Songs for April

A Diamond or a Coal?

Ginger

Ginger was a tall chestnut mare with a long, handsome neck. She stood in the stall just beyond mine. The first day I was in my new home she looked across to me and said:

"So it is you who have turned me out of my box; it is a very strange thing for a colt like you to come and turn a lady out of her own home."

"I beg your pardon," I said, "I have turned no one out; the man who brought me put me here, and I had nothing to do with it. As to my being a colt, I am turned four years old and am a grown-up horse. I never had words yet with horse or mare, and it is my wish to live at peace."

"Well," she said, "we shall see. Of course, I do not want to have words with a young thing like you." I said no more.

A few days after this I had to go out with Ginger in the carriage. I wondered how we should get on together; but except laying her ears back when I was led up to her, she behaved very well. She did her work honestly, and did her full share, and I never wish to have a better partner. When we came to a hill she would throw her weight into the collar and pull away. We had the same courage at our work and our master never had to use the whip on either of us. Then our paces were much the same, and I found it easy to keep step with her when trotting. After we had been out two or three times together we grew quite friendly, which made me feel very much at home.

One day when Ginger and I were standing alone in the shade she wanted to know all about my bringing up and breaking in, and I told her.

"Well," said she, "if I had had your bringing up, I might have had as good a temper as you, but now I don't believe I ever shall."

"Why not?" I said.

"Because it has been all so different with me," she replied. "I never had any one, horse or man, that was kind to me, or that I cared to please. In the first place I was taken from my mother as soon as I was weaned, and put with a lot of other young colts. None of them cared for me, and I cared for none of them.

"There was no kind master like yours to look after me, and talk to me, and bring me nice things to eat. The man that had the care of us never gave me a kind word in my life. I do not mean that he ill-used me, but he did not care for us one bit further than to see that we had plenty to eat, and shelter in the winter.

"A footpath ran through our field, and very often the boys passing through would fling stones to make us gallop. I was never hit, but one fine young colt was badly cut in the face, and he was scarred for life. We did not care for them, but of course it made us more wild, and we felt that boys were our enemies.

"We had fun in the meadows, galloping up and down and chasing each other round and round the field; then standing still under the shade of the trees. But when it came to 'breaking in,' that was a bad time for me. Several men came to catch me, and when at last they closed me in at one corner of the field, one caught me by the forelock. Another caught me by the nose and held it so tight I could hardly draw my breath. Then another took my under jaw in his hard hand and wrenched my mouth open, and so they got the halter on and the bit into my mouth. Then one dragged me along by the halter, another flogging behind.

"They did not give me a chance to know what they wanted. I was high-bred and had a great deal of spirit. I was very wild, and gave them plenty of trouble; but it was dreadful to be shut up in a stall day after day, and I fretted and pined and wanted to get loose.

"My old master could have done anything with me, but he had given up all the hard part of the work to his son and he came only at times to oversee. His son was a strong, tall, bold man; they called him Samson, and he used to boast that he had never found a horse that could throw him. There was no gentleness in him, as there was in his father, but only hardness, a hard voice, a hard eye, a hard hand. I felt from the first that he wanted to wear all the spirit out of me, and just make me into a quiet, obedient piece of horseflesh. 'Horseflesh!' Yes, that is all that he thought about." And Ginger stamped her foot as if the very thought of him made her angry. Then she went on:

"If I did not do exactly what he wanted he would make me run round the training field till he had tired me out. One day he had worked me hard, and when I lay down I was tired and angry, and it all seemed so hard.

"The next morning he came for me early, and ran me round again for a long time. I had scarcely had an hour's rest when he came again for me with a saddle and bridle and a new kind of bit. He had just mounted me when something I did put him out of temper, and he chucked me hard with the rein.

"The new bit was very painful, and I reared up suddenly, which angered him still more, and he began to flog me. I felt my whole spirit set against him, and I began to kick, and plunge, and rear, as I had never done before, and we had a regular fight. For a long time he stuck to the saddle and punished me cruelly with his whip and spurs. My blood was up, and I cared for nothing he could do if I could only get him off.

"At last after a hard struggle I threw him off backward. I heard him fall heavily on the turf, and without looking behind me I galloped off to the other end of the field. There I turned round and saw him slowly rising and going into the stable. I stood under an oak tree and watched, but no one came to catch me.

"Time went on and the sun was very hot. The flies swarmed round me and settled on my bleeding flanks where the spurs had dug in. I felt hungry, for I had not eaten since the early morning, but there was not enough grass in that meadow for a goose to live on. I wanted to lie down and rest, but with the saddle strapped on there was no comfort, and there was not a drop of water to drink. The afternoon wore on, and the sun got low. I saw the other colts led in, and I knew they were having a good feed.

"At last, just as the sun went down, I saw my old master come out with a sieve in his hand. He was a fine old gentleman with white hair, but his voice was what I should know him by among a thousand. It was not high, nor yet low, but full and clear and kind, and when he gave orders it was so steady and decided every one knew, both horses and men, that he must be obeyed.

