The first week of my life as a cab horse was very trying.  I had never been used to London, and the noise, the hurry, the crowds of horses, carts, and carriages, that I had to make my way through, made me feel anxious and harassed; but I soon found that I could perfectly trust my driver, and then I made myself easy, and got used to it.

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Jerry was as good a driver as I had ever known; and what was better, he took as much thought for his horses as he did for himself.  He soon found out that I was willing to work and do my best; and he never laid the whip on me, unless it was gently drawing the end of it over my back, when I was to go on; but generally I knew this quite well by the way in which he took up the reins; and I believe his whip was more frequently stuck up by his side than in his hand.

In a short time I and my master understood each other, as well as horse and man can do.  In the stable, too, he did all that he could for our comfort.  The stalls were the old-fashioned style, too much on the slope; but he had two movable bars fixed across the back of our stalls, so that at night, when we were resting, he just took off our halters and put up the bars, and thus we could turn about and stand whichever way we pleased, which is a great comfort.

Jerry kept us very clean, and gave us as much change of food as he could, and always plenty of it; and not only that, but he always gave us plenty of clean fresh water, which he allowed to stand by us both night and day, except of course when we came in warm.  Some people say that a horse ought not to drink all he likes; but I know if we are allowed to drink when we want it we drink only a little at a time, and it does us a great deal more good than swallowing down half a bucketful at a time because we have been left without till we are thirsty and miserable.  Some grooms will go home to their beer and leave us for hours with our dry hay and oats and nothing to moisten them; then of course we gulp down too much at once, which helps to spoil our breathing and sometimes chills our stomachs.  But the best thing that we had here was our Sundays for rest! we worked so hard in the week, that I do not think we could have kept up to it, but for that day; besides, we had then time to enjoy each other’s company.

CHAPTER XIII

DOLLY AND A REAL GENTLEMAN

The winter came in early, with a great deal of cold and wet.  There was snow, or sleet, or rain, almost every day for weeks, changing only for keen driving winds or sharp frosts.  The horses all felt it very much.  When it is a dry cold, a couple of good thick rugs will keep the warmth in us; but when it is soaking rain, they soon get wet through and are no good.  Some of the drivers had a waterproof cover to throw over, which was a fine thing; but some of the men were so poor that they could not protect either themselves or their horses, and many of them suffered very much that winter.  When we horses had worked half the day we went to our dry stables, and could rest; while they had to sit on their boxes, sometimes staying out as late as one or two o’clock in the morning, if they had a party to wait for.