush stood
+upright along her neck.
+
+She reared and plunged with fright as she was led up to the trap-like
+arrangement.
+
+Bobby screamed once, then stood white and speechless.
+
+There was a brief parley among the men, then Chet turned back, and,
+catching the girl about the wrist, carried her by main force into the
+house, remaining there himself to prevent her return. The moment they
+were out of hearing (or sight, rather) poor Juliet was roughly hurried
+into the trap and strapped to stout rings in the floor. There were also
+straps about her body fastened to rings in the floor.
+
+Near by, in an old shop, Tommy seemed to be attending to something.
+
+Of course, the poor horse was entirely helpless, but one of the men
+stood holding her head.
+
+Oh, it was all too horrible to relate, but since it is daily coming to
+be the fashion, I will try and go through it, hoping some heart may be
+touched when a plain statement how docking is done, lies before them.
+
+Then the executioner mounted a block, and with a saw began his inhuman
+task. There was a moment of silence, then there burst from Juliet's
+mouth such a cry of agony as I never dreamed a horse could utter. Scream
+followed scream as the poor beast writhed helplessly, a look in her face
+beggaring description. So great was her agony that sweat ran in streams
+to the floor, and blood and foam spurted from her mouth.
+
+As coolly as sawing off a stick of wood, the man worked on, cutting
+through flesh, muscles, tissues, veins and nerves until the handsome
+tail lay on the floor and there was only a gory stump left.
+
+At this juncture, Tommy rushed from the old shop with a red-hot iron.
+Quickly this was applied to the torn and bleeding member.
+
+There was a sickening odor of burning flesh, a sound from Juliet,
+neither a cry nor moan, something worse, and then she staggered and
+would have fallen but for the straps that bound her.
+
+The same scene was enacted with Romeo, whose agony, if possible, seemed
+greater.
+
+They were both sick for some days, and it was thought at one time that
+Romeo would die, the fever and inflammation ran so high.
+
+There was a storm when the doctors came home and Bobby told her story.
+
+Dr. Fred told his son that he must take his belongings and leave, but
+the latter refused, saying he had taken the farm for a year; and Cleo
+intimated that she considered herself as mistress then.
+
+This proved too much for the elder Wallaces, and Chet was obliged to
+hire rooms elsewhere, though he continued to manage the farm.
+
+Cleo seemed to imagine herself quite an aristocrat when riding out
+behind the poor, mutilated creatures, who had added to their torture the
+over-draw check rein.
+
+We used all to pity them so when we saw them harnessed.
+
+Heads drawn back until every muscle was strained, unable to see the way
+over which they must travel, and a prey to flies and gnats!
+
+No protection about their heads and ears, for the long mane, intended
+for both use and beauty by the Creator, was gone, and sides, hips and
+legs were the feasting ground for stinging, blood-sucking insects; no
+long tail to switch them off. And then how they looked!
+
+The poor things felt their disfigurement as well as their pain; they
+knew that they looked silly and ridiculous.
+
+It was only a little while until they were utterly dispirited and all
+their style was gone.
+
+Between hard driving, the discomfort of being docked, and the ailments
+induced by the over-draw check, they were old horses at the time they
+should have been in their prime, and rapidly they changed owners.
+
+Before the end of Chet's year on the farm, the list of his cruelties
+culminated in what seemed to me to be the most dastardly deed of all.
+
+Topsy, despite her hard life, was the faithful "stand-by." On her fell
+the major part of all the hard work.
+
+Two years she had occupied the same stall; therefore, great was her
+surprise one evening, on being turned loose by the hired man in the
+yard, as was his custom with her, to find a strange horse in her place.
+However, the stall was wide, and, without making trouble, she took her
+place beside the intruder, and was bending her head to take up a bite of
+grass from the manger, when, with a furious oath, Chet rushed down the
+alley to the front of the manger, and, with a knotted stick, struck her
+in the face, the first blow half stunning her, the second one tearing
+the remaining eye from its socket, and crushing it on her cheek.
+
+"There, you old fool, you haven't any eye now!" he said, with a brutal
+laugh.
+
+Poor Topsy, launched into perpetual darkness!
+
+She had said she would be thankful to keep one eye, and now that was
+gone. All that night she lay moaning in her stall, almost crazed with
+pain. Master never left her the long hours through. He had Chet arrested
+and fined $25, but that could not restore Topsy's sight.
+
+In less than a month her colt was born. "To think I can never see him,"
+she said piteously. "Tell me, Dandy, how he looks!"
+
+The complete loss of sight proved a terrible cross to her. Unlike many
+horses, she never learned to move with confidence. She was nervous and
+timid; indeed, I think she had been beaten about the head until her
+hearing was defective, and then the cruelties that had filled her life
+had wrought upon her sensitive nature until she was nervous and
+distrustful. Many a day, and sometimes days at a time, she has gone
+without water because she could not find the tank. As I am here going to
+dismiss poor Topsy from my story, I will say that her master soon sold
+her and her colt. A few times since, I have seen her toiling along
+beside her mate, her sightless face wearing a blank, worried expression,
+and always that timid, frightened way with her. Once we had a little
+talk, and she told me that her life was a misery. She cannot learn to
+trust herself, and as she is only "Old Tops," no one takes any pains
+with her. She said her shoulders were all galled under her collar.
+
+Despite the bad fortune of her life, though, she has still a slender,
+graceful form and a high-bred air.
+
+Poor Topsy! Victim of man's power!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+At the end of that year Chet and his family went away, and not long
+after Master found the coveted place for Carm.
+
+It went against him to put the boy on the railroad, and a brakeman's
+life is none too desirable at best; but nothing else would do, and he
+had made a fair record at school.
+
+Master was going to spend the winter in New York and I was to be left at
+home. Tommy went to school in town, and himself and a hired man they
+called Burr, did the work at the farm.
+
+I say farm, though the town had grown quite to it, and a long distance
+along the east side of it. Vainly people tried to have the firm sell
+lots, but they said they wanted it all for themselves when they retired;
+but virtually we lived "in town."
+
+Tommy was a much worse boy, in some respects, than either of his
+brothers.
+
+He was underhanded and treacherous, keeping a fair outside to the world,
+and was counted by many a model youth.
+
+His mother regarded him as such, and, in a manner, made Dr. Fred believe
+the same; but they were destined to a sudden awakening.
+
+I suppose parents in general would consider it presumption for an old
+horse to advise them, but if they had heard as much talk among boys and
+young men as I have, they might be wiser than they are.
+
+At any rate, I shall intimate that the wise parent will make sure
+whether his son goes to bed to sleep upon returning to his room, or
+whether it is only to keep still until the house is quiet, and then
+steal down the back stairs, or down the woodshed roof to spend the night
+in revelry.
