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diff --git a/23030-h/23030-h.htm b/23030-h/23030-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1b598e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/23030-h/23030-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1182 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Buying A Horse, by William Dean Howells. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Buying a Horse, by William Dean Howells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Buying a Horse + +Author: William Dean Howells + +Release Date: October 14, 2007 [EBook #23030] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUYING A HORSE *** + + + + +Produced by Julia Miller, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/illus1.jpg"><img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/></a> +</div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1>BUYING A HORSE</h1> + +<h2>BY <span class="smcap">William Dean Howells</span></h2> + +<h4>BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br /> +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY</h4> + +<h4><i>The Riverside Press Cambridge</i><br /> +1916</h4> + +<h4>COPYRIGHT, 1879<br /> +BY HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO.</h4> + +<h4>COPYRIGHT, 1916<br /> +BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY</h4> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>BUYING A HORSE</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>If one has money enough, there seems no reason why one should not go and +buy such a horse as he wants. This is the commonly accepted theory, on +which the whole commerce in horses is founded, and on which my friend +proceeded.</p> + +<p>He was about removing from Charlesbridge, where he had lived many happy +years without a horse, farther into the country, where there were +charming drives and inconvenient distances, and where a horse would be +very desirable, if not quite necessary. But as a horse seemed at first +an extravagant if not sinful desire, he began by talking vaguely round, +and rather hinting than declaring that he thought somewhat of buying. +The professor to whom he first intimated his purpose flung himself from +his horse's back to the grassy border of the sidewalk where my friend +stood, and said he would give him a few points. "In the first place +don't buy a horse that shows much daylight under him, unless you buy a +horse-doctor <i>with</i> him; get a short-legged horse; and he ought to be +short and thick in the barrel,"—or words to that effect. "Don't get a +horse with a narrow forehead: there are horse-fools as well as the other +kind, and you want a horse with room for brains. And look out that he's +<i>all right forward</i>."</p> + +<p>"What's that?" asked my friend, hearing this phrase for the first time.</p> + +<p>"That he isn't tender in his fore-feet,—that the hoof isn't +contracted," said the professor, pointing out the well-planted foot of +his own animal.</p> + +<p>"What ought I to pay for a horse?" pursued my friend, struggling to fix +the points given by the professor in a mind hitherto unused to points of +the kind.</p> + +<p>"Well, horses are cheap, now; and you ought to get a fair family +horse—You want a family horse?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Something you can ride and drive both? Something your children can +drive?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, you ought to get such a horse as that for a hundred and +twenty-five dollars."</p> + +<p>This was the figure my friend had thought of; he drew a breath of +relief. "Where did you buy your horse?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I always get my horses"—the plural abashed my friend—"at the +Chevaliers'. If you throw yourself on their mercy, they'll treat you +well. I'll send you a note to them."</p> + +<p>"Do!" cried my friend, as the professor sprang upon his horse, and +galloped away.</p> + +<p>My friend walked home encouraged; his purpose of buying a horse had not +seemed so monstrous, at least to this hardened offender. He now began to +announce it more boldly; he said right and left that he wished to buy a +horse, but that he would not go above a hundred. This was not true, but +he wished to act prudently, and to pay a hundred and twenty-five only in +extremity. He carried the professor's note to the Chevaliers', who duly +honored it, understood at once what my friend wanted, and said they +would look out for him. They were sorry he had not happened in a little +sooner,—they had just sold the very horse he wanted. I may as well say +here that they were not able to find him a horse, but that they used him +with the strictest honor, and that short of supplying his want they were +perfect.