Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (395 page)

“Hurry, boys! ‘Might ha’ knowed that livery plug would be around.”

We heard a clatter of hooves, and there climbed up from the ravine below a fifty-center transient — a wall-eyed, yellow frame-house of a horse, sent up to board from a livery-stable in town, where they called him “The Lamb,” and never let him out except at night and to strangers. My companion, who knew and had broken most of the horses, looked at the ragged hammer-head as it rose, and said quietly:

“Ni-ice beast. Man-eater, if he gets the chance — see his eye. Kicker, too — see his hocks. Western horse.”

The animal lumbered up, snuffling and grunting. His feet showed that he had not worked for weeks and weeks, and our creatures drew together significantly.

“As usual,” he said, with an underhung sneer — ”bowin’ your heads before the Oppressor that comes to spend his leisure gloatin’ over you.”

“Mine’s done,” said the Deacon; he licked up the remnant of his salt, dropped his nose in his master’s hand, and sang a little grace all to himself. The Deacon has the most enchanting manners of any one I know.

“An’ fawnin’ on them for what is your inalienable right. It’s humiliatin’,” said the yellow horse, sniffing to see if he could find a few spare grains.

“Go daown hill, then, Boney,” the Deacon replied. “Guess you’ll find somethin’ to eat still, if yer hain’t hogged it all. You’ve ett more’n any three of us to-day — an’ day ‘fore that — an’ the last two months — sence you’ve been here.”

“I am not addressin’ myself to the young an’ immature. I am speakin’ to those whose opinion an’ experience commands respect.”

I saw Rod raise his head as though he were about to make a remark; then he dropped it again, and stood three-cornered, like a plough-horse. Rod can cover his mile in a shade under three minutes on an ordinary road to an ordinary buggy. He is tremendously powerful behind, but, like most Hambletonians, he grows a trifle sullen as he gets older. No one can love Rod very much; but no one can help respecting him.

“I wish to wake those,” the yellow horse went on, “to an abidin’ sense o’ their wrongs an’ their injuries an’ their outrages.”

“Haow’s that?” said Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, dreamily. He thought Boney was talking of some kind of feed.

“An’ when I say outrages and injuries” — Boney waved his tail furiously “I mean ‘em, too. Great Oats! That’s just what I do mean, plain an’ straight.”

“The gentleman talks quite earnest,” said Tuck, the mare, to Nip, her brother. “There’s no doubt thinkin’ broadens the horizons o’ the mind. His language is quite lofty.”

“Hesh, sis,” Nip answered.

“He hain’t widened nothin’ ‘cep’ the circle he’s ett in pasture. They feed words fer beddin’ where he comes from.”

“It’s elegant talkin’, though,” Tuck returned, with an unconvinced toss of her pretty, lean little head.

The yellow horse heard her, and struck an attitude which he meant to be extremely impressive. It made him look as though he had been badly stuffed.

“Now I ask you, I ask you without prejudice an’ without favour, — what has Man the Oppressor ever done for you? — Are you not inalienably entitled to the free air o’ heaven, blowin’ acrost this boundless prairie?”

“Hev ye ever wintered here?” said the Deacon, merrily, while the others snickered. “It’s kinder cool.”

“Not yet,” said Boney. “I come from the boundless confines o’ Kansas, where the noblest of our kind have their abidin’ place among the sunflowers on the threshold o’ the settin’ sun in his glory.”

“An’ they sent you ahead as a sample?” said Rick, with an amused quiver of his long, beautifully groomed tail, as thick and as fine and as wavy as a quadroon’s back hair.

“Kansas, sir, needs no advertisement. Her native sons rely on themselves an’ their native sires. Yes, sir.”

Then Tweezy lifted up his wise and polite old head. His affliction makes him bashful as a rule, but he is ever the most courteous of horses.

“Excuse me, suh,” he said slowly, “but, unless I have been misinfohmed, most of your prominent siahs, suh, are impo’ted from Kentucky; an’ I’m from Paduky.”

There was the least little touch of pride in the last words.

“Any horse dat knows beans,” said Muldoon, suddenly (he had been standing with his hairy chin on Tweezy’s broad quarters), “gits outer Kansas ‘fore dey crip his shoes. I blew in dere from Ioway in de days o’ me youth an’ innocence, an’ I wuz grateful when dey boxed me fer N’ York. You can’t tell me anything about Kansas I don’t wanter fergit. De Belt Line stables ain’t no Hoffman House, but dey’re Vanderbilts ‘longside o’ Kansas.”

“What the horses o’ Kansas think to-day, the horses of America will think to-morrow; an’ I tell you that when the horses of America rise in their might, the day o’ the Oppressor is ended.”