+
+Mrs. Wallace did not always breakfast with the family, but sometimes
+when she did I have heard that she noticed Tommy's pallor and worn
+expression, and chided him for studying so hard.
+
+To others she expressed the opinion that the "dear child" was killing
+himself by close application, and she feared his mind would prove too
+much for his body. Bobby would laugh and tell her not to worry; that Tom
+would never die young on account of his goodness or smartness.
+
+Well, it was a shock to me, one night about two o'clock, to hear Tommy's
+step in the barn and hear him call to Burr in a frightened whisper:
+
+"Burr, Burr, get up and hide me somewhere; for Heaven's sake, hide me, I
+pray. I have killed a man and they are after me."
+
+Burr, who slept in a little chamber right over my stall, was too dazed
+to do anything at first, but Tommy's terror was so real that he
+compelled himself to act.
+
+Running down the stairs, he scratched away the straw that concealed a
+trap-door in the floor and bade him crawl in. Then he scattered the
+straw back and climbed to his room. He could not have more than reached
+his bed when hurrying feet and confused, angry voices sounded outside;
+then somebody opened the door and flashed a lantern into the barn.
+
+"I know that he came home," said one, "and I think he headed for the
+barn."
+
+"Well, if he is here, we'll have him dead or alive; it was a piece of
+cold-blooded crime, if ever there was one."
+
+There must have been a dozen of them, and they rushed everywhere.
+
+Presently part went to the house and the others routed Burr out.
+
+The latter pretended to be very sleepy and wholly unable to understand
+what they meant at first.
+
+He stoutly denied all knowledge of Tom, solemnly assuring them that he
+was not in the barn to his knowledge.
+
+After searching everywhere, as they thought, they found their companions
+at the house.
+
+I suppose that the women folk were terribly frightened. Burr followed to
+the house, and when he returned, after the searching party had seemed to
+go away, he told Tommy that his mother "just dead fainted away."
+
+The doctor was gone for the night.
+
+After awhile Tommy said he must go and see his mother, and be out of the
+country before daylight.
+
+He started for the house, but never reached it in safety. Spies were
+lying in wait to grab him, and he was in handcuffs when his mother saw
+him. I wonder if she thought of Master's prophetic words of long ago.
+
+I guess it is about so. Cruel children make cruel men, and if the former
+are allowed to be cold-blooded and murderous in their little world, the
+latter will likely be in their greater one.
+
+Teach humanity to children is the advice of Dandy.
+
+Tommy was put in jail, Burr said, to await trial, but somehow broke out
+and escaped.
+
+Where he is now, I don't know, but some think his mother does. She was
+quite broken down with grief and shame after that dreadful event, and
+Dr. Fred was bitter against her because she had been so blind and
+indulgent.
+
+"I am always so driven with business," he said, "but you have plenty of
+hired help, and nothing to do but to look after the children."
+
+I think the family felt the disgrace keenly, and I know that Dr. Fred
+looked ten years older when Master came home than when he went away.
+
+Then there arose another trouble. Bobby was keeping company with a man
+of whom her father did not approve.
+
+The more she was opposed the more persistently she clung to her lover.
+
+Dr. Fred took her with him a great deal, and once, when he drove me, I
+heard him entreating her to give the man--Paul Garret they called
+him--up.
+
+"You are all I have left, daughter," he said, pleadingly, "and I can't
+bear to see you throw yourself away on that fellow."
+
+"Mamma don't oppose me," pouted Bobby.
+
+"Did she ever oppose any of my children when they were rushing to ruin,
+I wonder!" he cried bitterly.
+
+"And you are entirely too young to think of marriage yet, anyway," he
+added. "I am willing to do anything for you; send you off to school,
+give you music, painting, anything you name, only give up going with, or
+even thinking of, that worthless fellow."
+
+She kept so quiet all the rest of the way that I thought she was
+convinced and meant to yield obedience at last. It could not have been
+more than a fortnight after that, that I was startled one night by a
+hand on my head and Bobby's sweet voice whispering:
+
+"Be a good boy, Dandy, and don't make a mite of noise."
+
+What could it mean?
+
+I knew Burr was away that night, and feared that something was wrong.
+
+Silently she put a side-saddle on my back, and guided me out into the
+pale starlight, keeping well in the shadow of the barn.
+
+Then mounting, she directed me down a back lane and through a side gate
+that stood open, though ordinarily it was closed. The moment we reached
+the highway, she gave the rein a little twitch, saying:
+
+"Now, do your best, Dandy, we have a long journey before us."
+
+The air was just keen enough to be bracing, and I had had no exercise
+for two days. And this reminds me to say that it is a mistaken kindness
+that keeps a healthy horse standing without exercise for days, or even
+one day. Nothing is more tiresome, and ofttimes hurtful. If you do not
+believe it, try standing in almost the same attitude yourself for a
+great many hours, lying down occasionally, if you can. I saw a handsome
+young horse once, with hoofs so abnormally grown and distorted (these
+are Master's words) from standing for months on a plank floor without
+exercise, that he could not step. So, nothing averse, I went flying over
+the smooth road until we came up with a dark figure mounted on a
+chestnut horse.
+
+"Oh, Paul," Bobby said, "I've had the loveliest ride; and ain't this a
+romantic elopement?"
+
+Elopement! I saw all then, and wished myself well out of the scrape.
+
+Side by side they galloped on for several hours until I really began to
+feel jaded.
+
+By-and-by, Bobby said: "I'll have to slow up; Dandy is getting tired,
+and I would not hurt him for anything. I know Uncle Dick will forgive me
+for running away, whether the rest do or not; but he'd never forgive me
+if I hurt this dear old Dandy."
+
+I thought her voice trembled a little at the last.
+
+They went along leisurely for a time after that, talking in low tones of
+their plans for the future.
+
+Suddenly the ringing sound of horses' hoofs, flying swiftly over the way
+we had come, caused Bobby to utter a dismayed cry: "They are after us!"
+
+"Nerve yourself for a race," the man, Paul Garret, answered, and the
+next moment he cut me with a small riding-whip. It was wholly
+unnecessary, for I had always loved to obey Bobby; but off we dashed
+like the wind. At first we distanced our pursuers without difficulty, as
+we were somewhat rested, but after a while they seemed to be gaining.
+
+Paul cut me often with the whip, though I was doing my best, and I knew
+by the chestnut's breathing that he was cruelly spurring it.
+
+Mile after mile we passed, until at last, just in the gray dawn, we were
+reined up beside a depot platform.
+
+Quickly they dismounted, and, without even tying us, hurried into a
+train that was pulling out.
+
+"So lucky," I heard Garret mutter, as they hurried across the platform.
+
+It could not have been more than three minutes later when two men on
+jaded horses rode up, cursing the luck that the train they had tried so
+hard to catch was gone.
+
+It had been no one pursuing the runaway couple after all.
+
+We--the chestnut and I--were all of a tremble and dripping with sweat.