</p> + +<p>In the mean time the irregular dealers began to descend upon him, as +well as amateurs to whom he had mentioned his wish for a horse, and his +premises at certain hours of the morning presented the effect of a +horse-fair, or say rather a museum of equine bricabrac. At first he +blushed at the spectacle, but he soon became hardened to it, and liked +the excitement of driving one horse after another round the block, and +deciding upon him. To a horse, they had none of the qualities commended +by the professor, but they had many others which the dealers praised. +These persons were not discouraged when he refused to buy, but +cheerfully returned the next day with others differently ruinous. They +were men of a spirit more obliging than my friend has found in other +walks. One of them, who paid him a prefatory visit in his library, in +five minutes augmented from six to seven hundred and fifty pounds the +weight of a pony-horse, which he wished to sell. ("What you want," said +the Chevaliers, "is a pony-horse," and my friend, gratefully catching at +the phrase, had gone about saying he wanted a pony-horse. After that, +hulking brutes of from eleven to thirteen hundred pounds were every day +brought to him as pony-horses.) The same dealer came another day with a +mustang, in whom was no fault, and who had every appearance of speed, +but who was only marking time as it is called in military drill, I +believe, when he seemed to be getting swiftly over the ground; he showed +a sociable preference for the curbstone in turning corners, and was +condemned, to be replaced the next evening by a pony-horse that a child +might ride or drive, and that especially would not shy. Upon experiment, +he shied half across the road, and the fact was reported to the dealer. +He smiled compassionately. "What did he shy <i>at</i>?"</p> + +<p>"A wheelbarrow."</p> + +<p>"Well! I never see the hoss <i>yet</i> that <i>wouldn't</i> shy at a wheelbarrow."</p> + +<p>My friend owned that a wheelbarrow was of an alarming presence, but he +had his reserves respecting the self-control and intelligence of this +pony-horse. The dealer amiably withdrew him, and said that he would +bring next day a horse—if he could get the owner to part with a family +pet—that <i>would</i> suit; but upon investigation it appeared that this +treasure was what is called a calico-horse, and my friend, who was +without the ambition to figure in the popular eye as a stray +circus-rider, declined to see him.</p> + +<p>These adventurous spirits were not squeamish. They thrust their hands +into the lathery mouths of their brutes to show the state of their +teeth, and wiped their fingers on their trousers or grass afterwards, +without a tremor, though my friend could never forbear a shudder at the +sight. If sometimes they came with a desirable animal, the price was far +beyond his modest figure; but generally they seemed to think that he did +not want a desirable animal. In most cases, the pony-horse pronounced +sentence upon himself by some gross and ridiculous blemish; but +sometimes my friend failed to hit upon any tenable excuse for refusing +him. In such an event, he would say, with an air of easy and candid +comradery, "Well, now, what's the matter with him?" And then the dealer, +passing his hand down one of the pony-horse's fore-legs, would respond, +with an upward glance of searching inquiry at my friend, "Well, he's a +leetle mite tender for'a'd."</p> + +<p>I am afraid my friend grew to have a cruel pleasure in forcing them to +this exposure of the truth; but he excused himself upon the ground that +they never expected him to be alarmed at this tenderness forward, and +that their truth was not a tribute to virtue, but was contempt of his +ignorance. Nevertheless, it was truth; and he felt that it must be his +part thereafter to confute the common belief that there is no truth in +horse-trades.</p> + +<p>These people were not usually the owners of the horses they brought, but +the emissaries or agents of the owners. Often they came merely to show a +horse, and were not at all sure that his owner would part with him on +any terms, as he was a favorite with the ladies of the family. An +impenetrable mystery hung about the owner, through which he sometimes +dimly loomed as a gentleman in failing health, who had to give up his +daily drives, and had no use for the horse. There were cases in which +the dealer came secretly, from pure zeal, to show a horse whose owner +supposed him still in the stable, and who must be taken back before his +absence was noticed. If my friend insisted upon knowing the owner and +conferring with him, in any of these instances, it was darkly admitted +that he was a gentleman in the livery business over in Somerville or +down in the Lower Port. Truth, it seemed, might be absent or present in +a horse-trade, but mystery was essential.</p> + +<p>The dealers had a jargon of their own, in which my friend became an +expert. They did not say that a horse weighed a thousand pounds, but ten +hundred; he was not worth a hundred and twenty-five dollars, but one and +a quarter; he was not going on seven years old, but was coming seven. +There are curious facts, by the way, in regard to the age of horses +which are not generally known. A horse is never of an even age: that is, +he is not six, or eight, or ten, but five, or seven, or nine years old; +he is sometimes, but not often, eleven; he is <i>never</i> thirteen; his +favorite time of life is seven, and he rarely gets beyond it, if on +sale. My friend found the number of horses brought into the world in +1871 quite beyond computation.