“I wish I’d been here! He wouldn’t then—’cause I know. See. He’s all gentle now. You may put your hand on his nose; but it must be kind—kind—’cause that’s the way.”
Diablo did permit his master to fondle him; and at the first touch of the delicate nostrils all the Judge’s love for horse-flesh sprang to the front, and with it a subtler appreciation of horse-nature than he had ever before known. “Poor fellow! Is it so? Are you not really vicious?—then I’ll not part with you.”
“Part with him? Why, sir?”
“Because I thought he would be useless to us. I bought him for a carriage horse, to match that other colt, Brown Bess; but, while she is breaking in like a kitten, he has resisted everybody. I think he will again—after you go away from him.”
“Then I won’t go away. Oh, wait a moment! I’ve thought of something. S’posin’ you teach Diablo to be your very own, ownest horse; s’posin’ you don’t let any grooms or anybody do anything for him but just you, yourself! You could make him as smart as Tito, maybe.”
“‘Maybe’? Is Tito so brilliant, then?” asked the Judge, smiling, and greatly delighted that Diablo now stood quietly beside them, nibbling at the grass or sniffing about Steenie’s curly head, without resenting their presence or voices. Sutro and Beatrice had also drawn near and leaned against the paling to hear what the others were saying.
“Why—he doesn’t—shine. That’s ‘brilliant,’ isn’t it? But he’s awful ’telligy—I mean intelligent. Bob says, ‘He’s the brainiest horse he’s ’quainted with, an’ sweetest tempered to boot.’ He knows every single word I say to him; and if he can’t talk much with his tongue, he does with his actions an’ his eyes. He drives without reins, an’ he waltzes—beau-u-tifully! An’ he limps, an’ ‘goes it blind,’ an’ does the cutestest things you ever saw a horse do. Oh, won’t you let Diablo be just as clever? Either for your own self or Beatrice? Wouldn’t you like Diablo for your very own, Beatrice?”
“No; I should not,” answered that young person, decisively.
“I’ve half a mind to try your notion, little one! There’s no fool like an old fool, they say; and, maybe, I shall do better at horse-training than at law. It’s a step upwards, too, from the ‘bench’ to the saddle! But—I confess I’m very ignorant. The ‘breaking’ of my horses has always been left to professional trainers. I have, heretofore, been perfectly satisfied to accept results only.”
“It seems perfectly funny to hear ’bout ‘breaking’ horses like they were dishes. Bob says it’s a wrong word, an’ it’s ’sponsible for more suffering to the poor things ’an any other word in the language.”