+The morning air seemed very cold, and we both felt chilly and wretched.
+
+"What can we do?" said chestnut. "That fellow hired me last night,
+saying I would probably be at home to-day, but it don't seem possible to
+go back all that long way without breakfast, or water at least."
+
+"But," I replied, "it is the only thing to do. We can't make folks
+understand, and, if we go wandering around, we'll be put in the pound.
+Besides, I am taking cold and getting stiffer every minute."
+
+"So am I."
+
+"We may as well start at once," and we started.
+
+What a weary, weary way it was! One of my knees, too, had been sprained
+in that last mad race, and became momentarily more painful.
+
+It was long past noon when I limped into our own lane. A pair of our
+horses stood at the gate, and a moment later Dr. Fred, with a face awful
+in its stern whiteness, came out of the house.
+
+"The horse is ruined," he remarked tersely, looking me over, "but I
+don't know as anything matters much. Give him the best of care and
+nursing," he added to Burr.
+
+The latter was a good hand with horses. "Poor Dandy!" he said, "I wish
+you could tell where you have been, and about the little mistress."
+
+But I could not.
+
+He gave me a warm mess, and while I ate it he rubbed me vigorously with
+a rough cloth, covering me afterward with a blanket for a little while.
+
+My knee he bandaged with arnica, after bathing it a long while with warm
+water. Later he gave me water, a little hay and a good currying.
+
+Toward night I became feverish, but a couple of doses of aconite
+corrected that. My knee has been weak ever since.
+
+I learned from a conversation between Burr and his brother, who
+sometimes stayed over night with him, that Bobby left a note in her room
+saying that she had borrowed Dandy for a few hours; that she was going
+away with "poor, dear Paul." She preferred any hardship with him to life
+without him, and she hoped papa would forgive her.
+
+Mrs. Wallace assured her husband that it was just what he might have
+expected when he opposed the match so violently.
+
+"You ought to have remembered, too, that the girl is all Wallace,
+headstrong, conceited and quite above being rebuked."
+
+"She has turned out as well as your Tommy," he answered, in a rage.
+
+And so they relieved themselves by blaming each other, instead of kindly
+sharing their mutual burdens.
+
+Dr. Fred refused to try to find the girl, and the matter was hushed up,
+though Burr said every tongue in town was wagging.
+
+Had Master been home I think he might have saved Bobby. When he did
+come, his presence was like a benediction, and from that hour Dr. Fred
+has seemed to lean upon him more than ever.
+
+Burr had been some miles from home of an errand one day. When he
+returned, he asked straightway for Master. He was literally trembling
+with excitement.
+
+The moment Master came into the barn he burst forth:
+
+"It beat all the horrible, dastardly tricks I ever see. Think of it, Dr.
+Dick, roasted a horse alive!"
+
+"What? what do you mean?" cried Master.
+
+"Well, I'll try and tell about it, though I'm completely cut up. You
+see, I was at Griner's, seeing about them potatoes, when little Jim
+Griner came running in, sayin' that Job Wells was burnin' of his balky
+horse alive.
+
+"Griner and me jist lit out for Wells' place, but about a half a mile
+before we got to his house we came on the awfulest sight eyes ever see.
+
+"There that poor, dumb brute stood just moaning with pain, but it
+appeared like he couldn't move, and from a dry brush fire, kindled right
+between his fore and hind legs, the flames were leapin' clean up around
+his body. Mercy on us, how the hair and flesh smelled!
+
+"I jest pulled out my revolver and shot the poor critter dead, but I'll
+never forget the look in his face to my dying day, never!"
+
+Master's indignation can better be imagined than described, as he
+hurriedly ordered a rig and hastened to have the inhuman wretch
+apprehended. There was a big time about it, but finally the fellow had
+to pay a heavy fine.
+
+Master says that balkiness is, in truth, a disease, not a habit; that a
+horse's brain is so constituted that he can have but one idea at a time,
+and that, in a state of perfect health and comfort, no animal will balk;
+that there is some cause for it. If its mind can be diverted, it will
+always start on all right.
+
+He says there are dozens of simple things that can be resorted to, and
+no harm be done to either man or beast.
+
+I remember a balky horse that used sometimes to be in the livery barn in
+the city.
+
+He said that when quite young he was often overloaded, and when he
+failed to pull they pounded him.
+
+By-and-by, he said, it got so that, when loaded even moderately, he
+would get so nervous for fear he could not pull it and he would be
+pounded, that, in spite of himself, he would stop; and so it came about
+that the balkiness grew on him.
+
+Another said he used to be balky until his present owner bought him, and
+that it came on him in much the same way as the other described.
+
+Nervousness seemed to paralyze his limbs, and all he could think of was
+that he couldn't go, he knew he couldn't, and he might as well let them
+beat him first as last.
+
+"After a while," said he, "this kind man bought me, but, of course, I
+did not know then that he was kind, and the first time he hitched me up
+I balked. I did not want to; indeed, I was anxious that he should think
+well of me, so anxious that it made me nervous.
+
+"Naturally I expected a pounding, and when it did not come, nor anything
+else, I looked around to see what he was about. There that man sat on a
+stump whittling, and presently he began to whistle.
+
+"I concluded I had made some sort of a mistake, and, while wondering
+what it all meant, my nervousness passed off, and when he said kindly:
+'Well, Ross, are you ready to start?' I moved off briskly. Only once or
+twice since that have I balked at all, and then only for a minute.
+Master's voice is so kind and encouraging, and I know he won't require
+more of me than I am able to perform."
+
+Burr says he has seen plenty of balky horses started by feeding them an
+apple or some little thing they particularly like, and I tell you
+honestly that we horses like dainties as well as anybody. Master must
+have spent dollars and dollars for the apples and candy he has fed me in
+my life. Another device Burr mentioned was lifting up one of the fore
+feet and tapping smartly on the shoe, and another, buckling a strap
+tightly about the knee. A man he used to work for had a span of balky
+broncos. They kept backing instead of standing perfectly still, so he
+would simply turn them around, and they would trot off well pleased. Of
+course, he could turn back again as soon as he liked. He never whipped
+them.
+
+Kindness and patience will cure the worst case of balkiness existing;
+harshness only seats the malady more deeply, and horses can't help it.
+
+Master and I were some miles from home on one occasion, when we heard a
+sound something like that made by a horse-power threshing machine, only
+sharper and more jerky.
+
+"What is that?" Master asked of the man riding with him.
+
+"A treadmill wood-saw, I call it. I don't know that that is its name."
+
+As we came nearer we saw a sort of trap up in the air with a big wheel
+under it. The floor of the trap was quite a marked incline, and tied on
+there were two horses stepping, stepping, always stepping. Presently one
+of them stumbled and went down on her knees, struggling all the while to
+regain her footing.
+
+Several times this was repeated, and they both looked so worn and
+worried.
