I have often wondered whether a horse has a sense of humor.  I know a boy has, and I very strongly suspect that the horse has.  It was one of my tasks in boyhood to take the horses down to the creek for water.  Among others we had a roan two-year-old colt that we called Dick, and even yet I think of him as quite capable of laughter at some of his own mischievous pranks.  One day I took him to water, dispensing with the formalities of a bridle, and riding him down through the orchard with no other habiliments than a rope halter.  In the orchard were several trees of the bellflower variety, whose branches sagged near to the ground.  Dick was going along very decorously and sedately, as if he were studying the golden text or something equally absorbing, when, all at once, some spirit of mischief seemed to possess him and away he bolted, willy-nilly, right under the low-hanging branches of one of those trees.  Of course, I was raked fore and aft, and, while I did not imitate the example of Absalom, I afforded a fairly good imitation, with the difference that, through many trials and tribulations, I finally reached the ground.  Needless to say that I was a good deal of a wreck, with my clothing much torn and my hands and face not only much torn but also bleeding.  After relieving himself of his burden, Dick meandered on down to the creek in leisurely fashion, where I came upon him in due time enjoying a lunch of grass.

Walking toward the creek, sore in body and spirit, I fully made up my mind to have a talk with that colt that he would not soon forget.  He had put shame upon me, and I determined to tell him so.  But when I came upon him looking so lamblike in his innocence, and when I imagined that I heard him chuckle at my plight, my resolution evaporated, and I realized that in a trial of wits he had got the better of me.  Moreover, I conceded right there that he had a right to laugh, and especially when he saw me so superlatively scrambled.  He had beaten me on my own ground and convicted me of knowing less than a horse, so I could but yield the palm to him with what grace I could command.  Many a time since that day have I been unhorsed, and by a mere boy who laughed at my discomfiture.  But I learned my lesson from Dick and have always tried, though grimly, to applaud the victor in the tournament of wits.  Only so could I hold the respect of the boy, not to mention my own.  If a boy sets a trap for me and I walk into it, well, if he doesn’t laugh at me he isn’t much of a boy; and if I can’t laugh with him I am not much of a schoolmaster.

CHAPTER VI

LANTERNS