Chapter IV

The next morning I was much better. Phil’s strong liniment had put down the swelling, but my knee was still sensitive and when Perley proposed riding me to a spot three miles distant to see a ball game, Phil declared it would be unwise and perhaps ruinous to do so.

But my headstrong young master would not listen to the knowing groom, and so to the game and back I bore him, six miles in all. Before we reached home, I was quite lame again with worse pain in my knee than I had felt before. Phil rubbed and bandaged, gave me a careful drying off, and a nice warm mash of bran and meal. The next day something in his keen blue eye made Master Perley think it best not to meddle with his judicious treatment.

I was coming up all right again, but one night when it had suddenly grown cold for June, Perley, without saying a word to Phil, put on my saddle and rode me to Emsted, where some young people were to have a moonlight dance. Here I was left standing in an open shed for several hours without a sign of a covering.

At midnight, Phil, who had a good room upstairs in the stable, heard me breathing hard and laboriously. He knew an attack of asthma had come on, a trouble to which horses and ponies are quite subject upon taking a sudden cold.

This proved disastrous. What with my knee, which swelled again, and the wheezing, difficult breathing, I was a poor sick pony, entirely unfit for use for several days. At that juncture something occurred which brought about one of the important changes of my life.

Once again I was getting better, when Perley resolved to drive me a mile beyond Emsted in company with Marco Boo and Tony Swift, whose owners like himself were to attend a picnic. Phil refused to get me ready, declaring it a sinful shame to ride a pony not wholly recovered from a bad bruise and an illness besides.

Phil was a thoroughly experienced groom, caring well for me as well as for a splendid Morgan bay in a wide box stall at the other end of the stable; but being a carriage horse only, I seldom saw the valuable thoroughbred of which Mr. Bolt, Perley’s father, was both fond and proud.

Now, Phil stood his ground, declaring me still a half sick pony. Hard words followed. Cuddled in my comfortable stall, I heard Perley give lordly orders, and Phil declare he’d be “pickled, salted an’ roosted” before he’d comb or saddle me again until I was fit for the road.

Perley threatened to go and tell his father that Phil had refused to obey orders. But this time the Scotch temper was thoroughly roused. “’Tis to your father I’ll gang mesel’,” spurted Phil, “an’ tell the whole story o’ yer mis_chee_vous ways wi’ the puir leetle hoss! Meesery enough ye’ve caused him, now I’ll hev a bit worrd to say.”

At that I noticed Perley changed his tune. He told Phil he needn’t get me ready, he’d do it himself. But Phil’s sturdy reply would have made me smile, could a pony manage to smile.

“It’s neither you nor me will saddle th’ pony th’ day. To yer father I gang, an’ wotever cooms o’ it, may coom. I’ll stan’ noo more o’ yer dour actins, ye’ll see noo!”

Off strode Phil in the direction of the house. In a few moments he returned, Mr. Bolt with him. Perley tried to look spunky and injured as his father approached, but before he could speak a word his father asked sternly,

“What’s this I hear about your determination to use a lame, sick pony? If what Phil tells me is true, I’ll sell the little fellow next thing I do!”

Mr. Bolt was an indulgent, generous man. It was a fact that his son had more money to spend than was good for him, also the boy had been allowed to have his own way to too great a degree. But his father, if open-handed and easy-going, was of a kind, humane nature, and anything like cruelty and injustice even toward defenceless animals, was something he had no mind to tolerate.

Perley listened, half smiling at his father’s indignant outburst, not thinking it best to deny the things Phil had accused him of. But as his father turned away he said with a low laugh:—

“Dad blusters and scolds, then forgets everything before he reaches the next corner.”

Phil made no reply. Mr. Bolt started for the city, and Perley went off to go by train to the picnic.

About the middle of the morning a brisk, businesslike man made his appearance at the stable, saying he had come for “Dexter”, a pony Mr. Bolt had sold him.

Phil was taken by surprise, notwithstanding what Mr. Bolt had said. In fact he found it hard to believe the truth until Mr. Van Vim, whom he knew for a straightforward man, showed the receipt, convincing him that I and certain effects had really been sold. Mr. Van Vim, who kept a first-class livery stable only a few streets from Mr. Bolt’s place, had not needed to look me over before purchasing. I was well known in Greenpoint.