+
+The incline of the floor caused them to stand in a humped over and most
+trying position.
+
+"I am afraid, if I were a horse, I would quit stepping and let the
+machine run down," said Master.
+
+"Not after you'd had a few lessons," the man replied. "When they cease
+that motion, I have seen them flung clear out of the box. I saw one
+thrown in a regular somersault, and so badly injured about the head and
+neck that it had to be killed."
+
+Master sat in the buggy until the machine stopped.
+
+"How long do you usually run without resting?" he asked one of the
+sawyers.
+
+"Two hours sometimes, and even longer."
+
+"Why, man, it is enough to wear out cast-iron horses," he cried.
+
+"They do get mighty tired," replied the fellow, coolly, "especially old
+Polly here, but you see she is stone-blind and about wore out anyhow, so
+it is all she's good for."
+
+"And have you no feeling for a dumb brute, one that has served you well,
+too, but just to get what you can out of her? Do you never feel any pity
+for her, knowing that she is as susceptible to suffering as a human
+being?
+
+"Have you ever tried to put yourself in her place, sightless, old,
+terrified and weak?"
+
+"Naw," the man answered, doggedly, "she's only an old horse."
+
+The other man was leading poor Polly from the trap now, and we could see
+that her legs trembled and her body was dripping with perspiration.
+
+"There's gettin' to be lots of these machines," the fellow added, as in
+self-justification.
+
+"So much the worse," said Master, "I'll see how such work will stand in
+law. But it seems to me you could save money by putting in a little
+engine instead of the horse power; one similar to those used on steam
+threshers, only so small that it is arranged on a common pair of
+bob-sleds, or on a wagon, and easily drawn about the country by one span
+of horses. Then all the latter have to do is to transport it, and you
+can saw enough more wood to soon pay for your engine."
+
+The fellow looked interested.
+
+"Have you seen one work?"
+
+"Yes, dozens of them, and men are getting rich with them."
+
+"One thing more, my man," Master added, as he turned to go, "you will
+find that the merciful, humane man will come out best in the end, not
+only in respect to the life that is to come, but in this one. Be kind to
+the dumb creatures and then you may hope that a higher power will deal
+kindly with you. 'As ye measure it shall be measured to you again.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+In speaking of Bobby, Dr. Fred said he thought dime novels and lack of
+guidance on her mother's part was what had done the mischief; then,
+remembering how he had plead with her to give up Garret, he would harden
+again and add: "But she spurned my love, scorned my advice and
+entreaties, has made her bed, and now she must lie in it."
+
+"Nay," but Master would urge, "she is so young, her mother encouraged
+the match, and then the reading matter you speak of finding in her room,
+was enough to turn any young, undisciplined head. You ought to forgive
+her, and seek her out the same as you would have done ten years ago, had
+she run away and got lost in the woods."
+
+But Dr. Fred refused.
+
+Quietly Master did his best to find her, but not a clew could he get,
+and a new turn was given to the thoughts of the household by the sudden
+death of Carm. "Crushed between two cars," the message said, and that
+was all until a tightly sealed casket came.
+
+"Better not open it," was the advice accompanying.
+
+Master and another physician did open it, though, but neither father nor
+mother were allowed to see the remains. Master came out to the barn with
+a face white and drawn, and, resting his arm on my neck and his head on
+them, he sobbed like a grieved child.
+
+"Oh, Dandy, this is worse than all, worse than all! I wonder if he'll
+see his mother?"
+
+"Much comfort children bring, judging from my own experience," groaned
+Dr. Fred at another time. "What a failure life is, anyhow!"
+
+And I thought, "Yes, it is to men like you, who are trying to steer
+themselves through the world, and living for self instead of humanity.
+My master's life is not a failure."
+
+A sorry day it was for brute creation when barb wire was introduced into
+general use on farms.
+
+They put it around our pasture the first we knew of it. One bright
+morning John, Jean, Tim and Ball--a span of young horses--and myself
+were turned in, and, feeling the joyous freedom of unrestrained liberty
+(and, let me tell you, the oldest, most patient horse in the world feels
+worried and irritated by gearing, at times), away we went for a race,
+the young ones especially, rearing, kicking and plunging gaily.
+
+Suddenly there was a crash, a frightened neigh of pain, a series of
+groans, and poor jolly Tim recoiled from his violent contact with the
+fence, blood pouring down his chest and forelegs.
+
+Help soon arrived, and Tim was led away a very different looking animal
+from what he was when he entered.
+
+Master washed out the wounds as well as he could, and applied a lotion
+made of one ounce calendula to three of soft water. He gave aconite to
+keep down his fever, and afterward cinchona as a tonic, and in time Tim
+was about as jolly as ever, though much more cautious.
+
+The next thing that happened was Jean cutting herself on the hip, or
+rather, just in front of it, where the hip and abdomen join.
+
+Master treated her as he had Tim, only he stitched the jagged edges of
+the wound together. It was in a place where it could not be kept covered
+successfully, and flies were bad; besides Jean continually reached back
+and worried it with her nose. For this they tied her short; then he made
+a lotion and a very few parts carbolic acid, just how many I do not
+know, but he tested its strength by touching a little to one edge of the
+sore. The acid, he said, would cleanse it and keep the flies out.
+
+She got well, but an unsightly scar remained. Another horse laid his
+shoulder open, and for some reason it would not heal, and he died of
+blood poison in spite of all they could do.
+
+I fancied that by being careful I was going to escape being impaled on
+the wretched barbs; but one day, when Mrs. Wallace was driving me, she
+became frightened at some loose horses, and jerked me into a wire fence
+by the roadside.
+
+Well, one needs to be cut on a barb wire once to fully appreciate what
+it means. So many, many sad cases come to one's notice of horses and
+other domestic animals that are dragging out a miserable existence
+owing to the introduction of this "new invention." Sometimes it seems
+that everything is to the end of making man's life easier and that of
+the dumb brutes harder.
+
+Master had all the barb-wire removed from this place long ago, supplying
+its place either with board, woven wire or lawn wire fences.
+
+But bad as barb-wire is, it is nothing to the fad for the over-draw
+check-rein that is shortening the lives of horses everywhere, to say
+nothing of the torture they endure while they do live.
+
+Why people use it I cannot imagine, for anyone with half an eye knows
+that it ruins the looks of a horse.
+
+Master says that he, for one, will never presume to improve on the works
+of the Creator, who is far more artistic than man, and understands the
+science of beauty perfectly.
+
+Many horses have told me, in tones from which all hope seemed gone, of
+the long hours of inexpressible torture they endure. They say, and I
+hear it told that the most eminent veterinary physicians in the world
+say the same, that the check-rein injures a horse from his head to his
+tail, from his shoulder to his hoof; it brings on disease and deformity.
