The Horse Tamer (3 page)

Bill knew exactly why his father had sent Hank to him this summer. And he was aware of his responsibility in setting a good example, for Hank would watch everything he did with quiet, reverent eyes.

“… and don’t forget those buggy whips,” Hank was concluding excitedly. “Maybe he’d been beaten and just the sight of them—”

“No,” Bill answered. “I don’t think we’ll find it’s whips he’s scared of. Although I do know Caspersen made matters a lot worse by beating him when he balked. Nope, Hank, this colt’s scared of something besides whips. It’s something simple and we’re goin’ to find out what it is.”

Back at the stable Hank asked, “What do you want me to do, Bill?” His voice was eager but respectful, the
younger toward the older. “I can find some of the things that were in the wagon. We can try them one at a time.… ”

“No, Hank, we won’t need many. That is, I hope we won’t.”

“But you said—”

“I said we’d find out what’s scarin’ this colt an’ we will,” Bill interrupted. “But look at it this way. He not only balks but he runs away. One moment Caspersen can’t start him an’ the next he can’t stop him. So I figure it might have more to do with
noise
than things.”

“You mean the rattling of all that tinware maybe?” Hank asked.

Bill Dailey nodded. “It makes more sense to me that way. First the colt won’t go because if he does the noise behind him starts up. And for some reason he’s afraid of it. So when he’s
made
to go, he runs away tryin’ to get clear of it.”

They gathered all the stable pails they could find and put them in the back of the wagon. From the moment one pail clanged against another the colt became uneasy. At first there were only little spots of perspiration on his gray coat but later, as Bill Dailey intentionally banged the pails against each other, white lather appeared between the colt’s hind legs. He began digging into the dirt road with his right foreleg.

When Bill Dailey took up the reins and clucked, the colt wouldn’t budge. “There’s our balker,” Bill said quietly.

“The noise made by Capersen’s pails and tinware is our answer then,” Hank added. “But why is he scared, Bill?”

“I don’t know, and it’s not important just now. All we need to do is to teach him that he has nothin’ to fear from such noise.”

“Maybe he stepped in a pail and hurt himself once,” Hank suggested.

“Maybe he did. It’s happened before.” But the man wasn’t talking to the boy. His words were for the colt and they were as soft and kind as his hands. He rubbed him and soothed him, humming all the while, and then he gave him an apple.

Later he removed all the pails from the wagon and, slinging one over an arm, returned to the colt. The animal fastened frightened eyes on the pail but Bill ignored it completely, merely continuing to talk soothingly to him. Soon he got the colt to take one step forward and then another. Finally he was able to walk him up and down the road, the pail swinging lightly between them. The colt’s eyes never left it but no longer did he perspire in the cool morning air.

By noon Bill Dailey was able to drop the pail on the road without upsetting the colt. Still later in the day he was kicking it, sending it along with loud and seemingly never-ending clanks. When the colt had become so accustomed to the noise that he ignored the pail completely, Bill told his brother that he felt their work was done.

Throwing the pail into the wagon, he picked up the reins. “Now, boy,” he said, “let’s go home!”

The colt went down the road at a hard trot, the pail rattling and the dust and dirt rising in his wake.

Finn Caspersen returned the following afternoon and the gray colt was hitched up to his loaded wagon.
He drove noisily down the road and back, stopping and starting at will. Finally he said in amazement, “Dailey, I wouldn’t have believed this possible. What did you do to him? What system did you use?”

“My own,” Bill answered, smiling faintly. “A few apples and a pat on the head.”

The big man removed his stovepipe hat. “Be honest with me, sir! I know nothing about horses except how to drive them in the course of my work but I would pay five dollars to learn what you did!”

“It’s not worth five dollars,” Bill protested. “Your colt was afraid of all the noise your pots, pans an’ pails made. I showed him that he needn’t be. That’s all there was to it. Trouble is, mister, you didn’t even take the time to find out.”

Finn Caspersen drew himself up to his full height. He didn’t relish being criticized so sharply.

