Year: 1874

| nA4 hSIeS6s


Max: AdeIer's Curious Equine Expert


ence.


It is probable that I should neve
J have bought horse if had not beer
, strongly urged to do so by other per
, sons. I do not care a great deal fol


riding and driving. andl if it ever die
occur to me that it would, perhaps, bt


a nice thing to have horse of my own
I regarded the necessary expense al


much too great for the small amount o.


endowment which could. be obtained


from the investment. It always seemed


to me to be much cheaper to hire 6
horse at livery stable, if only an oc
casional drive is desired; and cling tC
that theory yet. But everybody else
seemed to think that ought to own 6
horse. Mrs. Adeler was especially anx
ious about it. She insisted that we were
doing very well in the world, and she
did not see the use of having the means
if we were to live always as we did
when we were poor. She said she often
wanted to take drive along the river
road in the evening with the children,
and she frequently wished to visit her
friends in the country, but she couldn't
bear to go with strange horse of which
she knew nothing.


Ny friends used to say, "Adeler, !
wonder you don't keep horse, and take
your family out sometimes ;" amp they
hammered away at the theme until :" 7
actually began to feel as if the public
suspected me of being niggardly and
cruel tyrant, who hugged my gold, to
my bosom, and gloated over the misery
of my wife and children-gloated be-
cause they couldn't have horse. Peo-
pie used to come down from the city to
see us, and, after examining the house
and garden, they would remark, every
charming very charming, indeed A
little paradise, in fact but, Adeler,
why don't you buy a horse ?" grad
ually grew nervous upon the subject,
and was tolerably we'll convinced that
there would never be perfect happiness
in my family till I purchased steed of
somekind. At last, Sensenderfer, who
lives next door to me, had a cream-col-
ored horse knocked down to him at one
of those auction sales which are known
ia the rural districts as "vandues."
And when saw Sensenderfer drive past
the house every afternoon with that
cream-colored brute, and his family in
a dearborn-wagon, and observed how
he looked at us and smiled supercilious-
ly, as if he was thinking "there lives
a miserable outcast who has no horse,
and who can't get one," determined
to purchase at once.


have not bad much experience with
horses, but I found one whose appear
ance and gait pleased me, and I was
particularly drawn toward him because
the man recommended him as being
"urbane." had heard many descrip-
tions of the points of a good horse, but
this was the first time I had ever met
a horse whose most prominent charcter-
istic was urbanity. It seemed to me
that the quality was an excellent cne,
and made bargain on the spot and
drove home.


"Mrs. Adeler," I said, as 1 exhibited
the purchase to her, "I do not think
this horse is very fast 1 do not regard
him as in the highest sense beautiful
he may even be deficient in wind his
tail Certainly is short and i think !
can detect in his forelegs a tendency to
spring too far forward at the knees
but. Mrs. Adeler, the horse is urbane
The man said that his urbanity amoun-
ted to a positive weakness, and that is
why bought him. II a horse is not ur-
bane, my dear, it is useless, no matter
what its merits in other respects"


She said that had been her opinion
from early childhood.


do not care greatly, Mrs. Adeler,
for excessive speed. Give me a horse
which can proceed with merely toler-
able degree of celerity and 1 am con-
tent. I could never comprehend why a
man whose horse can trot a mile in two
minutes and forty seconds should be
made unhappy because another mans
horse trots the same distance one sec
ond sooner; that is, of course, suppos-
ing that they were not running for
money. One second of time never
makes any special difference to me, even
when I am in a hurry. What I want in
a horse is not swiftness, but urbanity. /
would rather have akind-hearted horse,
like ours, than the most rapid trottor
with wicked disposition"


For while 7 enjoyed having a horse,
and felt glad I had bought him. It
seemed very pleasant to drive down by
the river bank upon pleasant evening,
with the cool breeze blowing in from
the country around beautiful with the
bright foliage of early autumn, with
green hedges and ripening crops. There
was a sufficient compensation for the
heat and wretchedness of the busy day
in this quiet journey over the level
road, and past the fragrant fields in the
early twilight and as 1--WE came home
amid the deepening shadows, we could
find pleasure in watching the schooners
far off in the channel fling out their
lights, and we could see the rays stream
ing across the wide interval of rip
pling surface, and moving weirdly and
strangely with the motion of the water.


Sometimes, upon going out, we would
overtake Sensendefer in his dearborn,
and then it was felicitous to observe
how, when touched my horse with hit
whip, the horse put his head down, ele-
waited his abbreviated tail to horizon
tai position and left Sensendefer far be-
hind, fogging his cream-colored horse
with such fury as would surely have
subjected him to the reproaches of the
society for the prevention of cruelty to
animals, if that excellent organization
had been present. Ny horse could
achieve tOlerably rapid gait when he
desired to do SO. That fact made ex-
istence in this world of anguish and
tears seem even more sad to Sensende-
fer than it had done previously. L feel
sure that he would have given fabulous
sums if his cream-colored horse could
have trotted mile in q minute-just
once-when we were upon the road to-
gether. I began to think it was just as
well, after all, to have a progressive
horse as a slow one.


But when the novelty of the thing
had passed, my old indisposition to
amusements of that kind gradually re-
turned. I drove less frequently. One
day my man said to me, "Mr. Adeler,
that hoss is a eatin' his head off, sir. If
vou don't take him out, he'll be so wild
that he'll bust the machine to flinders,
sir p


The threatented catastrophe seemed
so alarming that I took him out, al
though I had important work to do at
home. The next day wanted to stay
up in the city to go to the lecture; but
that morning early the horse displayed
a., oIorpoino amount of frisLxipasa and