+If a horse's neck has not naturally a fine curve, the rein is not going
+to remedy the matter. Forced curves are not elegant, and the most of the
+animals I have seen wearing it look like ganders when pursuing somebody.
+
+Master said it was terrible to witness the mute agony of horses
+harnessed to fine carriages and sleighs, that he saw while East; and the
+worst of it is, they generally belong to people who call themselves
+Christians. Sabbath after Sabbath men and women kneel in the churches
+and pray for mercy, while their helpless servants stand without,
+suffering the extreme of torture. There is no mercy for them.
+
+People go about trying to do good, with never a thought of the agony
+within reach of their hand that they might relieve.
+
+Strange that intelligent, human beings should imagine for a moment that
+the continual champing of bits, twitching of the lips, and tossing of
+the head of an over-checked horse should mean "high life;" don't they
+know that they are the only protests that they can make against the
+cruel torture that they are enduring; the signs of pain; the mute
+entreaties for mercy?
+
+Master says that if some people have it measured to them as they measure
+unto the helpless, there is a dreadful day coming; and he believes that
+many a man will make his bed in hell because of his treatment of God's
+defenseless creatures here.
+
+Some young men, caught in a rain storm, came into our barn for shelter
+one day, and I am going to give a little of their conversation for the
+benefit of other sportsmen. These had been out hunting.
+
+"Hi, Billy, but didn't that rabbit cut some antics after I got a pop at
+him?"
+
+"Yes; why, he didn't seem to know nothin', jest come up 'nd looked a
+fellow right in the face with the blood all tricklin' down. He died
+game."
+
+"You bet! Makes me think of one some of us caught in a trap once. One of
+its legs was broken, so we cut its throat and let go of it. Would you
+believe the pesky thing lived nigh on half an hour, hopping about on
+three legs all the time. It was fun to watch it perform!"
+
+"Beats all how long some things hang on, anyhow. I shot a robin one day,
+jest fer fun. She fell right under a little tree, 'nd two days after I
+happened to be passing, and there she lay a-gaspin' yet, 'nd with life
+enough to flutter a mite when she saw me, 'nd give sort of a warnin'
+chirp. Lookin' up, I spied a nest 'nd four dead birds in it. I 'lowed
+then she was the mother 'nd the little ones had starved. I wrung the old
+one's neck, thinking I might as well finish the job."
+
+"I've shot squirrels 'nd such things lots of times, 'nd when I couldn't
+find 'em easy, I'd go off, 'nd days after find 'em still alive, but too
+weak to get away."
+
+"Well, it's fun to hunt when game is plenty, but this has been a mighty
+poor day."
+
+"I like fishin' better."
+
+"Say, ain't that Cramer a big fool? I went fishin' with him one day and
+will you b'lieve he would not string a fish till he'd killed it by
+running his knife through its spine at the back of its neck? Says a fish
+that dies ain't fit to eat, 'nd then it is inhuman to let anything die
+by inches. Cranky, ain't he?"
+
+"I should say? Well, I ain't so particular; it's the fun of the thing
+I'm after. I don't care two cents for fish to eat."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Three years passed, and not one word from Bobby, and her name was seldom
+mentioned.
+
+Life at the farm was quiet and uneventful. The doctors made their rounds
+of calls, Mrs. Wallace drove Jean or me out occasionally, and Burr
+carried on the work.
+
+But at last there came a letter to Master which made him look grave and
+troubled. Often I saw him reading it, or perhaps he got others, but
+anyway pondering over a closely written page with a white, anxious face.
+
+Dr. Fred, coming quietly into the barn one morning, caught him.
+
+"What's up?"
+
+A moment Master hesitated, then made answer:
+
+"A letter from Bobby."
+
+Fred paled and staggered a step.
+
+"From Bobby!" he echoed, then paused.
+
+"Yes, I have wondered whether any good could come of telling you; but
+now that it has come about, I will. I have been sending her money for
+three months past. Garret misuses her, I think, but she never says so;
+only 'I am heartsick and homesick, uncle, besides being laid up with
+neuralgia. Paul is not doing well just now, and Freddie (named Frederick
+Richard for you and dear papa).'"
+
+Master had read these last lines from the letter, but here Dr. Fred
+burst out: "Where is my baby; my sweet Bobby? So she says 'dear papa,'
+and calls the boy Fred! Bring her home to my lonely heart and empty
+arms, Dick, and I'll bless you forever."
+
+Of course, I don't know how it all came about, but one morning, some
+weeks after, Master led me out and set a tiny boy on my back. The little
+fellow laughed and prattled in an almost unknown tongue. When I got a
+look at him I saw that he was the picture of Bobby when she was of his
+age.
+
+Presently a white-faced woman, looking as one might imagine Bobby's
+ghost would, came out, and, throwing her arms about my neck, wept
+violently.
+
+"Dandy, dear old Dandy!" she said. For awhile she, her mother and the
+boy drove out often with me, but suddenly they stopped, and in a few
+days there was another one of those strange, sad processions where
+horses wear black plumes. I have seen many such, but this one--with
+Master looking unutterably sad--reminded me of that other one so long
+ago.
+
+"Strange that all I love must die!" moaned Dr. Fred; and looking in
+Master's eyes I saw a look that seemed to say, "I might echo the same,"
+but he only bore this trouble as he had all the others, smiling when his
+heart was sorest; brave when almost despairing; thinking of others
+before himself--this was Master.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And so the years have passed along, and I am, as I stated at first, an
+old horse, but, thanks to a kind master, I am neither broken down nor
+dispirited.
+
+My teeth are quite bad, but that matters little so long as I am
+abundantly fed on ground feed; I am growing a little stiff in the legs,
+but my stall has an earth floor, kept scrupulously clean and dry and my
+bedding is fresh and abundant.
+
+My eyesight is excellent, from having always stood in well-lighted barns
+and never having been pounded or otherwise injured about the head. My
+hearing is also perfect and my lungs good. My feet have been well cared
+for excepting in the case mentioned. In short I believe I am healthier
+now at thirty-one than are most horses of eighteen. I repeat what I have
+said before, in substance, a good master makes a good horse, inside and
+out.
+
+If I might gain the ear of man for an hour, I could surely convince him
+that inhumanity is the poorest kind of business imaginable; that it is
+unprofitable for the life that now is and for the one that is to come;
+but as I can only stand here and tell my simple story, I will trust that
+some good angel will waft it far and wide, and that Master's God will
+impress the little lessons I fain would teach upon the hearts of all
+readers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+About the tragedy? Well, it was a sad affair, and seemed to me, at the
+time of its occurrence, the saddest thing that could happen; but I have
+learned since that sorrow untainted by sin is not the worst thing that
+comes into life, and that--as Master sometimes quotes:
+
+    "The love that's safe beneath the sod,
+     Or better still, in the bosom of God,
+       Is the perfect love complete."
