I GET A COLT TO BREAK IN

Colonel Carter gave me a colt. I had my pony, and my father meanwhile had bought a pair of black carriage horses and a cow, all of which I had to attend to when we had no “man”. And servants were hard to get and to keep in those days; the women married, and the men soon quit service to seize opportunities always opening. My hands were pretty full, and was the stable. But Colonel Carter seemed to think that he had promised me a horse. He had not; I would have known it if he had. No matter. He thought he had, and maybe he did promise himself to give me one. That was enough. The kind of man that led immigrant trains across the continent and delivered them safe, sound, and together where he promised would keep his word. One day he drove over from Stockton, leading a two-year-old which he brought to our front door and turned over to me as mine. Such a horse!

She was a cream-colored mare with a black forelock, mane, and tail and a black stripe along the middle of her back. Tall, slender, high-spirited, I thought then - I think now that she was the most beautiful of horses. Colonel Carter had bred and reared her with me and my uses in mind. She was a careful cross of a mustang mare and a thoroughbred stallion, with the stamina of the wild horse and the speed and grace of the racer. And she had a sense of fun. As Colonel Carter got down out of his buggy and went up to her, she snorted, reared, flung her high in the air, and, coming down beside him, tucked her nose affectionately under his arm.

“I have handled her a lot,” he said. “She is as kind as a kitten, but she is as sensitive as a lady. You can spoil her one mistake. If you ever lose your temper, if you ever abuse her, she will be ruined forever. And she is unbroken. I might have had her broken to ride for you, but I didn’t want to. I want you to do it. I have taught her to lead, as you see; had to, to get her over here. But here she is, an unbroken colt; yours. You take and you break her. You’re only a boy, but if you break this colt right, you’ll be a man - a young man, but a man. And I’ll tell you how”.

Now out West, as everyone knows, they break in a horse by riding out to him in his wild state, lassoing, throwing, and saddling him; then they let him up, frightened and shocked, with a yelling broncobuster astride of him. The wild beast bucks, the cowboy drives his spurs into him, and off they go, jumping, kicking, rearing, falling, till by the weight of the man, the lash, and the rowels[27], the horse is broken - in body and spirit. This was not the way I was to break my colt.

“You must break her to ride without her ever knowing it,” Colonel Carter said. “You feed and you clean her - you, not the stable man. You lead her out to water and to walk. You put her on a long rope and let her play, calling her to you and gently pulling on the rope. Then you turn her loose in the grass lot there and, when she has roped till tired, call her. If she won’t come, leave her. When she wants water or food, she will run to your call, and you will pet and feed and care for her”. He went on for half an hour, advising me in great detail how to proceed. I wanted to begin right away. He laughed. He let me lead her around to the stable, water her, and put her in the stable and feed her.

There I saw my pony. My father, sisters, and Colonel Crater saw me stop and look at my pony. “What’ll you do with him?” one of my sisters asked. I was bewildered for a moment. What should I do with the little red horse? I decided at once”.

“You can have him,” I said to my sisters.

“No,” said Colonel Carter, “not yet. You can give your sisters the pony by and by, but you’ll need him till you have taught the colt to carry you and a saddle - months; and you must not hurry. You must learn patience, and you will if you give the colt time to learn it, too. Patience and control. You can’t control a young horse unless you can control yourself. Can you shoot?” he asked suddenly.

I couldn’t. I had a gun and I had used it some, but it was a rifle, and I could not bring down with it such game as there was around Sacramento - birds and hares. Colonel Carter looked at my father, and I caught the look. So did my father. I soon had a shotgun. But at the time, Colonel Carter turned to me and said:

“Can’t shoot straight, eh? Do you know what that means? That means that you can’t control a gun, and that means that you can’t control yourself, your eye, your hands, your nerves. You are wriggling now. I tell you that a good shot is always a good man. He may be a ‘bad man’ too, but he is quiet, strong, steady in speech, gait, and mind. No matter, though. If you break in this colt right, if you teach her paces, she will teach you to shoot and be quiet”.

He went off downtown with my father, and I started away with my colt. I fed, I led, I cleaned her, gently, as if she were made of glass; she was playful and willing, a delight. When Colonel Carter came home with my father for supper, he questioned me.

“You should not have worked her today,” he said. “She has come all the way from Stockton and must be tired. Yes, yes, she would not show her fatigue; too fine for that, and too young to be wise. You have got to think for her, consider as you would your sisters”.

Sisters! I thought; I had never considered my sisters. I did not say that, but Colonel Carter laughed and nodded to my sisters. It was just as if he had read my thought. But he went on to draw on my imagination a centaur[28]; the colt as a horse’s body - me, a boy, as the head and brains of one united creature. I liked that. I would be that. I and the colt: a centaur.