</p> + +<p>He also found that most hard-working horses were sick or ailing, as most +hard-working men and women are; that perfectly sound horses are as rare +as perfectly sound human beings, and are apt, like the latter, to be +vicious.</p> + +<p>He began to have a quick eye for the characteristics of horses, and +could walk round a proffered animal and scan his points with the best. +"What," he would ask, of a given beast, "makes him let his lower lip +hang down in that imbecile manner?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, he's got a parrot-mouth. Some folks like 'em." Here the dealer +would pull open the creature's flabby lips, and discover a beak like +that of a polyp; and the cleansing process on the grass or trousers +would take place.</p> + +<p>Of another. "What makes him trot in that spread-out, squatty way, +behind?" he demanded, after the usual tour of the block.</p> + +<p>"He travels wide. Horse men prefer that."</p> + +<p>They preferred any ugliness or awkwardness in a horse to the opposite +grace or charm, and all that my friend could urge, in meek withdrawal +from negotiation, was that he was not of an educated taste. In the +course of long talks, which frequently took the form of warnings, he +became wise in the tricks practiced by all dealers except his +interlocutor. One of these, a device for restoring youth to an animal +nearing the dangerous limit of eleven, struck him as peculiarly +ingenious. You pierce the forehead, and blow into it with a quill; this +gives an agreeable fullness, and erects the drooping ears in a spirited +and mettlesome manner, so that a horse coming eleven will look for a +time as if he were coming five.</p> + +<p>After a thorough course of the volunteer dealers, and after haunting the +Chevaliers' stables for several weeks, my friend found that not money +alone was needed to buy a horse. The affair began to wear a sinister +aspect. He had an uneasy fear that in several cases he had refused the +very horse he wanted with the <i>aplomb</i> he had acquired in dismissing +undesirable beasts. The fact was he knew less about horses than when he +began to buy, while he had indefinitely enlarged his idle knowledge of +men, of their fatuity and hollowness. He learned that men whom he had +always envied their brilliant omniscience in regard to horses, as they +drove him out behind their dashing trotters, were quite ignorant and +helpless in the art of buying; they always got somebody else to buy +their horses for them. "Find a man you can trust," they said, "and then +put yourself in his hands. And <i>never</i> trust anybody about the health of +a horse. Take him to a veterinary surgeon, and have him go all over +him."</p> + +<p>My friend grew sardonic; then he grew melancholy and haggard. There was +something very strange in the fact that a person unattainted of crime, +and not morally disabled in any known way, could not take his money and +buy such a horse as he wanted with it. His acquaintance began to +recommend men to him. "If you want a horse, Captain Jenks is your man." +"Why don't you go to Major Snaffle? He'd take pleasure in it." But my +friend, naturally reluctant to trouble others, and sickened by long +failure, as well as maddened by the absurdity that if you wanted a horse +you must first get a man, neglected this really good advice. He lost his +interest in the business, and dismissed with lack-lustre indifference +the horses which continued to be brought to his gate. He felt that his +position before the community was becoming notorious and ridiculous. He +slept badly; his long endeavor for a horse ended in nightmares.</p> + +<p>One day he said to a gentleman whose turn-out he had long admired, "I +wonder if you couldn't find me a horse!"</p> + +<p>"Want a horse?"</p> + +<p>"Want a horse! I thought my need was known beyond the sun. I thought my +want of a horse was branded on my forehead."</p> + +<p>This gentleman laughed, and then he said, "I've just seen a mare that +would suit you. I thought of buying her, but I want a match, and this +mare is too small. She'll be round here in fifteen minutes, and I'll +take you out with her. Can you wait?"</p> + +<p>"Wait!" My friend laughed in his turn.</p> + +<p>The mare dashed up before the fifteen minutes had passed. She was +beautiful, black as a coal; and kind as a kitten, said her driver. My +friend thought her head was rather big. "Why, yes, she's a <i>pony</i>-horse; +that's what I like about her."</p> + +<p>She trotted off wonderfully, and my friend felt that the thing was now +done.</p> + +<p>The gentleman, who was driving, laid his head on one side, and listened. +"Clicks, don't she?"