| [4] | Animal Intelligence, by J. G. Romanes, p. 1. D. Appleton & Co., 1888. |
CAPTAIN’S OWN STORY
I was born on June 8, 1905, on the farm of Judge J. H. Cartwright, in Oregon, Ill. My mother’s name was Robey, and my father’s, Sidney. While I was a little colt the Judge called me Sid Bell. He used to come to the barn and look me over and recount what he called my “points” to his friends, and when I was in the pasture running to and fro, kicking up my heels, and thoroughly enjoying myself, he would stand looking on, apparently thinking very hard. One day the groom tied me to my mother’s side, and the Judge drove her out over the road, and he seemed very pleased at the way I trotted along. Day after day he did this, for a long time, making me go faster and faster until I heard him, and other people, say that I was going to be a very fast pacer. My lungs expanded with the exercise; my muscles grew strong and firm; my eyes were bright and clear; I had a hearty appetite and enjoyed every mouthful I ate, and every day when they turned me loose in the pasture, I raced up and down just as proud and happy and full of life and exuberant spirits as ever possessed a young horse in all the wide world.
One day the Judge took me out on what was called a “track.” It was a smooth oval place, not very wide, arranged solely for the purpose of driving horses. They fastened a light little cart behind me, hardly big enough for my groom to sit in, and then he made me go around that track as hard as I could go. Of course he let me go easy at first, until I—what he called—“warmed up,” and then he would say, “Now, Sid Bell. Go to it!” and would give that peculiar clicking sound that men make when they want a horse to hurry up, and I paced ahead as fast as I knew how.
The Judge used to come and watch proceedings nearly every day, and give suggestions to my groom. Some days he would be very proud and boastful about me, and other times, not quite so well satisfied. But one day, when I was feeling particularly good, and had gone around the track at a lively clip, I heard him say “He’ll do! He made it that time in 2:16,” which I afterwards learned meant that I had paced a mile in two minutes and sixteen seconds, and that was accounted pretty fast for a two-year-old colt.
When I was nearly three years old the Judge sold me to Mr. W. A. Sigsbee of Chicago. My mother had told me, one day when Mr. Sigsbee came to the track to watch me pace, that he was a great animal trainer, known all over the country as Captain Sigsbee. I heard the Captain say “He’s a beauty. His action is fine,” and when I was brought up to where he and the Judge were standing he repeated these and many other comments, all of a nature to make a young horse like me think a good deal of himself, so that I looked at him and let him know by my eyes that I liked him to speak in that way about me. Then he began to talk about my “intelligent look” and all at once he exclaimed, quite emphatically: “Judge, I’ve got to have that colt. I want to train him and make him the best known horse in the world.” The Judge didn’t seem to like this idea very much, at first. He said he had trained me for the track, and he didn’t intend to part with me, but Captain Sigsbee urged so strongly that it would be far better for me, to keep me away from the track, and let me be especially trained and then sent out through the country as an educated horse, that finally he consented to sell me.
My mother was very sorry to have me go away from her, and I was sorry to go, but she seemed to find a great deal of comfort in the fact that I should no longer be on the track; I should have a much less strenuous life than racing, and that the education my new owner wished to give me would also be much to my advantage in other ways.
So Captain Sigsbee took me to Chicago. And my! what a noisy, bustling city it was. How different from the quiet country where I was born and so far had spent my life. And the smells! Why, I smelled more horrible smells in one day there, I think, than I had smelled in all my life before. The same with the noises. People think horses don’t care about smells and noises. Don’t they? I was jumping and nervous all the time with the new and awful noises that seemed to rush at me from every direction. Street cars, roaring, rushing and their bell clanging; automobiles honking right in my ears; wagons rumbling over the stones; men shouting; women and girls talking with high-pitched voices; babies squalling; policemen whistling at the street crossings; newsboys shouting their papers; beggars grinding away on their pitiful little organs; and a thousand other noises, many of which I had never before heard. As we were crossing one of the streets or avenues a new noise came rushing at me, as fast as an automobile travels, but it was over my head. I looked up, but could see nothing but trestle-work above me, and the noise was loud enough to be felt. Nearer it came, until with a rush and a roar, it seemed to fall on me, and I reared and struggled and even screamed in my terror. Then in a moment the fierce noise of it was gone, and it gradually grew less and less. But in another street I had the same experience. Captain spoke quietingly and soothingly to me and told me I needn’t be scared as it was “only the elevated railway,” but I didn’t know then what he meant. Of course, I learned all about it later, and then I was no longer scared.
At the training-barn I had a fine large box-stall, the floor covered with clean, sweet-smelling hay, where I could lie down and rest whenever I felt like it. My new owner was very kind to me. He came to see me several times a day, and brought his friends, and told them how proud he was of me. He always brought me an apple, a carrot, a lump of sugar or something I liked, and I soon watched for his coming. I learned to love him. But I did not like being left alone in that strange place, and with so many disagreeable smells and noises around me. When he went away I tried to beg him not to go. I would “nose up” to him and even try to hold him, but he only called me “a cunning rascal,” and broke away. Then I would whinny and paw and paw so that I was sure if he had any real horse-sense he would surely know what I meant, and that I was telling him so clearly that even a mule or a donkey would understand that I did not want him to leave me alone. But poor creature, he was only a man, and didn’t have horse-sense, so I was left. When he came again I showed him by my gladness and the reality of my welcome how glad I was he had come.
One day while he was away some rude and noisy men got into a quarrel outside the stable, and they fought, and swore, and made an awful noise. One of them fired a gun or a revolver at the other, and the hubbub was terrible. I was dreadfully alarmed, and when the Captain came, a little while after, I was lathered all over with the sweat that had poured out of me because I was so afraid.