"He came quietly along, now and then shaking the oats he had in the sieve, and speaking cheerfully and gently to me: 'Come along, lassie, come along, lassie; come along.' I stood still and let him come up; he held the oats to me, and I began to eat without fear; his voice took all my fear away. He stood by, patting and stroking me while I was eating.

"When he saw the clots of blood on my side he seemed much vexed. 'Poor lassie! it was a bad business, a bad business.' Then he quietly took the rein and led me to the stable. Just at the door stood Samson. I laid my ears back and snapped at him. 'Stand back,' said the master, 'and keep out of her way; you've done a bad day's work for this filly.' He growled out something about an ugly brute. 'Hark ye,' said the father, 'a bad-tempered man will never make a good-tempered horse. You've not learned your trade yet, Samson.'

"Then he led me into my box, took off the saddle and bridle with his own hands and tied me up. He called for a pail of warm water and a sponge, took off his coat, and sponged my sides a good while, so tenderly that I was sure he knew how sore and bruised they were. 'Whoa! my pretty one,' he said, 'stand still, stand still.' Even his voice did me good, and the bathing was very comfortable.

"The skin was so broken at the corners of my mouth that I could not eat the hay. He looked closely at it, shook his head, and told the man to make a good bran mash and put some meal into it. How good that mash was! and so soft and healing to my mouth. He stood by all the time I was eating, stroking me and talking to the man. 'If a fine horse like this,' said he, 'cannot be broken by fair means, she will never be good for anything.'

"After that he often came to see me, and when my mouth was healed the other breaker went on training me; he was steady and thoughtful, and I soon learned what he wanted."

The next time that Ginger and I were together in the paddock she told me about her first place.

"After my breaking in," she said, "I was bought by a dealer to match another chestnut horse, sent up to London. I had been driven with a check-rein, and I hated it worse than anything else. But in this place we were reined far tighter, the coachman and his master thinking we looked more stylish so.

"I like to toss my head about and hold it as high as any horse. But it was cruel to be obliged to hold it high for hours. Besides that, I had to have two bits instead of one. They hurt my tongue and my jaw. It was worst when we had to stand by the hour waiting for our mistress at some grand party. If I fretted or stamped the whip was laid on. It was enough to drive one mad."

"Did not your master take any thought for you?" I said.

"No," said she, "he cared only to have a stylish turnout; I think he knew very little about horses. He left that to his coachman, who told him I had a bad temper. I was willing to work, and ready to work hard, too, but not to be tormented for nothing. What right had they to make me suffer like that? Besides the soreness in my mouth, and the pain in my neck, it made my windpipe feel bad. If I had stopped there long I know it would have spoiled my breathing.

"I grew more and more restless and fretful. I could not help it, and I began to snap and kick when any one came to harness me. For this the groom beat me, and one day, as they had just buckled us into the carriage and were straining my head up with that rein, I began to plunge and kick with all my might. I soon broke a lot of harness, and kicked myself clear; so that was an end of that place.

"After this I was again sold. My new master tried me in all kinds of ways and with different bits, and he soon found out what I could not bear. At last he drove me without a check-rein, and then sold me, as a quiet horse to a gentleman in the country. He was a good master, and I was getting on very well, but his old groom left him and a new one came.

"The new groom was as hard-tempered and hard-handed as Samson. He always spoke in a harsh voice. If I did not move in the stall the moment he wanted me, he hit me with his stable broom or fork. Everything he did was rough, and I began to hate him. He wanted to make me afraid of him, but I was too high-mettled for that.

"One day, when he had mistreated me more than usual, I bit him, and he began to hit me about the head with a riding whip. After that he never dared to come into my stall again. Either my heels or my teeth were ready for him, and he knew it. My master listened to what the man said, and so I was sold again.

"The same dealer heard of me, and said he thought he knew one place where I would do well. 'It was a pity,' he said, 'that such a fine horse should go to the bad for want of a good chance,' and the end of it was that I came here not long before you did. But I had made up my mind that men were my enemies and that I must defend myself. I wish I could think about things as you do; but I can't, after all I have gone through."

I was sorry for Ginger, but I thought she had made the worst of it. However, I found as the weeks went on, she grew more gentle and cheerful. She lost that watchful, hard look.

One day the groom said, "I do believe that mare is getting fond of me, she whinnied this morning when I had been rubbing her forehead."

Master saw the change, too, and one day when he got out of the carriage and came to speak to us he stroked her beautiful neck. "Well, my pretty one, how do things go with you now? You are much happier than when you came to us, I think."

She put her nose up to him in a friendly, trustful way, while he rubbed it gently.

"We shall make a cure of her," he said.

"Yes, sir; she's wonderfully improved," said the groom, "she's not the same creature that she was. She will be as good as Black Beauty by and by. Kindness is all she needs, poor thing. One pound of patience and gentleness, firmness and petting, mixed with half a pint of common sense, and given to the horse every day, will cure almost any vicious animal."