</p> + +<p>"She <i>does</i> click," said my friend obligingly.</p> + +<p>"Hear it?" asked the gentleman.</p> + +<p>"Well, if you ask me," said my friend, "I <i>don't</i> hear it. What <i>is</i> +clicking?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, striking the heel of her fore-foot with the toe of her hind-foot. +Sometimes it comes from bad shoeing. Some people like it. I don't +myself." After a while he added, "If you can get this mare for a hundred +and twenty-five, you'd better buy her."</p> + +<p>"Well, I will," said my friend. He would have bought her, in fact, if +she had clicked like a noiseless sewing-machine. But the owner, remote +as Medford, and invisibly dealing, as usual, through a third person, +would not sell her for one and a quarter; he wanted one and a half. +Besides, another Party was trying to get her; and now ensued a +negotiation which for intricacy and mystery surpassed all the others. It +was conducted in my friend's interest by one who had the difficult task +of keeping the owner's imagination in check and his demands within +bounds, for it soon appeared that he wanted even more than one and a +half for her. Unseen and inaccessible, he grew every day more +unmanageable. He entered into relations with the other Party, and it all +ended in his sending her out one day after my friend had gone into the +country, and requiring him to say at once that he would give one and a +half. He was not at home, and he never saw the little mare again. This +confirmed him in the belief that she was the very horse he ought to have +had.</p> + +<p>People had now begun to say to him, "Why don't you advertise? Advertise +for a gentleman's pony-horse and phaeton and harness complete. You'll +have a perfect procession of them before night." This proved true. His +advertisement, mystically worded after the fashion of those things, +found abundant response. But the establishments which he would have +taken he could not get at the figure he had set, and those which his +money would buy he would not have. They came at all hours of the day; +and he never returned home after an an absence without meeting the +reproach that <i>now</i> the very horse he wanted had just been driven away, +and would not be brought back, as his owner lived in Billerica, and only +happened to be down. A few equipages really appeared desirable, but in +regard to these his jaded faculties refused to work: he could decide +nothing; his volition was extinct; he let them come and go.</p> + +<p>It was at this period that people who had at first been surprised that +he wished to buy a horse came to believe that he had bought one, and +were astonished to learn that he had not. He felt the pressure of public +opinion.</p> + +<p>He began to haunt the different sale-stables in town, and to look at +horses with a view to buying at private sale. Every facility for testing +them was offered him, but he could not make up his mind. In feeble +wantonness he gave appointments which he knew he should not keep, and, +passing his days in an agony of multitudinous indecision, he added to +the lies in the world the hideous sum of his broken engagements. From +time to time he forlornly appeared at the Chevaliers', and refreshed his +corrupted nature by contact with their sterling integrity. Once he +ventured into their establishment just before an auction began, and +remained dazzled by the splendor of a spectacle which I fancy can be +paralleled only by some dream of a mediæval tournament. The horses, +brilliantly harnessed, accurately shod, and standing tall on burnished +hooves, their necks curved by the check rein and their black and blonde +manes flowing over the proud arch, lustrous and wrinkled like satin, +were ranged in a glittering hemicycle. They affected my friend like the +youth and beauty of his earliest evening parties; he experienced a sense +of bashfulness, of sickening personal demerit. He could not have had the +audacity to bid on one of those superb creatures, if all the Chevaliers +together had whispered him that here at last was the very horse.</p> + +<p>I pass over an unprofitable interval in which he abandoned himself to +despair, and really gave up the hope of being able ever to buy a horse. +During this interval he removed from Charlesbridge to the country, and +found himself, to his self-scorn and self-pity, actually reduced to +hiring a livery horse by the day. But relief was at hand. The carpenter +who had remained to finish up the new house after my friend had gone +into it bethought himself of a firm in his place who brought on horses +from the West, and had the practice of selling a horse on trial, and +constantly replacing it with other horses till the purchaser was suited. +This seemed an ideal arrangement, and the carpenter said that he +<i>thought</i> they had the very horse my friend wanted.