balked and refused to proceed.  Then and there each member of the party drew upon his past experiences, seeking a panacea for the equine delinquency.  One suggested the plan of building a fire under the recalcitrant horse, while another suggested pouring sand into his ears.  Doctor Wallace discouraged these remedies as being cruel and finally told the others to take their places in the wagon and he would try the merits of a plan he had in mind.  Accordingly, when they were seated, he clambered over the dash, walked along the wagon-pole, and suddenly plumped himself down upon the horse’s back.  Then away they went, John Gilpin like, Doctor Wallace’s coat-tails and hair streaming out behind.

There was no more balking in the course of the trip, and no one (save, possibly, the horse) had any twinges of conscience to keep him awake that night.  The incident is brimful of pedagogy in that it shows that, in order to cure a horse of an attack of balking, you have but to distract his mind from his balking and get him to thinking of something else.  Before this occurrence taught me the better way, I was quite prone, in dealing with a balking boy, to hold his mind upon the subject of balking.  I told him how unseemly it was, how humiliated his father and mother would be, how he could not grow up to be a useful citizen if he yielded to such tantrums; in short, I ran the gamut of all the pedagogical bromides, and so kept his mind centred upon balking.  Now that I have learned better, I strive to divert his mind to something eke, and may ask him to go upon some pleasant errand that he may gain some new experiences.  When he returns he has forgotten that he was balking and recounts his experiences most delightfully.

Ed was one of the balkiest boys I ever had in my school.  His attacks would often last for days, and the more attention you paid to him the worse he balked.  In the midst of one of these violent and prolonged attacks a lady came to school who, in the kindness of her generous nature, was proposing to give a boy Joe (now a city alderman) a Christmas present of a new hat.  She came to invoke my aid in trying to discover the size of Joe’s head.  I readily undertook the task, which loomed larger and larger as I came fully to realize that I was the sole member of the committee of ways and means.  In my dire perplexity I saw Ed grouching along the hall.  Calling him to one side, I explained to the last detail the whole case, and confessed that I did not know how to proceed.  At once his face brightened, and he readily agreed to make the discovery for me; and in half an hour I had the information I needed and Ed’s face was luminous.  Yes, Joe got the hat and Ed quit balking.  If Doctor Wallace had not gone to Marathon that day I can scarcely imagine what might have happened to Ed; and Joe might not have received a new hat.