Were you tender-hearted enough to
feel compunction in sitting down hard on a six-year-old sore, or if you
had an aversion to kicking the suffering brute with both heels and belting
his hide with a yard or two of fencing-wire to get him to show signs of
animation, you would dismount and walk--perhaps, weep. WE always rode him
right out, though.
As a two-year-old Ned was Dad's hope. Pointing proudly to the long-legged,
big-headed, ugly moke mooching by the door, smelling the dust, he would
say: "Be a fine horse in another year! Little sleepy-looking yet; that's
nothing!"
"Stir him up a bit, till we see how he canters," he said to Joe one day.
And when Joe stirred him up--rattled a piece of rock on his jaw that
nearly knocked his head off--Dad took after Joe and chased him through the
potatoes, and out into the grass-paddock, and across towards Anderson's;
then returned and yarded the colt, and knocked a patch of skin off him
with a rail because he would n't stand in a corner till he looked at his
eye. "Would n't have anything happen to that colt for a fortune!" he said
to himself. Then went away, forgetting to throw the rails down. Dave
threw them down a couple of days after.
Pages:
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164