We increased the stock, too, by degrees; and--crowning
joy!--we got a horse or two you could ride to the township.
With Nell and Ned we reckoned we had two saddle-horses--those were their
names, Nell and Ned, a mare and a colt. Fine hacks they were, too!
Anybody could ride them, they were so quiet. Dad reckoned Ned was the
better of the two. He was well-bred, and had a pedigree and a gentle
disposition, and a bald-face, and a bumble-foot, and a raw wither, and a
sore back that gave him a habit of "flinching"--a habit that discounted
his uselessness a great deal, because, when we were n't at home, the women
could n't saddle him to run the cows in. Whenever he saw the saddle or
heard the girth-buckles rattle he would start to flinch. Put the cloth
on his back--folded or otherwise--and, no matter how smart you might be,
it would be off before you could cover it with the saddle, and he would n't
have flicked it with his tail, or pulled it off with his teeth, or done
anything to it. He just flinched--made the skin on his back--where there
was any--QUIVER. Throw on the saddle without a cloth, and he would "give"
in the middle like a broken rail--bend till his belly almost touched the
ground, and remain bent till mounted; then he'd crawl off and gradually
straighten up as he became used to you.
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