As Phil went about getting the saddle and blankets, now also the property of Mr. Van Vim, he talked to me in grieved, regretful strain:—

“Dexter, dear-r, I’ll be greetin’ fer ye! I will that! But Meester Bolt, he hev a temper matchin’ Master Perley’s, an’ maybe it’s a gude thing that he hev. Wot th’ lad will say when he finds ye’ve ganged awa’ I’m sure I dinna ken. It’s to a kind mon ye go, but ye’ll hev plenty to do at the livery. Verra like ye’ll not bide there lang. Bye, bye, laddie; keep yer coorage oop an’ gude luck attend ye!”

And so I passed from my snug quarters at Mr. Bolt’s, having learned what a hard, unhappy thing it is for a pony to live with man or boy, who, having a hard, strong will, is too willing to indulge it.

But I was to have a jolly kind of life at the livery.

Go-It, Hiram Wilks’ smart stepping pony, was there, and several gentlemen of Greenpoint kept fine thoroughbreds with Mr. Van Vim, an experienced horseman himself, who gave the best of care to the animals committed to his keeping.

A man named “Tillings” was my special groom, a rollicking Irishman who sang in time to the curry comb, or stamped and whistled with the back and forward movement of the polishing cloths.

Under Tillings’ careful treatment I was soon thoroughly myself again. All signs of asthma disappeared, my knee healed and grew strong, and I was ready to race and romp with the best of them. By this time, July had come with its great heat, its myriad flowers, its thunder showers and usually delicious mornings. One day, a breezy girl came to my stall, exclaiming, “So this is Dexter? Well now, do you suppose he’ll take kindly to the side-saddle? Father won’t let me ride astride as some girls do, he thinks it isn’t graceful, but I’m going on that mock hunt to-morrow, and should like to ride this beautiful pony if I can.”

Then I had a new experience. Tillings put on me a handsome leather saddle, with shorter stirrups than ever had dangled at my side before, and led me out to the stable yard. At a high block, Miss Gladys Fleming mounted, and Tillings began leading me, until, as he said, I “got uset to the flopping o’ skirts aboon the knees.”

It did feel funny, all that cloth flapping against my sides, but the girl was light as a feather and must have ridden before, for in a few moments she told Tillings to let go, and sat firm and fearlessly as I ran at a good pace around the stable yard.

There really was great sport the next day at what was called the “fox hunt”.

It amounted to this: an anise-bag—a bag filled with anise seed or flower, of a strong, pungent odour—had been dragged over a considerable number of miles, and sporting hounds taking the scent raced toward the pretended lair of poor Reynard, who fortunately this time was a mere myth. Marco Boo was also in the race, and for the rest there were chiefly young horses.

I gathered from what was said, that it was very unusual for ponies to be in a fox hunt, as the dogs were swifter than even trained hunters; beautiful, lithe horses, fleet, sure-footed, and fond of racing, folding their forearms and leaping a fence like cats, while scudding with light hoofs in eagerness to be “in” when the fox is run down.

But this was a kind of “make-believe” hunt, and I tested my speed with real zest and enjoyment until horses and ponies stopped with the dogs at a thick patch of bushes, in which had been hidden a great black rag doll, placed for fun at the end of the anise trail.

Could you but have seen the fate of the big rag doll! It was tossed and tossed, high as the indignant dogs could fling. Had it not been made strong with linen twine and leather bindings, the mimic man would have been a mere mass of tatters in less time than it takes to tell of it. But after half an hour of tossing, bounding, pulling and rending, there remained only fragments of what had been a funny figure serving as a decoy or piece of false game.

Then the chief fun of the day being over, we raced home, a beautiful, sleek Arabian trotting with rhythmic measure to the light clatter of my hoofs. Go-It also made brave time, striding along with steady, even gait, Hiram Wilks using neither voice nor tightening rein to spur him on.

It was a mirthful, healthful run, the sportive hounds alternately lagging behind, or rushing with lolling tongues way ahead of the ambling cavalcade that rode to the music of cheery voices and rippling laughter.

It was a bright, happy chapter in my pony life.