“She’s the most interesting one we’ve got, that is, after Fleetfoot.  Father got her from a man who couldn’t manage her, and she came to us with a legion of bad tricks.  Father has taken solid comfort though, in breaking her of them.  She is his pet among our stock.  I suppose you know that horses, more than any other animals, are creatures of habit.  If they do a thing once, they will do it again.  When she came to us, she had a trick of biting at a person who gave her oats.  She would do it without fail, so father put a little stick under his arm, and every time she would bite, he would give her a rap over the nose.  She soon got tired of biting, and gave it up.  Sometimes now, you’ll see her make a snap at father as if she was going to bite, and then look under his arm to see if the stick is there.  He cured some of her tricks in one way, and some in another.  One bad one she had was to start for the stable the minute one of the traces was unfastened when we were unharnessing.  She pulled father over once, and another time she ran the shaft of the sulky clean through the barn door.  The next time father brought her in, he got ready for her.  He twisted the lines around his hands, and the minute she began to bolt, he gave a tremendous jerk, that pulled her back upon her haunches, and shouted, ‘Whoa!’ It cured her, and she never started again, till he gave her the word.  Often now, you’ll see her throw her head back when she is being unhitched.  He only did it once, yet she remembers.  If we’d had the training of Scamp, she’d be a very different animal.  It’s nearly all in the bringing up of a colt, whether it will turn out vicious or gentle.  If any one were to strike Fleetfoot, he would not know what it meant.  He has been brought up differently from Scamp.

“She was probably trained by some brutal man who inspired her with distrust of the human species.  She never bites an animal, and seems attached to all the other horses.  She loves Fleetfoot and Cleve and Pacer.  Those three are her favorites.”

“I love to go for drives with Cleve and Pacer,” said Miss Laura, “they are so steady and good.  Uncle says they are the most trusty horses he has.  He has told me about the man you had, who said that those two horses knew more than most ‘humans.’”

“That was old Davids,” said Mr. Harry; “when we had him, he was courting a widow who lived over in Hoytville.  About once a fortnight, he’d ask father for one of the horses to go over to see her.  He always stayed pretty late, and on the way home he’d tie the reins to the whip-stock and go to sleep, and never wake up till Cleve or Pacer, whichever one he happened to have, would draw up in the barnyard.  They would pass any rigs they happened to meet, and turn out a little for a man.  If Davids wasn’t asleep, he could always tell by the difference in their gait which they were passing.  They’d go quickly past a man, and much slower, with more of a turn out, if it was a team.  But I dare say father told you this.  He has a great stock of horse stories, and I am almost as bad.  You will have to cry ‘halt,’ when we bore you.”