Horse Stories, and Stories of Other Animals

by Thomas Wallace Knox

“'Our good Jane! How glad we were of the disobedience that had troubled us so much a moment before! How we stroked and petted and praised her, even before we lifted the pretty baby from his perilous position, and carried him to the nearest house, with injunctions to the young Irish mother, who had many children about her, to take better care of the youngest!'”

“That's a very nice story,” said Charley, as his father paused. “I've read something like it in an English book; it was about a gentleman that was riding one night along a road and happened to be hit on the head by a projecting limb of a tree. He was stunned by the blow and fell to the ground. The horse went at once to the house he had started from, which was about a mile away; the family had gone to bed, but he made such a noise at the door as to rouse them. When some one came out he turned around and immediately led the way to where his master was lying senseless in the road.”

“And I've read about a horse,” remarked George, as his brother paused, “that showed its gratitude to a lady that had befriended it. It was in an open piece of ground near her house and the poor animal's shoulder was raw and bleeding. She coaxed him to come to her by giving him pieces of bread, and then she covered the wound with some adhesive plaster which she spread on a piece of leather. Then the horse went to grazing again, evidently feeling very much better. A little while afterward the horse's master came and led him away.

“The next day the horse came again to the lady's gate, and after looking around a while he put his head over it and whinnied. The lady went out and found that the plaster was gone from the sore spot; she put on another, and the next day the horse came again for the same attention, which was given. After that the plaster remained and the horse recovered. Ever after that when he saw the lady he showed his gratitude by whinnying and then rubbing his nose very gently against her. Sometimes he came to the gate and called her, and she used to go out and pet him, which seemed to give him a great deal of pleasure.”

“After those two stories,” said Mr. Graham, “I think you ought to have the horses you want. I'll buy them for you in a few days, and in the meantime we'll go to the training school for the horses of the New York Fire Department and see how they educate the animals there.”

Charley and George were delighted with the prospect of having horses of their own, and waited with some impatience for the purchase of their steeds. The day after the conversation just narrated they accompanied their father to one of the engine-houses and afterward to the training school. They were greatly interested in what they saw there, and Charley afterward wrote an account of the visit. He was assisted by a reporter for one of the newspapers whom he happened to meet in the engine-house, and we are permitted to copy the following from their story:

“The engine house was a big square room, smelling horsey and strong, yet was scrupulously clean and neat and resplendent with the polished steel and brass and the painted woodwork of the engine and hose-cart and chiefs wagon. In this particular engine-house the hose-cart happened to be in the front of the room, before the street doors, with the horse stalls on either side of it, against the sides of the room. The stalls were parallel with the hose-cart. Back of the hose-cart was the engine, big and shiny, with the 'ready' steam hissing into it through pipes from the boiler below. The chiefs cart was at one side of the engine, and in a corner of the room was the fuel wagon. In the side stalls stood two magnificent white horses—silent, motionless, but with ears erect, and wide open eyes watching the foreman and the strangers and apparently very anxious to join in the conversation.

“Suddenly a jingle bell in the room beat a lively rattle, and the fire gong began to ring out an alarm. The firemen slid down from upstairs on the polished rods of brass which stretched from the ground floor through scuttle-holes into the firemen's sitting-room, and took their several stations. The man on 'house watch' counted the gong strokes. As the electric snap on the bits of the horses in their stalls were unfastened, the horses jumped to their places at a bound, down came the hanging harness upon them, and collar, headstall and reinbit were fastened by ready hands in less than two seconds. Before the gong stopped sounding, engine and men and horses were ready to rush into the street if the alarm should turn out to be a call from their part of the city. The alarm did not so turn out, and all went back to their places.”

On the way from the engine-house to the training school in Harlem, Charley asked how the horses were obtained and where they came from. On this point the newspaper man enlightened him.

“The horses are generally selected,” said he, “by Captain Joseph Shea, who has charge of the training school, or by one of his assistants. They only deal with dealers whom they know to be trustworthy, and who have, in fact, furnished most of the horses to the department for years. Strength, agility, intelligence, kindness—these are the traits the buyers look at.