Riding the Horse to Brook

‘N these days, if a boy would go a horsebacking, he must have gay caparison — saddle of the best leather, stirrups silvered, martingales bestarred, housing flamboyant, tasselled whip, jingling spurs, gauntleted hands, and crocodile boots able to swallow him to above the knee.

But we are persuaded that is not the best way for a boy to ride. About seven o’clock in the morning, the farm - horses having had oats and currying, must be taken to the brook for the watering. The halter is caught into a half hitch around the horse’s nose, and, bringing him to the fence, the boy leaps astride. It is no rare occurrence that, in his avidity to get

aboard, the boy slides off on the other side of

228 RIDING THE H^RSE TO BROOK.

the animal, and It is fortunate if the latter, taking advantage of the miscalculation, does not fly away with a wild snort, finding his way to the brook.

But once thoroughly mounted, the rope-halter is helm and sail sufficient. It is very easy to guide a thirsty horse when you want to take him to water. A poke of your bare feet into his ribs, and a strong pull of the rope, are enough to bring him back from any slight divergencies. Passing through the bars, all you have to do is to gather up your feet on his warm, smooth back, and having passed the post, again drop anchor. Nothing looks more spirited or merry than a boy’s feet bouncing against the sides of a glistening bay. The horse feels them, and the more briskly gallops down the lane.

At his first plunge into the brook, his sudden stop would have sent the boy somersaulting Into the stream, but for a quick digging of the heels into the side, and a clutch of the scant lock of hair at the end of the mane. With lip and nostril in the stream, the horse cares nothine for what his young rider wills. There may be a clearer place below that the boy chooses for the watering, but the horse lifts not his head to the shout, or the jerk of halter, or stroke in the flanks. He wants to drink just there; intent upon that are mouth, and gullet, and fetlock, and spot in the face. Sitting astride, the boy feels the jerk of each swallow, and sees the accompanying wag of the pony’s ears. The horse lifts his head, takes a long breath, clashes his teeth, and rinsing his jaws, drops the tuft of hay that lingered in his mouth, with right foot paws up the gravel from beneath, giving notice that he is ready, if you are, throws himself back on his hind feet till his front lift from the mud, gives a quick turn, and starts for the barn. In a minute he has made the length of the lane, and stands neighing for the barn-door to open.

This ride was the chief event of the day. Alas, if there are only two horses, when there are four boys! for two of them are disappointed, and keep their grudge for the most of the day. You linger about the barn for hours, and pat Pompey on the nose, and get astride his back in the stable, and imagine how it would be if it were only time to ride him down again.

We would like to have in our photographalbum a picture of the horses that in boyhood we rode to the watering. Sitting here, thinking of all their excellencies, we forgive them for all the times they threw us off. The temptation was too great for them, and the mud where we fell was soft. The dear old pets! One of them was sold, and as he was driven away we cried such large tears, and so many of them, that both coat-sleeves were insufficient to sop up the wretchedness. Another broke its leg, and it was taken to the woods and shot. We went into the house and held our ears, lest we should hear the cruel bang that announced the departure of our favorite sorrel. Another staid on the place, and was there when we left home. He was always driven slowly, had grown uncertain of foot, and ceased to prance at any sight or sound. You could no longer make him believe that a wheelbarrow was anything supernatural, nor startle him by shaking out a buffalo - skin. He had outlived all his contemporaries. Some had frisked out a frivolous life, and had passed away. Some had, after a life of kicking and balking, come to an ignomrnious end; but old Billy had lived on in an earnest way, and every Sunday morning stood at the door waiting for the family to get in the wagon and ride to church. Then he would jog along seriously, as if conscious that his church privileges would soon be gone. In the long line of tied horses beside the church, he would stand and listen to the songs inside. While others stamped, and beat the flies, and got their feet over the shafts, and slipped the halter, and bit the nag on the other side of the tongue, Billy had more regard for the day and place, and stood silent, meditative, and decorous. If there be any better place than this world for good horses, Billy has gone there. He never bolted; he never kicked. In ploughing, he never put his foot over the trace; he never balked; he never put back his ears and squealed. A good, kind, faithful, honest, industrious horse was he. He gave us more joy than any ten-thousand-dollar courser could crive us now. No arched stallion careering on Central Park, or foam - dashed Long

Island racer, could dirill us like die memory of diat family roadster.

Alas, for boys in die city, who never ride a horse to brook! An afternoon airing in ruffles, stiff and starched, and behind a costumed driver, cannot make up for this early disadvantage. The best way to start life is astride a farm-horse, with a rope-halter. In that way you learn to rough it. You are prepared for hard bounces on the road of life; you learn to hold on; you get the habit of depending on your own heels, and not upon other people’s stirrups; you find how to climb on without anybody to give you a boost. It does not hurt you so much when you fall off And some day, far on in life, when you are in the midst of the hot and dusty city, and you are weary with the rush and din of the world, in your imagination you call back one of these nags of pleasant memory. You bring him up by the side of your study, or counting-room table, and from that you jump on, and away you canter through the old - time orchard, and by the old-time meeting-house, or down the lane in front of the barn, dashing into the cool, sparkling water of the meadow, where he stops to take his morning dram; or you hitch him up to thfi rocking - chair in which you have for twenty years sat rheumatic and helpless, and he drags you back some Sunday morning to the old country church, where many years ago he stood tied to the post, while you, with father and mother at either end of the pew, was learning of the land where there is no pain, and into which John looked, and said: “I saw a white horse!”