“Pails, pots and pans you say?” he asked finally, regaining his professional composure. “Now that you mention pails I recall …” He paused to run a big hand through his unruly hair. “It most certainly does fit very well with what you have told me.” He paused again, this time breaking out into hearty laughter before he went on.

“I remember this colt as a weanling,” Caspersen said with the air of one about to tell a good story. “He belonged to a friend in Harrisburg who had no pasture. Since the colt was very friendly he was allowed to go grazing on people’s lawns. They all got to thinking of him as they would a big dog. But one old man in the neighborhood got sore and tied a big tin pail to his tail
to frighten him off. The colt was all right until he moved; then when the pail started rattling and thumping against his heels it scared the daylights out of him and he took off. The faster he ran the worse it became. I don’t know how they ever caught up with him.”

As he finished Finn Caspersen became uneasy and his gaze shifted from Bill Dailey to the boy standing alongside. “Of course, I’d forgotten all about it. It was a long time ago.”

“But the colt didn’t forget,” Bill said quietly.

“I realize that now. Should have thought of it, of course. But that’s not the way my mind runs. Say, it didn’t take you long to figure it out, though!” He slapped Bill on the shoulder, glancing around the stable yard as he did so. “It occurs to me, sir, that you’re in the wrong business. You seem to have more horses around here than carriages.”

Bill Dailey shrugged. “That’s because I’ve been trading carriages for horses,” he answered, slightly amused by Caspersen’s criticism. “They had bad habits, all of them. I guess that’s how we got together. They needed help and I traded for ’em.”

“You should
sell
what you know, sir,” the big man went on persuasively. “If it’s worth five dollars to me it’s worth the same to a lot of other people.”

“I’m a carriage-maker,” Bill answered, with a sudden rush of pride in his craft. “Last year I took first prize at two county fairs in Berks, first for a single carriage, the second for a double.”

“You do all the work yourself?” Caspersen asked. “All the painting and trimming? You do that, too?”

“Yep.”

“And you think you’ll be able to compete with the big carriage manufacturers much longer? Have you been in that new Studebaker Brothers store over in Pottstown? Why, sir, they’re giving door prizes just for going in and
looking
at their wagons! How can you compete against a big firm like that? And have you seen the special buggy Sears, Roebuck is selling for $54.70?” he asked hurriedly. “You haven’t? Look here, then!”

Pulling a huge catalog from behind the wagon seat, Finn Caspersen opened it to page 692 and shoved it into Bill Dailey’s arms. “Are you going to be able to compete against the ‘Cheapest Supply House on Earth,’ sir? Are you?”

“No, I can’t make a carriage for that,” Bill admitted calmly but with some of the sadness, too, of a man whose bridges were being burned behind him. He flipped over the hundreds of pages displaying all kinds of merchandise before handing the catalog back to Caspersen. “Any more than
you
can sell your things cheaper.”

Finn Caspersen said agreeably, “That’s right, sir, but I have other ways of earning a living—and so have
you.
” He paused for effect, then continued in a confidential, friendly tone. “There’s a farmer over in Pottstown who has a mare that bites worse than any horse I’ve ever seen. It’s worth ten dollars to him to get her cured. I’ve heard him say so a dozen times. You could do it for him, Bill. You sure could.”

“I’d be glad to help him out,” Bill said. “But I don’t want his money.”

“Let me take care of that end,” Finn Caspersen said hastily. “You just take care of his mare. Let me worry about everything else.”

“She shouldn’t be bitin’ like you say,” Bill mused. “She’ll hurt somebody bad if she isn’t taught to stop.”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say, Bill. You’ll take her on, then?”

“Somebody ought to help her or she’ll get herself into a peck of trouble.”

“Somebody sure had, Bill. Will it be you? Will it?”

“All right. Tomorrow. I got time to do it tomorrow.”

“I must warn you,” the Pottstown farmer said, “that she’s the most vicious, biting mare known in this end of the county. When turned loose, she runs at a man with all the ferocity of a bulldog. I would’ve got rid of her long ago if I hadn’t paid so much for her.”