There was a pause, till Rick said, with a little grunt:

“Ef you put it that way, every one of us has riz in his might, ‘cep’ Marcus, mebbe. Marky, ‘j ever rise in yer might?”

“Nope,” said Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, thoughtfully quidding over a mouthful of grass. “I seen a heap o’ fools try, though.”

“You admit that you riz?” said the Kansas horse, excitedly. “Then why — why in Kansas did you ever go under again?”

“Horse can’t walk on his hind legs all the time,” said the Deacon.

“Not when he’s jerked over on his back ‘fore he knows what fetched him. We’ve all done it, Boney,” said Rick. “Nip an’ Tuck they tried it, spite o’ what the Deacon told ‘em; an’ the Deacon he tried it, spite o’ what me an’ Rod told him; an’ me an’ Rod tried it, spite o’ what Grandee told us; an’ I guess Grandee he tried it, spite o’ what his dam told him. It’s the same old circus from generation to generation. ‘Colt can’t see why he’s called on to back. Same old rearm’ on end — straight up. Same old feelin’ that you’ve bested ‘em this time. Same old little yank at your mouth when you’re up good an’ tall. Same old Pegasus-act, wonderin’ where you’ll ‘light. Same old wop when you hit the dirt with your head where your tail should be, and your in’ards shook up like a bran-mash. Same old voice in your ear: ‘Waal, ye little fool, an’ what did you reckon to make by that?’ We’re through with risin in our might on this farm. We go to pole er single, accordin’ ez we’re hitched.”

“An’ Man the Oppressor sets an’ gloats over you, same as he’s settin’ now. Hain’t that been your experience, madam?”

This last remark was addressed to Tedda; and any one could see with half an eye that poor, old anxious, fidgety Tedda, stamping at the flies, must have left a wild and tumultuous youth behind her.

“‘Pends on the man,” she answered, shifting from one foot to the other, and addressing herself to the home horses. “They abused me dreffle when I was young. I guess I was sperrity an’ nervous some, but they didn’t allow for that. ‘Twas in Monroe County, Noo York, an’ sence then till I come here, I’ve run away with more men than ‘u’d fill a boardin’-house. Why, the man that sold me here he says to the boss, s’ he: ‘Mind, now, I’ve warned you. ‘Twon’t be none of my fault if she sheds you daown the road. Don’t you drive her in a top-buggy, ner ‘thout winkers,’ s’ he, ‘ner ‘thought this bit ef you look to come home behind her.’ ‘N’ the fust thing the boss did was to git the top-buggy.

“Can’t say as I like top-buggies,” said Rick; “they don’t balance good.”

“Suit me to a ha’ar,” said Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. “Top-buggy means the baby’s in behind, an’ I kin stop while she gathers the pretty flowers — yes, an’ pick a maouthful, too. The women-folk all say I hev to be humoured, an’ I don’t kerry things to the sweatin’-point.”

“‘Course I’ve no prejudice against a top-buggy s’ long’s I can see it,” Tedda went on quickly. “It’s ha’f-seein’ the pesky thing bobbin’ an’ balancn’ behind the winkers gits on my nerves. Then the boss looked at the bit they’d sold with me, an’ s’ he: ‘Jiminy Christmas! This ‘u’d make a clothes-horse Stan’ ‘n end!’ Then he gave me a plain bar bit, an’ fitted it’s if there was some feelin’ to my maouth.”

“Hain’t ye got any, Miss Tedda?” said Tuck, who has a mouth like velvet, and knows it.

“Might ‘a’ had, Miss Tuck, but I’ve forgot. Then he give me an open bridle, — my style’s an open bridle — an’ — I dunno as I ought to tell this by rights — he — give — me — a kiss.”

“My!” said Tuck, “I can’t tell fer the shoes o’ me what makes some men so fresh.”

“Pshaw, sis,” said Nip, “what’s the sense in actin’ so? You git a kiss reg’lar’s hitchin’-up time.”

“Well, you needn’t tell, smarty,” said Tuck, with a squeal and a kick.

“I’d heard o’ kisses, o’ course,” Tedda went on, “but they hadn’t come my way specially. I don’t mind tellin’ I was that took aback at that man’s doin’s he might ha’ lit fire-crackers on my saddle. Then we went out jest’s if a kiss was nothin’, an’ I wasn’t three strides into my gait ‘fore I felt the boss knoo his business, an’ was trustin’ me. So I studied to please him, an’ he never took the whip from the dash — a whip drives me plumb distracted — an’ the upshot was that — waal, I’ve come up the Back Pasture to-day, an’ the coupe’s tipped clear over twice, an’ I’ve waited till ‘twuz fixed each time. You kin judge for yourselves. I don’t set up to be no better than my neighbours, — specially with my tail snipped off the way ‘tis, — but I want you all to know Tedda’s quit fightin’ in harness or out of it, ‘cep’ when there’s a born fool in the pasture, stuffin’ his stummick with board that ain’t rightly hisn, ‘cause he hain’t earned it.”