</p> + +<p>The next day he drove him up, and upon the plan of successive exchanges +till the perfect horse was reached, my friend bought him for one and a +quarter, the figure which he had kept in mind from the first. He bought +a phaeton and harness from the same people, and when the whole equipage +stood at his door, he felt the long-delayed thrill of pride and +satisfaction. The horse was of the Morgan breed, a bright bay, small and +round and neat, with a little head tossed high, and a gentle yet alert +movement. He was in the prime of youth, of the age of which every horse +desires to be, and was just coming seven. My friend had already taken +him to a horse-doctor, who for one dollar had gone all over him, and +pronounced him sound as a fish, and complimented his new owner upon his +acquisition. It all seemed too good to be true. As Billy turned his soft +eye on the admiring family group, and suffered one of the children to +smooth his nose while another held a lump of sugar to his dainty lips, +his amiable behavior restored my friend to his peace of mind and his +long-lost faith in a world of reason.</p> + +<p>The ridiculous planet, wavering bat-like through space, on which it had +been impossible for an innocent man to buy a suitable horse was a dream +of the past, and he had the solid, sensible old earth under his feet +once more. He mounted into the phaeton and drove off with his wife; he +returned and gave each of the children a drive in succession. He told +them that any of them could drive Billy as much as they liked, and he +quieted a clamor for exclusive ownership on the part of each by +declaring that Billy belonged to the whole family. To this day he cannot +look back to those moments without tenderness. If Billy had any apparent +fault, it was an amiable indolence. But this made him all the safer for +the children, and it did not really amount to laziness. While on sale he +had been driven in a provision cart, and had therefore the habit of +standing unhitched. One had merely to fling the reins into the bottom of +the phaeton and leave Billy to his own custody. His other habit of +drawing up at kitchen gates was not confirmed, and the fact that he +stumbled on his way to the doctor who pronounced him blameless was +reasonably attributed to a loose stone at the foot of the hill; the +misstep resulted in a barked shin, but a little wheel-grease, in a horse +of Billy's complexion, easily removed the evidence of this.</p> + +<p>It was natural that after Billy was bought and paid for, several +extremely desirable horses should be offered to my friend by their +owners, who came in person, stripped of all the adventitious mystery of +agents and middle-men. They were gentlemen, and they spoke the English +habitual with persons not corrupted by horses. My friend saw them come +and go with grief; for he did not like to be shaken in his belief that +Billy was the only horse in the world for him, and he would have liked +to purchase their animals, if only to show his appreciation of honor and +frankness and sane language. Yet he was consoled by the possession of +Billy, whom he found increasingly excellent and trustworthy. Any of the +family drove him about; he stood unhitched; he was not afraid of cars; +he was as kind as a kitten; he had not, as the neighboring coachman +said, a voice, though he seemed a little loively in coming out of the +stable sometimes. He went well under the saddle; he was a beauty, and if +he had a voice, it was too great satisfaction in his personal +appearance.</p> + +<p>One evening after tea, the young gentleman, who was about to drive Billy +out, stung by the reflection that he had not taken blackberries and +cream twice, ran into the house to repair the omission, and left Billy, +as usual, unhitched at the door. During his absence, Billy caught sight +of his stable, and involuntarily moved towards it. Finding himself +unchecked, he gently increased his pace; and when my friend, looking up +from the melon-patch which he was admiring, called out, "Ho, Billy! +Whoa, Billy!" and headed him off from the gap, Billy profited by the +circumstance to turn into the pear orchard. The elastic turf under his +unguided hoof seemed to exhilarate him; his pace became a trot, a +canter, a gallop, a tornado; the reins fluttered like ribbons in the +air; the phaeton flew ruining after. In a terrible cyclone the equipage +swept round the neighbor's house, vanished, reappeared, swooped down his +lawn, and vanished again. It was incredible.</p> + +<p>My friend stood transfixed among his melons. He knew that his neighbor's +children played under the porte-cochère on the other side of the house +which Billy had just surrounded in his flight, and probably.... My +friend's first impulse was not to go and see, but to walk into his own +house, and ignore the whole affair. But you cannot really ignore an +affair of that kind. You must face it, and commonly it stares you out of +countenance. Commonly, too, it knows how to choose its time so as to +disgrace as well as crush its victim. His neighbor had people to tea, +and long before my friend reached the house the host and his guests were +all out on the lawn, having taken the precaution to bring their napkins +with them.