+
+You see, Master and my sweet young mistress, bonny, brown-eyed Annie
+Dee, were to be married on the morrow, and a few of the wedding guests
+were staying at the hospitable old Dee homestead. Railroads were not as
+plenty then as now, and he was to take her to his home behind the
+bays--you remember them?
+
+I was going, too, because I belonged to Annie; we had never been
+separated more than one whole day in my short life, and she loved me
+dearly.
+
+It is needless to add that I loved her as only an affectionate, dumb
+creature can love an indulgent owner.
+
+"You are losing your roses, Annie, with the worry and excitement," her
+bosom friend, Ray Lyle, said; "let us have an hour in the air."
+
+"Yes, a horseback ride," agreed my mistress.
+
+"Only I am such a coward," said her friend.
+
+"Never mind, you shall ride Dandy. I can manage Jackson."
+
+And presently Master on Julie, another young man on Queen, my mistress
+on Jackson, a high-spirited creature, and Ray Lyle on my back, were
+flying over the smooth country roads. I don't know how it happened, no
+one seemed to, but Jackson suddenly became frightened, reared, and the
+next moment had flung his fair, sweet rider to the ground. Her head
+struck sharply against a small bowlder by the roadside.
+
+Springing from his horse, Dr. Dick was kneeling beside her in a moment,
+but she lay limp and unconscious. They carried her home. After a time
+she opened her pretty eyes and whispered to Master:
+
+"Keep Dandy for my sake."
+
+After awhile she roused again, and smiling up into his stricken face she
+said:
+
+"Meet me--I'll--be--waiting----"
+
+She was gone ere the sentence was finished.
+
+So you see Master's wedding is long deferred, but I know what he means
+when he says:
+
+"She is waiting and I am coming."
+
+Yes, she laid down the burden of life early, and by and by we will do
+the same--Master and I.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+AN OLD HORSE'S APPEAL.
+
+
+    I'm a poor old gray horse whom somebody owns,
+    That I'm sadly neglected you will see by my bones;
+    I wish some one would buy me--I wish I were sold
+    To a man with a heart, for I'm feeble and old.
+
+    Every fifth day of the week I come to the mart,
+    And stand tethered and tied to my dirty old cart,
+    While my master in ease at the public-house table,
+    Denies me shelter, and food, and stable.
+
+    I'm possessed of some virtues which in him you'll not find,
+    I am docile and patient, I am gentle and kind;
+    My acts are instinctive; his the proof of a mind;
+    But if I've no reason, his is certainly blind.
+
+    I know 'tis his haste to accumulate pelf,
+    I know 'tis the thought of his miserable self.
+    I know 'tis his love and grasp after greed
+    That makes him forget he's a Christian in creed.
+
+    I am tied with no shelter for hours together,
+    No matter the wind, no matter the weather;
+    You may judge how I suffer, think of my pain,
+    For I am cold, I am sodden, I'm dripping with rain.
+
+    Sometimes in the snow, sometimes in the sleet;
+    You may see me uncared for, exposed in the street
+    Without water to drink, without morsel to eat.
+
+    I stand close to the hall where the magistrates meet,
+    I am equally close to the justices' seat;
+    But because I've no wound on my body or head
+    I may stand till I'm stunned, I may stand till I'm dead.
+
+    O friends of humanity! friends of the brute!
+    Bestow on me pity. Though by nature I'm mute,
+    I'm a creature of God--deny it who can--
+    And have feelings as keen and as strong as a man.
+
+
+
+
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+  BY
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+  SEYMOUR EATON
+  Professor in DREXEL COLLEGE
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+     _Preface_
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+     has used up the entire crop in the pages which follow. He sends out
+     the little volume with the hope that its readers may gather
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+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                  PAGE
+
+  Banking                                           65
+  Bookkeeping                                       76
+  Business Points for Young Business Men           213
+  Character in Hands                               140
+  Civil Service Examinations                       177
+  Commercial Arithmetic                             37
+  Common Blunders Corrected                         11
+  Compendium of Facts and Figures                  228
+  Correct Thing in Dress and Manners               215
+  Correspondence                                    95
+  Curiosities                                       85
+  Easy Lessons in Astronomy                         24
+  Every-day Geography                               17
+  Famous Autographs                           124, 191
+  Famous Rulers                                    144
+  Figure Shorthand                                 163
+  Games, Puzzles, Conundrums, Kinks and Wrinkles   166
+  Good Openings in New Trades                      155
+  Good Readings and Recitations                    229
+  Handy Bible Notes                                217
+  Handy Helps for Bookkeepers                      183
+  Handy Helps for Corresponding Clerks             184
+  Hints on Public Speaking                          15
+  How to Apply for a Situation                     115
+  How to Buy and Sell Stocks                       122
+  How to Conduct a Home Reading Club                51
+  How to do Business                                99
+  How to Educate Yourself                            7
+  How to Form a Stock Company                      106
+  How to get a Start                               187
+  How to get out a Patent                          207
+  How to Mark the Price of Goods                   190
+  How to Read Character from Chins and Noses       145
+  How to Write for the Press                       120
+  How we are Governed                               47
+  Interesting Geographical Comparisons              72
+  Law Lessons for the People                       147
+  Languages                                        142
+  Lessons in Electricity                           157
+  Lessons in French Conversation                   209
+  Lessons in German Conversation                   211
+  Lessons in Spelling                               33
+  Literature, Authors, and Books                   107
+  "Mayflower" Passenger List                       118
+  Mechanic's Arithmetic                            101
+  Mechanical Drawing                               192
+  Opinions of Successful Men                         9
+  Penmanship                                       199
+  Physical Culture                                 152
+  Practical Lessons in Drawing                     172
+  Proof Reading                                    154
+  Reporting                                         93
+  Rules of Order for Business Meetings             161
+  Science Lessons                                  204
+  Secret Cipher                                    117
+  Shorthand Multiplication                          87
+  Short Cuts in Figures                             53
+  Success on the Road                               49
+  Telegraphy                                       201
+  These Bodies of Ours                             134
+  United States History, Leading Facts             126
+
+
+
+
+"=It is Worth its Weight in Gold to any Man=," is the criticism made
+about this book by one of the smartest and most intelligent business men
+of New England.
+
+
+  EATON'S EVERY-DAY EDUCATOR,
+  OR,
+
+  HOW TO DO
+  BUSINESS
+
+This is a new book by Prof. Seymour Eaton, just issued.
+
+It is now five years since Mr. Eaton published his One Hundred Lessons
+in Business of which more than 100,000 copies have been sold.
+
+Not more than one book in every 5000 published, reaches these figures.
+
+But a book on business written five years ago cannot help but be a
+little behind the times to-day.
+
+This new book is new from cover to cover, and we have no hesitation in
+saying that every subject treated (and there are sixty different
+departments) is up to date.
