“Now, the fox has the right knee action, and the leg is ‘thar.’ In the real knee movement, there is a peculiar spring, that must be seen to be known and valued, words don’t give you the idea of it. It’s like the wire end of a pair of galluses—oh, it’s charming. It’s down and off in a jiffy, like a gall’s finger on a piano when she is doin’ chromatic runs. Fact is, if I am walking out, and see a critter with it, I have to stop and stare; and, Doctor, I will tell you a queer thing. Halt and look at a splendid movin’ hoss, and the rider is pleased; he thinks half the admiration is for him, as rider and owner, and t’other half for his trotter. The gony’s delighted, chirups his beast, gives him a sly touch up with the off heel, and shows him off to advantage. But stop and look at a woman, and she is as mad as a hatter. She don’t care how much you look at her, as long as you don’t stand still or turn your head round. She wouldn’t mind slackin’ her pace if you only attended to that.
“Now the fox has that special springy movement I speak of, and he puts his foot down flat, he bends the grass rather to him, than from him, if anything, but most commonly crumples it flat; but you never see it inclinin’ in the line of the course he is runnin’—never. Fact is, they never get a hoist, and that is a very curious word, it has a very different meanin’ at sea from what it has on land. In one case it means to haul up, in the other to fall down. The term ‘look out’ is just the same.
“A canal boat was once passing through a narrow lock on the Erie line, and the captain hailed the passengers and said, ‘Look out.’ Well, a Frenchman thinking something strange was to be seen, popt his head out, and it was cut off in a minute. ‘Oh, mon Dieu!’ said his comrade, ‘dat is a very striking lesson in English. On land, look out means, open de window and see what you will see. On board canal boat it means, haul your head in, and don’t look at nothin’.’
“Well, the worst hoist that I ever had was from a very high-actioned mare, the down foot slipped, and t’other was too high to be back in time for her to recover, and over both of us went kerlash in the mud. I was skeered more about her than myself, lest she should git the skin of her knee cut, for to a knowing one’s eye that’s an awful blemish. It’s a long story to tell how such a blemish warn’t the hoss’s fault, for I’d rather praise than apologize for a critter any time. And there is one thing few-people knows. Let the cut come which way it will, the animal is never so safe afterwards. Nature’s bandage, the skin, is severed, and that leg is the weakest.
“Well, as I was a sayin’, Doctor, there is the knee action and the foot action, and then there is a third thing. The leg must be just thar.”
“Where?” said the doctor.
“Thar,” said I, “there is only one place for that, and that is ‘thar,’ well forward at the shoulder-point, and not where it most commonly is, too much under the body—for if it’s too far back he stumbles, or too forward he can’t ‘pick chips quick stick.’ Doctor, I am a borin’ of you, but the fact is, when I get a goin’ ‘talkin’ hoss,’ I never know where to stop. How much better tempered they are than half the women in the world, ain’t they? and I don’t mean to undervally the dear critters neither by no manner of means, and how much more sense they have than half the men either, after all their cracking and bragging! How grateful they are for kindness, how attached to you they get. How willin’ they are to race like dry dust in a thunder squall, till they die for you! I do love them, that is a fact, and when I see a feller a ill-usin’ of one of ’em, it makes me feel as cross as two crooked gate-posts, I tell you.
“Indeed, a man that don’t love a hoss is no man at all. I don’t think he can be religious. A hoss makes a man humane and tender-hearted, teaches him to feel for others, to share his food, and be unselfish; to anticipate wants and supply them; to be gentle and patient. Then the hoss improves him otherwise. He makes him rise early, attend to meal hours, and to be cleanly. He softens and improves the heart. Who is there that ever went into a stable of a morning, and his critter whinnered to him and played his ears back and forward, and turned his head affectionately to him, and lifted his fore-feet short and moved his tail, and tried all he could to express his delight, and say, ‘Morning to you, master,’ or when he went up to the manger and patted his neck, and the lovin’ critter rubbed his head agin him in return, that didn’t think within himself, well, after all, the hoss is a noble critter? I do love him. Is it nothin’ to make a man love at all? How many fellers get more kicks than coppers in their life—have no home, nobody to love them and nobody to love, in whose breast all the affections are pent up, until they get unwholesome and want ventilation. Is it nothin’ to such an unfortunate critter to be made a stable help? Why, it elevates him in the scale of humanity. He discovers at last he has a head to think and a heart to feel. He is a new man. Hosses warn’t given to us, Doctor, to ride steeple-chases, or run races, or brutify a man, but to add new powers and lend new speed to him. He was destined for nobler uses.
“Is it any wonder that a man that has owned old Clay likes to talk hoss? I guess not. If I was a gall I wouldn’t have nothin’ to say to a man that didn’t love a hoss and know all about him. I wouldn’t touch him with a pair of tongs. I’d scorn him as I would a nigger. Sportsmen breed pheasants to kill, and amature huntsmen shoot dear for the pleasure of the slaughter. The angler hooks salmon for the cruel delight he has in witnessing the strength of their dying struggles. The black-leg gentleman runs his hoss agin time, and wins the race, and kills his noble steed, and sometimes loses both money and hoss, I wish to gracious he always did; but the rail hossman, Doctor, is a rail man, every inch of him, stock, lock, and barrel.”
“Massa,” said Sorrow, who stood listenin’ to me as I was warmin’ on the subject. “Massa, dis hoss will be no manner of remaginable use under de blessed light ob de sun.”