</p> + +<p>"The children!" gasped my friend.</p> + +<p>"Oh, they were all in bed," said the neighbor, and he began to laugh. +That was right; my friend would have mocked at the calamity if it had +been his neighbor's. "Let us go and look up your phaeton." He put his +hand on the naked flank of a fine young elm, from which the bark had +just been stripped. "Billy seems to have passed this way."</p> + +<p>At the foot of a stone-wall four feet high lay the phaeton, with three +wheels in the air, and the fourth crushed flat against the axle; the +willow back was broken, the shafts were pulled out, and Billy was gone.</p> + +<p>"Good thing there was nobody in it," said the neighbor.</p> + +<p>"Good thing it didn't run down some Irish family, and get you in for +damages," said a guest.</p> + +<p>It appeared, then, that there were two good things about this disaster. +My friend had not thought there were so many, but while he rejoiced in +this fact, he rebelled at the notion that a sorrow like that rendered +the sufferer in any event liable for damages, and he resolved that he +never would have paid them. But probably he would.</p> + +<p>Some half-grown boys got the phaeton right-side up, and restored its +shafts and cushions, and it limped away with them towards the +carriage-house. Presently another half-grown boy came riding Billy up +the hill. Billy showed an inflated nostril and an excited eye, but +physically he was unharmed, save for a slight scratch on what was +described as the off hind-leg; the reader may choose which leg this was.</p> + +<p>"The worst of it is," said the guest, "that you never can trust 'em +after they've run off once."</p> + +<p>"Have some tea?" said the host to my friend.</p> + +<p>"No, thank you," said my friend, in whose heart the worst of it rankled; +and he walked home embittered by his guilty consciousness that Billy +ought never to have been left untied. But it was not this self-reproach; +it was not the mutilated phaeton; it was not the loss of Billy, who must +now be sold; it was the wreck of settled hopes, the renewed suspense of +faith, the repetition of the tragical farce of buying another horse, +that most grieved my friend.</p> + +<p>Billy's former owners made a feint of supplying other horses in his +place, but the only horse supplied was an aged veteran with the +scratches, who must have come seven early in our era, and who, from his +habit of getting about on tiptoe, must have been tender for'a'd beyond +anything of my friend's previous experience. Probably if he could have +waited they might have replaced Billy in time, but their next +installment from the West produced nothing suited to his wants but a +horse with the presence and carriage of a pig, and he preferred to let +them sell Billy for what he would bring, and to trust his fate +elsewhere. Billy had fallen nearly one half in value, and he brought +very little—to his owner; though the new purchaser was afterwards +reported to value him at much more than what my friend had paid for him. +These things are really mysteries; you cannot fathom them; it is idle to +try. My friend remained grieving over his own folly and carelessness, +with a fond hankering for the poor little horse he had lost, and the +belief that he should never find such another. Yet he was not without a +philanthropist's consolation. He had added to the stock of harmless +pleasures in a degree of which he could not have dreamed. All his +acquaintance knew that he had bought a horse, and they all seemed now to +conspire in asking him how he got on with it. He was forced to confess +the truth. On hearing it, his friends burst into shouts of laughter, and +smote their persons, and stayed themselves against lamp-posts and +house-walls. They begged his pardon, and then they began again, and +shouted and roared anew. Since the gale which blew down the poet ——'s +chimneys and put him to the expense of rebuilding them, no joke so +generally satisfactory had been offered to the community. My friend had, +in his time, achieved the reputation of a wit by going about and and +saying, "Did you know ——'s chimneys had blown down?" and he had now +himself the pleasure of causing the like quality of wit in others.</p> + +<p>Having abandoned the hope of getting anything out of the people who had +sold him Billy, he was for a time the prey of an inert despair, in which +he had not even spirit to repine at the disorder of a universe in which +he could not find a horse. No horses were now offered to him, for it had +become known throughout the trade that he had bought a horse. He had +therefore to set about counteracting this impression with what feeble +powers were left him. Of the facts of that period he remembers with +confusion and remorse the trouble to which he put the owner of the +pony-horse Pansy, whom he visited repeatedly in a neighboring town, at a +loss of time and money to himself, and with no result but to embarrass +Pansy's owner in his relations with people who