“Meanin’ me, madam?” said the yellow horse.

“Ef the shoe fits, clinch it,” said Tedda, snorting. “I named no names, though, to be sure, some folks are mean enough an’ greedy enough to do ‘thout ‘em.”

“There’s a deal to be forgiven to ignorance,” said the yellow horse, with an ugly look in his blue eye.

“Seemin’ly, yes; or some folks ‘u’d ha’ been kicked raound the pasture ‘bout onct a minute sence they came — board er no board.”

“But what you do not understand, if you will excuse me, madam, is that the whole principle o’ servitood, which includes keep an’ feed, starts from a radically false basis; an’ I am proud to say that me an’ the majority o’ the horses o’ Kansas think the entire concern should be relegated to the limbo of exploded superstitions. I say we’re too progressive for that. I say we’re too enlightened for that. ‘Twas good enough’s long’s we didn’t think, but naow — but naow — a new loominary has arisen on the horizon!”

“Meanin’ you?” said the Deacon.

“The horses o’ Kansas are behind me with their multitoodinous thunderin’ hooves, an’ we say, simply but grandly, that we take our stand with all four feet on the inalienable rights of the horse, pure and simple, — the high-toned child o’ nature, fed by the same wavin’ grass, cooled by the same ripplin’ brook — yes, an’ warmed by the same gen’rous sun as falls impartially on the outside an’ the inside of the pampered machine o’ the trottin’-track, or the bloated coupe-horses o’ these yere Eastern cities. Are we not the same flesh an’ blood?”

“Not by a bushel an’ a half,” said the Deacon, under his breath. “Grandee never was in Kansas.”

“My! Ain’t that elegant, though, abaout the wavin’ grass an’ the ripplin’ brooks?” Tuck whispered in Nip’s ear. “The gentleman’s real convincin’ I think.”

“I say we are the same flesh an’ blood! Are we to be separated, horse from horse, by the artificial barriers of a trottin’-record, or are we to look down upon each other on the strength o’ the gifts o’ nature — an extry inch below the knee, or slightly more powerful quarters? What’s the use o’ them advantages to you? Man the Oppressor comes along, an’ sees you’re likely an’ good-lookin’, an’ grinds you to the face o’ the earth. What for? For his own pleasure: for his own convenience! Young an’ old, black an’ bay, white an’ grey, there’s no distinctions made between us. We’re ground up together under the remorseless teeth o’ the engines of oppression!”

“Guess his breechin’ must ha’ broke goin’ daown-hill,” said the Deacon. “Slippery road, maybe, an’ the buggy come onter him, an’ he didn’t know ‘nough to hold back. That don’t feel like teeth, though. Maybe he busted a shaft, an’ it pricked him.”

“An’ I come to you from Kansas, wavin’ the tail o’ friendship to all an’ sundry, an’ in the name of the uncounted millions o’ pure-minded, high-toned horses now strugglin’ towards the light o’ freedom, I say to you, Rub noses with us in our sacred an’ holy cause. The power is yourn. Without you, I say, Man the Oppressor cannot move himself from place to place. Without you he cannot reap, he cannot sow, he cannot plough.”

“Mighty odd place, Kansas!” said Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. “Seemin’ly they reap in the spring an’ plough in the fall. ‘Guess it’s right fer them, but ‘twould make me kinder giddy.”

“The produc’s of your untirin’ industry would rot on the ground if you did not weakly consent to help him. Let ‘em rot, I say! Let him call you to the stables in vain an’ nevermore! Let him shake his ensnarin’ oats under your nose in vain! Let the Brahmas roost in the buggy, an’ the rats run riot round the reaper! Let him walk on his two hind feet till they blame well drop off! Win no more soul-destroyn’ races for his pleasure! Then, an’ not till then, will Man the Oppressor know where he’s at. Quit workin’, fellow-sufferers an’ slaves! Kick! Rear! Plunge! Lie down on the shafts, an’ woller! Smash an’ destroy! The conflict will be but short, an’ the victory is certain. After that we can press our inalienable rights to eight quarts o’ oats a day, two good blankets, an’ a fly-net an’ the best o’ stablin’.”