Poised at a dizzy height, on wobbly, spindly legs, which showed little promise of the symmetry and beauty of later years, he romped near his mother’s protecting heels or rested in her shadow.
His merry, laughing companion was a brook which flowed down to the river; he played along its willow-fringed banks, racing with the beckoning waters until out of breath; then, hurrying back to his mother through the gathering dusk, he would return with her to their pleasant stable in the barnyard of Silas Whitman.
His developing colt-nature expanded, day by day, to the beauties and interests about him. He loved the twinkling waters, the overhanging trees, the ferns spiralling among dark-green shadows; the delicate scent of violets, peeping between moss-covered stones, delighted his sensitive nostrils. He loved the birds, fluttering and swaying on boughs and chirping soft, sweet notes. In response to all Nature his small-pointed ears pricked and quivered. He blew his warm breath for fun on butterflies and bees, as they fussed over dew-wet blossoms, but swerved aside, with trembling nostrils, at the strident cry of a jay, waiting in the shadow for his chance of a practical joke!
The hoot of an owl, the bark of a fox, the crashing of a squirrel through the branches overhead, would make him scamper to his mother’s side, panting and excited.
These were his baby fears; his real and lasting antipathy was to dogs; the distant howling of one seemed to fill him with terror; thunderstorms, too, made him nervous and, so impressible was he to these, he could tell, two days in advance, that one was coming; only much urging could prevail upon him to leave the security of his stable when he felt the approach of one.
Gradually his mother taught him all that one good, faithful horse can teach another, not to show fear, not to shy, not to kick and never to be taken by surprise. He was happy and care-free then, for he did not have to wear hard straps, called harness, nor draw heavy loads, nor wear iron shoes; and his bare, sensitive hoofs soon learned to tell the difference between safe and dangerous ground. His sense of smell was singularly acute and standing close to his mother’s side—that she might better brush the flies from both, with her long, useful tail—he learned to distinguish poisonous from wholesome weeds.
Master Whitman called him True Briton, 2d, for his celebrated father, True Briton, but the double name was soon shortened to the very appropriate one of “True.” And, for convenience, we shall speak of his mother as Gipsey.
Gipsey was one of those mothers, unknown to history, but to whose early influence her son possibly owed much of his success in later life. Sometimes it was necessary for her to reprove him; she nipped him sharply, if he were playful at the wrong time, or kicked too strongly in fun; but she never had to admonish him twice about anything on account of his remarkable memory.
One day, when she had to correct him, and was conscious of having lost her temper, she neighed apologetically.
“Alas, my son, I am no better than a woman!”