had hired him and did not +wish him sold. Something of the old baffling mystery hung over Pansy's +whereabouts; he was with difficulty produced, and when <i>en evidence</i> he +was not the Pansy my friend had expected. He paltered with his regrets; +he covered his disappointment with what pretenses he could; and he +waited till he could telegraph back his adverse decision. His conclusion +was that, next to proposing marriage, there was no transaction of life +that involved so many delicate and complex relations as buying a horse, +and that the rupture of a horse-trade was little less embarrassing and +distressing to all concerned than a broken engagement. There was a +terrible intimacy in the affair; it was alarmingly personal. He went +about sorrowing for the pain and disappointment he had inflicted on many +amiable people of all degrees who had tried to supply him with a horse.</p> + +<p>"Look here," said his neighbor, finding him in this low state, "why +don't you get a horse of the gentleman who furnishes mine?" This had +been suggested before, and my friend explained that he had disliked to +make trouble. His scruples were lightly set aside, and he suffered +himself to be entreated. The fact was he was so discouraged with his +attempt to buy a horse that if any one had now given him such a horse as +he wanted he would have taken it.</p> + +<p>One sunny, breezy morning his neighbor drove my friend over to the +beautiful farm of the good genius on whose kindly offices he had now +fixed his languid hopes. I need not say what the landscape was in +mid-August, or how, as they drew near the farm, the air was enriched +with the breath of vast orchards of early apples,—apples that no forced +fingers rude shatter from their stems, but that ripen and mellow +untouched, till they drop into the straw with which the orchard aisles +are bedded; it is the poetry of horticulture; it is Art practicing the +wise and gracious patience of Nature, and offering to the Market a +Summer Sweeting of the Hesperides.</p> + +<p>The possessor of this luscious realm at once took my friend's case into +consideration; he listened, the owner of a hundred horses, with gentle +indulgence to the shapeless desires of a man whose wildest dream was +<i>one</i> horse. At the end he said, "I see you want a horse that can take +care of himself."</p> + +<p>"No," replied my friend, with the inspiration of despair. "I want a +horse that can take care of me."</p> + +<p>The good genius laughed, and turned the conversation. Neither he nor my +friend's neighbor was a man of many words, and like taciturn people they +talked in low tones. The three moved about the room and looked at the +Hispano-Roman pictures; they had a glass of sherry; from time to time +something was casually murmured about Frank. My friend felt that he was +in good hands, and left the affair to them. It ended in a visit to the +stable, where it appeared that this gentleman had no horse to sell among +his hundred which exactly met my friend's want, but that he proposed to +lend him Frank while a certain other animal was put in training for the +difficult office he required of a horse. One of the men was sent for +Frank, and in the mean time my friend was shown some gaunt and graceful +thoroughbreds, and taught to see the difference between them and the +plebeian horse. But Frank, though no thoroughbred, eclipsed these +patricians when he came. He had a little head, and a neck gallantly +arched; he was black and plump and smooth, and though he carried himself +with a petted air, and was a dandy to the tips of his hooves, his +knowing eye was kindly. He turned it upon my friend with the effect of +understanding <i>his</i> case at a glance.</p> + +<p>It was in this way that for the rest of the long, lovely summer peace +was re-established in his heart. There was no question of buying or +selling Frank; there were associations that endeared him beyond money to +his owner; but my friend could take him without price. The situation had +its humiliation for a man who had been arrogantly trying to buy a horse, +but he submitted with grateful meekness, and with what grace Heaven +granted him; and Frank gayly entered upon the peculiar duties of his +position. His first duty was to upset all preconceived notions of the +advantage of youth in a horse. Frank was not merely not coming seven or +nine, but his age was an even number,—he was sixteen; and it was his +owner's theory, which Frank supported, that if a horse was well used he +was a good horse till twenty-five.</p> + +<p>The truth is that Frank looked like a young horse; he was a dandy +without any of the ghastliness which attends the preservation of youth +in old beaux of another species. When my friend drove him in the +rehabilitated phaeton he felt that the turn-out was stylish, and he +learned to consult certain eccentricities of Frank's in the satisfaction +of his pride. One of these was a high reluctance to be passed on the +road. Frank was as lazy a horse—but lazy in a self-respectful, æsthetic +way—as ever was; yet if he heard a vehicle at no matter how great +distance behind him (and he always heard it before his driver), he +brightened with resolution and defiance, and struck out with speed that +made competition difficult. If my friend found that the horse behind was +likely to pass Frank, he made a merit of holding him in. If they met a +team, he lay back in his phaeton, and affected not to care to be going +faster than a walk, any way.