Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-10-05
Passing
OF the
Horse
By
Fannie
Hurst.

~ HE passing of the horse is a phenom-
enon to which this generation has be-
come more or less accustomed. Already
wide areas of the urban sections OF
Europe, North and South America, the
tractor and the countless steam and electrical
driven devices for farming the face of the earth
have lessened his Importance in vast agricul-
turaI belts the world over.
Upon the Grady family the passing Of the
horse was to make its deep and lasting impress
sion "A family long Injured to the paddock,
the stables, the coaehman's box, the racing
stable suddenly was finding itself on ground as
shifting qucksands
For rs years. one Grady or another had been
stationed at hack-stand. tending stations in
private racing stables or engaged in work that
had to do either directly or indirectly, with
horses.
TOR 20 years Michael Grady, whose grand
father and father before him had occupied
his same kind of throne, had sat on the box
of well groomed four-wheeler Of q cab, plying
his rapidly dwindling trade from station 70
hotel: from hotel to botanical gardens. aqua
rum. art gallery and points Of general interest.
There was resdium of LEGAL trade left too.
: A handful of the older families who still sent
for Michael for theater, dinner party or park
drives as they had sent for his father and
grandfather before him.
6ue 1OI the utOSt' part 1OE al dpp4iAnBky
major part the calls now came for the taxicabs
and service cars parked around the large hotel.
There were not half dozen horse cabs left
in town. And of them Michaels was by far
the most presentabe. The remaining four
i've were of 30 and IS years ago, and so were
their drivers.
Not so with Michael He was 40 and as alert
and up and coming in his interests and desires
any of the taxicab and private-car chauf-
feurs about the town. 1t was just that as he
put it. he had stepped into his old pap's shoes
and found them to his liking
Give me horse every time, with a spirit to
him. and a warm sociabIe muzzle to him and q
knowing eye and friendly heart, to an iron
devil with petrol in his veins"
The taxi men were jocular about this and
agreed upon the kingship of the horse and adj
mired Michael's well shod. well groomed, kindly
disciplined chestnut mare, but when it came to
regarding her seriously a means of trans
portation-why-better wake up Mike, the Civil
War Is over.
Michael knew all this He knew that his
tenacity branded him as old-fashioned and
passe the old museum pieces of cabbies who
drowsed all day their boxes in the SQUARE
and nercely Michael, who had youth and
pride in him, resented the Indictment
He was neither passe nor old fashioned he
would ric>, in a taxi with the best Of them re-
garded 1t as ne important innovation 1t was:
conceded everything the fellows said about it.
but that didn't make him any the less master
OF his own soul. And Michaels soul was the
soul OF coachman. The proper opening to
his day was to walk into the stable and feel his
Hotspur nozzle over her bin to greet him Part
OF the very rhythm of his being was the clip-
clop OF his 1O-year-old over the asphalt of the
city streets, her tail glossy because he had
mace 1t so, name flowing. pace so even that
nurses from the hospital had formed the habit
OF summoning Michael for a patients first
drive after an operation
MICHAEL had no backward point of view
regarding modern devices, especially the
automobile His ideas had to do solely with his
personal preferences and in spite Of the
increased remuneration that a man could ex-
pect from driving taxicab, Michael stuck to
his guns. Or rather to his horse
For 20 years he withstood the tests Of time,
increasing rigors Of traffic, pressure Of the taxi
men who were forever chafhng him. and MAIN
tanned his coachman's seat In that time there
had only been three horses, Hotspur at years,
standing strong and in her prime.
It Is doubtful that even in the end Michael
would have capitulated to the pressure ri the
age in which he lived. except for an immemorial
reason Ee iei: m love and with his eye on
marriage felt the need of larger income
The girl Roselie, enchantingly up-tO- the
moment In her slim young boyisfmess, dOeaed
head 0tffck restless eGexs eper voice xaG niksflk