CEPH’S UNHAPPY FATE.
Never had Ceph been treated kindly by anyone; he’d never had “half a chance in life,” as Gipsey said. Nobody ever praised him, everybody blamed him, and he had nothing but blows and hard words for his portion. Even his food, which always came irregularly, had to be gobbled, for fear time enough to eat it comfortably would not be given him! Nobody ever rubbed him down when he was hot and tired, and his work was harder and more exacting than that of the other two.
For the most part he took it philosophically, with only an occasional groan until, perhaps, he saw better food measured out for his neighbors than was measured out for him, then he stamped and grunted and sometimes bit at them, crossly.
For many years he had been subject to spavin, at times his hock swelled badly and he went lame and limped painfully. At last Silas could close his eyes no longer to the fact that unless something were done for the old horse he would become entirely useless.
In Springfield a horse doctor lived who knew, among other things, how to “fire” a spavined hock. True had once seen this man thrust a sharp knife into a horse’s mouth who had lampers; the flow of warm red blood had made the colt shudder and, remembering this, he was very sorry when he found out this cruel person was to visit Ceph.
Gipsey recalled that this Dr. Quack had once been sent for to see a neighbor’s suffering cow; he arrived, looking wise and solemn, and declared the cow had a disease called “hollow-horn.” He thereupon split her tail lengthwise and filled the raw opening with salt and pepper.[5]
The poor cow died, and none but her barn-mates knew the distressing fact that she had really died of “hollow stomach,” not “hollow horn,” because their owner was so cruelly economical with food!
It was with no little sorrow that True recognized the coarse, rasping voice of the “doctor” when he came to see Ceph late one evening.
Through a crack in their darkening stalls True espied the red-hot crow-bar, and the guttering tallow dip Silas had lighted and brought from the kitchen.
Piebald Ceph had always been a mild-tempered horse, but scarce had the firing-iron touched his hock than he sent it—and the candle—flying into the hayloft, with an unexpected and well-directed kick.
Before a horse could have whinneyed the place was in flames, the dry hay dropping in blazing bunches from overhead.
A diabolic scene followed!
Seconds passed like hours.
True jerked his halter loose in terror, snapping the rope sharply; his heart almost ceased to beat, he was so frightened. Gipsey, locked in her stall, uttered a scream, as horses sometimes do when overcome with fear: old Ceph, crowding into the extreme corner of his stable, groaned pitifully.
It was like a roaring furnace, the heat intense, the smoke suffocating.
The shouting of the men was drowned in the confused mingling of horrible sounds as the flames leaped and licked the dry hay and caught the well-seasoned timbers.
The horrid odor of burnt hair, a sudden silence in Ceph’s stall, told a heart-rending tale. The echoes of his mother’s cry had hardly died away when True felt a cool, wet cloth thrown over his eyes and held tightly; something struck him violently, and a voice spoke to him in such a tone of command that he forgot everything and, trembling like a leaf, allowed himself to be led into the outer air.
Then, vaguely at first, he recognized Mistress Whitman’s tones, soothing now, and tender, albeit very shaky!
“Come, my little pet, there’s naught to fear now!”
And, trusting her, the colt followed tractably enough as she led him up two stone steps into the kitchen and took the bandage from his eyes.
Then she hurried out, closing the door tight.
An awful crash, a sudden greater roar, then ominous silence—the barn roof had fallen in!
“Alas, my poor mother!” groaned True.
The rattling of a tin pan at his side made him turn; to his everlasting joy he saw Gipsey, safe and sound as himself, shut up in the kitchen.
Gipsey was an excitable mare, and began to prance about the place in an unseemly way, switching kettles and pewter pots off the table with her nervous tail and knocking them to the floor with a monstrous racket.
Finally she pushed the cover from the swinging pot on the crane. Luckily the fire had been out some time and the delicious contents of the pot barely warm, else she would have had her nose burned. The odor of the mash proved very enticing and she was greedily, or maybe thoughtlessly, about to drink it all, when True pushed her one side, as if to remind her of her manners, and finished it himself—little dreaming, either one of them, it was the Whitman’s frugal supper.
During their feast the uproar outside had subsided, and in a little while Silas and his wife came in, saying it was all over with poor old Ceph.
The noses of the two rescued horses were gray and greasy with the rich mash, but in the thankfulness of their escape the Whitmans cared nothing for that. Mistress Whitman put her cheek against True’s soupy face and sobbed in a very womanish way for joy at his being spared to them.
The young horse submitted patiently to her caresses, though her hair, looking like dry, crisp hay, smelled mortally of smoke; he saw it was a comfort to her woman-heart to hang about his neck and murmur softly in his ear:
“True, dear little horse,” she whispered. “It doesn’t matter about Ceph.”
“There it is again,” thought True. “Nobody cares whether poor old Ceph is burnt up or not.”
And nobody did, as long as Gipsey and he were saved.