Adopting an Abandoned Farm | Page 7

"I hate to part with her, even for
the summer. She has been a famous racer in Canada--can travel easily
twenty-five miles a day. Will go better at the end of the journey than at
the beginning. I hear you are an accomplished driver, so I send my pet
to your care without anxiety."
I sent a man to her home to drive out with this delightful treasure, and
pictured myself taking long and daily drives over our excellent country
roads. Nellie, dear Nellie; I loved her already. How I would pet her,
and how fond she would become of me. Two lumps of sugar at least,
every day for her, and red ribbons for the whip. How she would dash
along! A horse for me at last! About 1.45 A.M., of the next day, a
carriage was heard slowly entering the yard. I could hardly wait until
morning to gloat over my gentle racer! At early dawn I visited the
stable and found John disgusted beyond measure with my bargain. A

worn-out, tumble-down, rickety carriage with wobbling wheels, and an
equally worn-out, thin, dejected, venerable animal, with an immense
blood spavin on left hind leg, recently blistered! It took three weeks of
constant doctoring, investment in Kendall's Spavin Cure, and
consultation with an expensive veterinary surgeon, to get the whilom
race horse into a condition to slowly walk to market. I understood now
the force of the one truthful clause--"She will go better at the end of the
drive than at the beginning," for it was well-nigh impossible to get her
stiff legs started without a fire kindled under them and a measure of
oats held enticingly before her. It was enraging, but nothing to after
experiences. All the disappointed livery men, their complaisance and
cordiality, wholly a thing of the past, were jubilant that I had been so
imposed upon by some one, even if they had failed. And their looks, as
they wheeled rapidly by me, as I crept along with the poor, suffering,
limping "Nellie," were almost more than I could endure.
Horses were again brought for inspection, and there was a repetition of
previous horrors. At last a man came from Mossgrown. He had an
honest face; he knew of a man who knew of a man whose brother had
just the horse for me, "sound, stylish, kind, gentle as a lamb, fast as the
wind." Profiting by experience, I said I would look at it. Next day, a
young man, gawky and seemingly unsophisticated, brought the animal.
It looked well enough, and I was so tired. He was anxious to sell, but
only because he was going to be married and go West; needed money.
And he said with sweet simplicity: "Now I ain't no jockey, I ain't! You
needn't be afeard of me--I say just what I mean. I want spot cash, I do,
and you can have horse, carriage, and harness for $125 down." He gave
me a short drive, and we did go "like the wind." I thought the steed
very hard to hold in, but he convinced me that it was not so. I decided
to take the creature a week on trial, which was a blow to that guileless
young man. And that very afternoon I started for the long, pleasant
drive I had been dreaming about since early spring.
The horse looked quiet enough, but I concluded to take my German
domestic along for extra safety. I remembered his drawling direction,
"Doan't pull up the reins unless you want him to go pretty lively," so
held the reins rather loosely for a moment only, for this last hope

wheeled round the corner as if possessed, and after trotting, then
breaking, then darting madly from side to side, started into a full run. I
pulled with all my might; Gusta stood up and helped. No avail. On we
rushed to sudden death. No one in sight anywhere. With one Herculean
effort, bred of the wildest despair, we managed to rein him in at a sharp
right angle, and we succeeded in calming his fury, and tied the panting,
trembling fiend to a post. Then Gusta mounted guard while I walked
home in the heat and dirt, fully half a mile to summon John.
I learned that that horse had never before been driven by a woman. He
evidently was not pleased.
Soon the following appeared among the local items of interest in the
Gooseville Clarion:
Uriel Snooks, who has been working in the cheese factory at Frogville,
is now to preside over chair number four in Baldwin's Tonsorial
Establishment on Main Street.
Kate Sanborn is trying another horse.
These bits of information in the papers were a boon to the various
reporters, but most annoying to me. The Bungtown Gazetteer
announced