+
+     Many of its best "points" have been gathered from successful
+     business men. A man who draws $8000 a year as manager of a
+     corporation must have a business experience, some "points" of which
+     should be worth money to others who are farther down on the ladder.
+
+     Mr. Eaton has studied carefully the needs of men in the leading
+     departments of commercial life, and from the successful men in
+     these departments he has learned what has lifted them from ordinary
+     wage earners to be managers of capital and labor.
+
+     This book is not large. There are thousands of larger books sold
+     for less money. The intelligent book-buyer, however, doesn't buy
+     books by the pound. How Mr. Eaton got so many business helps and so
+     much practical common-sense within the compass of 240 pages is an
+     unanswered query. The type is good too, and the illustrations are
+     abundant.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: 99 NEW Short Cuts IN FIGURES]
+
+
+It is cheaper to mould the experience of others into our own lives than
+to learn severe lessons by our own experience. Business will not run
+itself, neither will it run by simply turning a crank. If you want to
+keep up with the procession you must keep abreast with the times, and
+study carefully modern business methods.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The department of =How to do Business= devoted to short-cuts in figures
+is very complete, and contains a large number of short methods of
+arithmetic, which, all who are anxious to become quick at figures will
+thoroughly appreciate. Many of the best rules have never before appeared
+in print. Perhaps the best rule is that entitled
+
+
+SHORTHAND MULTIPLICATION.
+
+
+    96        42        63
+    38        29        29
+  ----      ----      ----
+  3648      1218      1827
+  ----      ----      ----
+
+This rule was accidentally discovered about four years ago. Since that
+time Mr. Eaton has given the subject very careful study, and from
+expert mathematicians, both here and in Europe, he has received some
+very valuable contributions bearing upon the principles involved. The
+whole subject is thoroughly explained in =How to do Business=, and the
+explanations are so simple that the smallest child who knows how to
+multiply should be able to understand the rule thoroughly and apply it
+constantly. It is really one of the best things ever published. For
+instance, take the example given in the illustration: Say 8 times 3
+are 24, and put down both figures. Carry _one_ and say 7 times 9 are
+63, and put down both figures. Always carry _one_. Note that this rule
+does not apply to all numbers, but it applies to a great many. In five
+minutes study of the rule, anyone should be able to tell at a glance
+which numbers will work, and which of the two to write as multiplicand.
+Don't try to find out the rule by any process of guessing, for there is
+no guess work about it. It is as exact as the sun and as simple as A B
+C. Apply it to these examples:
+
+  88 × 73    43 × 84    39 × 24
+  62 × 97    88 × 55    62 × 68
+  77 × 37    68 × 29    32 × 94
+  86 × 47    64 × 38    43 × 84
+  63 × 48    23 × 27    88 × 73
+  46 × 27    63 × 48    99 × 82
+  82 × 49    48 × 34    85 × 85
+  96 × 38    48 × 26    23 × 44
+
+   49
+   17-3/4
+  -------
+  869-3/4
+
+One of the best things about this rule is the fact that it applies to
+fractional numbers. Try this example the old way and then apply this new
+rule: 7 times 9 plus 3/4 of 9 equals 69-3/4; carry _one_, and twice 4 is
+8, giving the answer 869-3/4. If you want to try a few examples take 65
+by 37-1/2, or 42 by 38-1/2, or 93 by 48-2/3. The rule applies also to
+numbers of three figures each. It is fully explained in =How to do
+Business=.
+
+
+[Illustration: LESSONS IN FRENCH CONVERSATION]
+
+
+[Illustration: Handy Helps For BookKeepers]
+
+
+[Illustration: SUCCESS ON The ROAD]
+
+1. Are you a good salesman?
+
+2. Why do some men succeed in almost any kind of drumming, while others
+fail?
+
+     Almost all business men are salesmen in some form or other. There
+     is an old maxim: "When you buy keep one eye on the goods and the
+     other on the seller; when you sell keep both eyes on the buyer." If
+     you would learn the whole secret read this department of =The
+     Every-Day Educator=.
+
+
+[Illustration: LAW LESSONS FOR THE PEOPLE]
+
+1. Do you know the law regulating contracts?
+
+2. Are you familiar with the law methods regarding suits, mortgages,
+attachments, liens, notes, endorsers, judgments, executions, the trustee
+process, etc.?
+
+     There is nothing more expensive than lawsuits. An ounce of
+     prevention is often equivalent to a pound of cure. If you are in
+     doubt about your rights and duties, you will find that the author
+     has explained in this new book the very points which most business
+     men need to know.
+
+
+[Illustration: HOW To Mark the Prices of GOODS]
+
+Do you know the newest New York method?
+
+     You will find a full explanation, with photo-reproductions of
+     actual markings, in this book. The improved methods of "A 1" houses
+     are worthy of your attention. It doesn't take many such "new
+     points" to make a dollar's worth.
+
+
+[Illustration: HOW to APPLY For a Situation]
+
+     There is no use applying for a situation if you cannot do anything.
+     Encourage and develop some one talent for the use of which the
+     world offers a money value. The man who can do anything fairly well
+     isn't drawing half the salary of the man who can do one thing
+     better than other people. Do not be afraid of pounding
+     persistently at one thing, even if people do call you a crank. If
+     nothing turns up, turn something up. Don't quit a good position
+     until you are sure of a better one. Remember that the very best
+     positions are secured through promotion and not by answering
+     advertisements. It may be worth your while to study carefully the
+     pages devoted to this subject in =The Every-Day Educator=. You will
+     find a model application (an answer to advertisement) on page 116
+     of this book.
+
+
+[Illustration: MECHANICS
+
+ARITHMETIC]
+
+1. Are you a mechanic?
+
+2. Do you do your own figuring?
+
+3. Would you like to know a few improved methods originated by master
+mechanics?
+
+4. The foreman draws bigger pay than you do simply because he knows
+more.
+
+5. This new book (The Every-Day Educator) may add something to your
+income.
+
+
+[Illustration: Figure Shorthand
+
+LEARNED IN A DAY]
+
+     Reprinted complete from the English edition. This newly invented
+     system is called _figure_-shorthand because considerable use is
+     made of the nine digits in writing it.
+
+
+THIS BOOK CONTAINS OVER
+
+One Hundred Stepping-Stones To Success.
+
+Each of the numerous departments forms a unique feature. Here are the
+titles of a few: =How to Keep a Common Set of
+Books=--=Telegraphy=--=Handy Helps for Corresponding Clerks=--=Business
+Points for Young Business Men=--=Shorthand Multiplication=--=Practical
+Lessons in Business Arithmetic=--=Handy Helps for Bookkeepers=--=Good
+Openings in New Trades=--=Lessons in Penmanship=--=An Easily Learned
+System of Secret Writing=--=How to Succeed at Civil Service
+Examinations=--=How to Get a Start=--=Law Lessons for the People=--=How
+to Buy and Sell Stocks=--=How to Form a Stock
+Company=--=Banking=--=Correspondence=--=Lessons in French=--=Lessons in
+German=--=Lessons in Electricity=--=Astronomy=--=Physical Culture=--=How
+to Write for the Press=--=Figure Shorthand=--=Lessons in
+Drawing=--=Facts and Figures=--=These Bodies of Ours=--=Games and
+Puzzles=--=Character in Hands=--=Public Speaking=--=U. S.