</p> + +<p>One of the things for which he chiefly prized Frank was his skill in +backing and turning. He is one of those men who become greatly perturbed +when required to back and turn a vehicle; he cannot tell (till too late) +whether he ought to pull the right rein in order to back to the left, or +<i>vice versa</i>; he knows, indeed, the principle, but he becomes paralyzed +in its application. Frank never was embarrassed, never confused. My +friend had but to say, "Back, Frank!" and Frank knew from the nature of +the ground how far to back and which way to turn. He has thus extricated +my friend from positions in which it appeared to him that no earthly +power could relieve him.</p> + +<p>In going up hill Frank knew just when to give himself a rest, and at +what moment to join the party in looking about and enjoying the +prospect. He was also an adept in scratching off flies, and had a +precision in reaching an insect anywhere in his van with one of his rear +hooves which few of us attain in slapping mosquitoes. This action +sometimes disquieted persons in the phaeton, but Frank knew perfectly +well what he was about, and if harm had happened to the people under his +charge my friend was sure that Frank could have done anything short of +applying arnica and telegraphing to their friends. His varied knowledge +of life and his long experience had satisfied him that there were very +few things to be afraid of in this world. Such womanish weaknesses as +shying and starting were far from him, and he regarded the boisterous +behavior of locomotives with indifference. He had not, indeed, the +virtue of one horse offered to my friend's purchase, of standing, +unmoved, with his nose against a passing express train; but he was +certainly not afraid of the cars.</p> + +<p>Frank was by no means what Mr. Emerson calls a mush of concession; he +was not merely amiable; he had his moments of self-assertion, his +touches of asperity. It was not safe to pat his nose, like the erring +Billy's; he was apt to bring his handsome teeth together in proximity to +the caressing hand with a sharp click and a sarcastic grin. Not that he +ever did, or ever would really bite. So, too, when left to stand long +under fly-haunted cover, he would start off afterwards with alarming +vehemence; and he objected to the saddle. On the only occasion when any +of my friend's family mounted him, he trotted gayly over the grass +towards the house, with the young gentleman on his back; then, without +warning, he stopped short, a slight tremor appeared to pass over him, +and his rider continued the excursion some ten feet farther, alighting +lump-wise on a bunch of soft turf which Frank had selected for his +reception.</p> + +<p>The summer passed, and in the comfort of Frank's possession my friend +had almost abandoned the idea of ever returning him to his owner. He had +thoughts of making the loan permanent, as something on the whole +preferable to a purchase. The drives continued quite into December, over +roads as smooth and hard as any in June, and the air was delicious. The +first snow brought the suggestion of sleighing; but that cold weather +about Christmas dispersed these gay thoughts, and restored my friend to +virtue. Word came from the stable that Frank's legs were swelling from +standing so long without going out, and my friend resolved to part with +an animal for which he had no use. I do not praise him for this; it was +no more than his duty; but I record his action in order to account for +the fact that he is again without a horse, and now, with the opening of +the fine weather, is beginning once more to think of buying one.</p> + +<p>But he is in no mood of arrogant confidence. He has satisfied himself +that neither love nor money is alone adequate to the acquisition: the +fates also must favor it. The horse which Frank's owner has had in +training may or may not be just the horse he wants. He does not know; he +humbly waits; and he trembles at the alternative of horses, mystically +summoned from space, and multitudinously advancing upon him, +parrot-mouthed, pony-gaited, tender for'a'd, and traveling wide behind.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Buying a Horse, by William Dean Howells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUYING A HORSE *** + +***** This file should be named 23030-h.htm or 23030-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/0/3/23030/ + +Produced by Julia Miller, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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