He finished milking his cows and concluded, “We’ll have some breakfast and then go see her.”

“We’ve eaten,” Bill Dailey said impatiently. “I’d like to get started. I got work at home. That’s why we came so early.”

The farmer smiled. “You cure my mare like Mr. Caspersen says you can an’ it’ll be enough work for one day. Fifty dollars is a lot of money for a day’s work.”

“F-Fifty dollars?” Bill stammered unbelievingly.

Finn Caspersen explained. “I suggested to Mr. Boyer that he gather ten of his neighbors, at five dollars each, to watch your performance, Bill. You will then be giving instruction to ten persons at a nominal charge.
You might say,” he added, “that you are about to conduct your first class in horse taming.”

“I’m no horse-tamer,” Bill protested. “I just want to help out Mr. Boyer.”

“And that you’ll be doing, son,” the farmer said, “if you can handle her.”

“Did she bite when you bought her?” Bill asked, wanting to get back to the mare.

“Just nipped, but she went from bad to worse. I couldn’t do anything with her.”

“Did you try?” Bill asked.

The farmer shifted uneasily. “Not often. You see, it became too dangerous to approach her. I had no choice but to leave her alone. I even had to feed her from above.”

“Y’mean you left her alone in her stall?” Bill asked incredulously. “Y’never even took her out?”

“It’s a large stall,” Mr. Boyer said defensively. “She has plenty of room, as you’ll see for yourself. You don’t need to feel sorry for her.”

Bill shook his head. “But you encouraged her to resist control,” he said. “No wonder she’s become vicious.”

“I’m a farmer,” the man replied, “not a horse-tamer. I expect obedience from my animals and not a fight every time I go near them.”

“Obedience has to be taught,” Bill pointed out, “or encouraged, anyway. You’ve done nothing for this mare.”

“And what will
you
do?” the farmer asked sharply. He was becoming irritated by Bill Dailey’s criticism and self-reliant air.

“First, I’ve got to teach her all over again that she can be controlled. You’ve made resistance very exciting to her.”

The farmer grinned. “I suspect you’re goin’ to find it pretty exciting yourself, son. It’ll be worth the money just to watch the show you an’ Wild Bess put on.”

“I’m not puttin’ on any show,” Bill replied quietly. “What I do for your mare will only be the beginning. Once I get her used to bein’ handled again you’ve got to treat her right. She’s got to get over whatever resentment she’s built up against people. You can do it just as easy as you made biting an exciting game for her. Win her confidence by good, kind handling. It won’t take long. It never does.”

“You get her so she can be handled and I’ll take care of the rest,” the farmer retorted. “You talk good but I’m wonderin’ just how far you’re going to get with Wild Bess.”

When they returned to the barn a little later, Mr. Boyer’s neighbors were awaiting them. One man eyed the thin cord Bill Dailey carried in his hand and said, “ ’Pears to me you’re goin’ to be needing a lot more than that, mister.”

“At least a ten-foot pole,” another joined in, laughing. “I guess he’s never seen Wild Bess, hey, boys?”

They went to the second floor of the barn, where there was a large entryway flanked by haymows. A box stall could be seen at the far end.

“You’ll have plenty of room here,” the farmer said, sliding shut the two large barn doors behind them.

Bill nodded, meanwhile watching Mr. Boyer’s
neighbors climb the rungs of a ladder to sit on a high beam. “You’d better get up there, too,” he told his brother and Finn Caspersen.

“Are you sure you don’t want a pole?” Wild Bess’s owner asked. “She’s not even wearin’ a halter.”

“Then I’ll need a slip-noose halter,” Bill replied. “That’s all. Then you can go too. I’ll open the door myself.”

A few minutes later he walked toward the stall. He was anxious to see Wild Bess for he had learned to associate a horse’s disposition and character with its color, eyes, ears and contours. He wasn’t often wrong, and knowing what to expect gave him an advantage over the animal.