+History=--=Authors and Books=,--but why go further? Get the book and we
+will guarantee you will say it is away ahead of anything you have seen
+before.
+
+     For instance, there are only ten pages devoted to commercial
+     arithmetic, and yet there is more in those ten pages which live,
+     busy, business men want to know about arithmetic than can be found
+     in any text-book in the country. The best things are not to be
+     found in any other book. They came direct from the counting houses.
+     School text-books are exceedingly _schooly_, and our schools, with
+     all their excellence, use much of their money, ability and time, to
+     put in more complicated form, things which the children know
+     perfectly well already.
+
+HOW TO DO BUSINESS will please you. Even the binding is a little better
+than the ordinary.
+
+
+[Illustration: Book Keeping
+
+HOW TO KEEP A COMMON SET OF BOOKS]
+
+A NEW IDEA.
+
+     This department of =How to do Business= is worth a small fortune.
+     We never before saw the subject of book-keeping put in such an
+     easy, straight-forward, business-like way. Mr. Eaton prepared this
+     department for the man who keeps his own books, and who wants to
+     leave his store at night when his clerks do. There is a heap of
+     tom-foolery and waste of time in keeping ordinary accounts as they
+     are kept in most stores. A system of records elaborate enough for
+     John Wanamaker's is too often applied to the needs of a country
+     store where sugar and calico are exchanged for butter and eggs.
+     Books should be neat, accurate, and convenient of reference. These
+     are the chief essentials. Fully one half of all business failures
+     can be traced to poor book-keeping, and quite often the poorest
+     book-keeping is the most elaborate. The business man should be able
+     to tell his financial standing at any moment and not simply at the
+     end of the year when his accounts are balanced. We venture to say
+     that this one department of =How to do Business= will do much
+     towards bringing about a different condition of things.
+
+
+[Illustration: Correspondence]
+
+Can you write a good business letter?
+
+     There is no doubt about the fact that the lessons on letter-writing
+     in =How to do Business= are the most sensible yet offered to the
+     American public. The photographic reproductions are an interesting
+     feature. The ability to write a good letter, either business or
+     social, is an accomplishment of which any one might well be proud.
+
+
+[Illustration: BANKING]
+
+A BRIGHT DEPARTMENT.
+
+     About ten thousand copies of Mr. Eaton's earlier book were sold to
+     managers and employees of banks, at $1.00 per copy. For some weeks
+     after the book came out, Mr. Eaton received by mail an average of
+     fifty orders a day from banks alone. His mail orders from all
+     sources frequently ran as high as 400 a day. To say that =How to do
+     Business= is "ten times more valuable than =100 Lessons in
+     Business=" (and these are Mr. Eaton's own words regarding it) is to
+     give this new book a weighty recommendation.
+
+     This department was written for business men who have dealings with
+     banks rather than for employees of banking houses. The
+     illustrations include photo reproductions of actual checks. The
+     back of one check shown on page 70 is a curious specimen. Among the
+     subjects treated are: Bank discounts, writing and endorsing checks,
+     discounting notes, managing a bank account, certified checks,
+     payments by check, forged checks, drafts, collaterals, clearing
+     houses, cashier's checks, different form of notes, business methods
+     with notes, etc.
+
+
+[Illustration: RULES OF ORDER FOR BUSINESS MEETINGS]
+
+
+[Illustration: HINTS ON PUBLIC SPEAKING]
+
+
+[Illustration: HOW TO WRITE for the PRESS]
+
+
+
+
+A WONDERFUL OFFER!
+
+70 House Plans for $1.00.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+If you are thinking about building a house don't fail to get the new
+book
+
+  PALLISER'S
+  AMERICAN
+  ARCHITECTURE,
+
+containing 104 pages, 11×14 inches in size, consisting of large 9×12
+plate pages giving plans, elevations, perspective views, descriptions,
+owners' names, actual cost of construction (_=no guess work=_), and
+instructions _=How to Build=_ 70 Cottages, Villas, Double Houses, Brick
+Block Houses, suitable for city suburbs, town and country, houses for
+the farm, and workingmen's homes for all sections of the country, and
+costing from $300 to $6,500, together with specifications, form of
+contract, and a large amount of information on the erection of buildings
+and employment of architects, prepared by Palliser, Palliser & Co., the
+well-known architects.
+
+This book will save you hundreds of dollars.
+
+There is not a Builder, nor anyone intending to build or otherwise
+interested, that can afford to be without it. It is a practical work,
+and the best, cheapest and most popular book ever issued on Building.
+Nearly four hundred drawings.
+
+It is worth $5.00 to anyone, but we will send it bound in paper cover,
+by mail, post-paid for only $1.00; bound in handsome cloth, $2.00.
+Address all orders to
+
+
+  _J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING CO.,_
+  _Lock Box 2767._         _57 Rose Street, New York._
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+
+Added table of contents.
+
+Normalized fractions to the form x-y/z.
+
+Underscores are used to represent _italics_ and equals signs are used to
+represent =bold=.
+
+Some inconsistent hyphenation retained (e.g. fore-leg vs. forelegs,
+ofttimes vs. oft-times).
+
+Page 2, changed "wilful" to "willful" for consistency.
+
+Page 5, added missing open quote at start of page.
+
+Page 7, changed ? to ! after "sell me."
+
+Page 8, changed "midnigh" to "midnight" and "whinney" to "whinny."
+
+Page 12, changed "as as a child" to "as a child."
+
+Page 13, changed "did'nt" to "didn't."
+
+Page 16, added missing open quote at start of page.
+
+Page 17, changed "pretence" to "pretense" for consistency.
+
+Page 55, changed "Another thing made" to "Another thing that made."
+
+Page 56, changed "same ones run" to "same ones ran."
+
+Page 60, changed double quotes to single quotes around "strychnia."
+
+Page 66, changed double quotes to single quotes around "round-up."
+
+Page 85, changed "Master plead" to "Master pled."
+
+Page 96, changed comma to period and added missing paragraph break after
+"water at least."
+
+Page 98, removed unnecessary close quote after "balky horse alive."
+
+Page 101, added missing quote before "I'll see how such work..."
+
+Page 103, changed "comes" to "come."
+
+Advertising, changed "there figures" to "three figures."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of White Dandy; or, Master and I, by 
+Velma Caldwell Melville
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44176 ***