I felt like a colt, and kicking up my hoofs, raced through the barnyard gates and across the road to the long strip of sandy shore in front of the farm.
While I was drinking and playing with the water by blowing it through my nostrils, a bullhead came, and stared at me, then a full-grown bass gave me a very friendly wink.
We ponies don't have much to say to fishes except by eye-talk. These fellows had some intelligence. They were shy and wild with the children I soon found out, because they fished for them most persistently. However, an old bass told me one day that they were very grateful to the children for fishing with barbless hooks.
I once knew a mother fish on the Maine coast who deliberately gave her life for her little fishes. They were caught in a pool when the tide went out. She couldn't get them to follow her to deep water, so she stayed and perished beside them. When I said to her as she flopped about in the shallow water, "Leave them and call for them next tide," she rolled her dying eyes at me and said, "I can't—they're my little fishes."
Therefore I have great respect for fish. Indeed, I find in my pony life that if you despise any created thing it surprises you.
After I got my nice long drink this morning, I galloped back to the farmyard.
"Go slow, go slow, be careful," someone clucked, and looking down I saw Biddy Pilgrim and a flock of Plymouth Rock hens.
She was quite excited, and began to talk to them about me.
"This is the new pony—he has a good eye. He's kind to hens. Don't put your heads on one side. He won't scare you. Come on. I like ponies. Horses are too big."
"Cut, cut, ca, da, dee," they all said, and I put my head down to them in a kind manner, for to tell the truth there is just a little jealousy between us little ponies and the bigger horses.