After Colonel Carter was gone home, I went to work on my new horse. The old one, the pony, I used only for business: to go to fires, to see my friends, run errands, and go hunting with my new shotgun. But the game that had all my attention was the breaking in of the colt, the beautiful cream-colored mare, who soon knew me - and my pockets. I carried sugar to reward her when she did right, and she discovered where I carried it; so did the pony, and when I was busy they would push their noses into my pockets, both of which were torn down a good deal of the time. But the colt learned. I taught her to run around a circle, turn and go the other way at a signal. My sisters helped me. I held the long rope and the whip (for signaling), while one of the girls led the colt; it was hard work for them, but they took it in turns. One would lead the colt round and round till I snapped the whip; then she would turn, turning the colt, till the colt did it all by herself. And she was very quick. She shook hands with each of her four feet. She let us under her, back and forth. She was slow only to carry me. Following Colonel Carter’s instructions, I began by laying my arm or a surcingle over her back. If she trembled, I drew it slowly off. When she could abide it, I tried buckling it, tighter and tighter. I laid over her, too, a blanket, folded at first, then open, and at last I slipped up on her myself, sat there a second, and as she trembled, slid off. My sisters held her for me, and when I could get up and sit there a moment or two, I tied her at a block, and we, my sisters and I, made a procession of mounting and dismounting. She soon got used to this and would let us slide off over her rump, but it was a long, long time before she would carry me.

That we practiced by leading her along a high curb where I could get on as she walked, ride a few steps, and then, as she felt me and crouched, slip off. She never did learn to carry a girl on her back; my sisters had to lead her while I rode. This was not purposeful. I don’t know just how it happened, but I do remember the first time I rode on my all the way round the lot and how, when I put one of the girls up, she refused to repeat. She shuddered, shook, and frightened them off.

While we were breaking in the colt, a circus came to town. The ring across the street from our house. Wonderful! I lived in that circus for a week. I saw the show but once. But I marked the horse trainers, and in the morning when they were not too busy, I told them about my colt, showed her to them, and asked them how to train her to do circus tricks. With their hints I taught the colt to stand up on her hind legs, kneel, lie down, and balance on a small box. This last was easier than it looked. I put her first on a low big box and taught her to turn on it, and then got a little smaller box upon which she repeated what she did on the big one. By and by we had her so that she would step on a high box so small that her four feet were almost touching, and there also she would turn.

The circus man gave me one hint that was worth all the other tricks put together. “You catch her doing something of herself that looks good,” he said, “and then you keep her at it”. It was thus that I taught her to bow to people. The first day I rode her out on the streets was a proud one for me and for the colt, too, apparently. She did not walk, she danced; perhaps she was excited, nervous; anyhow, I liked the way she threw up her head, champed at the bit, and went dancing, prancing down the street. Everybody stopped to watch us, and so, when she began to sober down, I picked her up again with heel and rein, saying, “Here’s people, Lady,” and she would show off, to my delight. By constant repetition I had her so trained that she would single-foot, head down, along a country road till we came to a house or a group of people. Then I’d say, “People, Lady,” and up would go her head, and her feet would dance.

But the trick that set the town talking was her bowing to anyone I spoke to. “Lennie Steffens’s horse bows to you,” people said, and she did. I never told how it was done: by accident. Dogs used to run out at us and the colt enjoyed it; she kicked at them sometimes with both hind hoofs. I joined her in the game, and being able to look behind more conveniently than she could I watched the dogs until they were in range, then gave the colt a signal to kick. “Kick, gal,” I’d say, and tap her ribs with my heel. We used to get dogs together that way: the colt would kick them over and over and leave them yelping in the road. Well, one day when I met a girl I knew, I lifted my hat, probably muttered a “Good day,” and I must have touched the colt with my heel. Anyway, she dropped her head and kicked - not much; there was no dog near, so she had responded to my unexpected signal by what looked like a bow. I caught the idea and kept her at it. Whenever I wanted to bow to a girl or anybody else, instead of saying “Good day,” I muttered “Kick, gal,” spurred her lightly, and - the whole centaur bowed and was covered with glory and conceit.

Yes, conceit. I was full of it, and the colt was quite as bad. One day my chum Hjalmar came into town on his Black Bess, blanketed. She had had a great fistula[29] cut out of her shoulder and had to be kept warm. I expected to see her weak and dull, but no, the good old mare was champing and dancing, like my colt.

“What is it makes her so?” I asked, and Hjalmar said he didn’t know, but he thought she was proud of the blanket. A great idea. I had a gaudy horse blanket. I put it on the colt and I could hardly hold her. We rode down the main street together, both horses and both boys, so full of vanity that everybody stopped to smile. We thought they admired, and maybe they did. But some boys on the street gave us another angle. They, too, stopped and looked, and as we passed, one of them said, “Think you’re hell, don’t you?”

Spoilsport!

We did, as a matter of fact; we thought we were hell. The recognition of it dashed us for a moment; not for long, and the horses paid no heed. We pranced, the black and the yellow, all the way down J Street, up K Street, and agreed that we’d do it again, often. Only, I said, we wouldn’t use blankets. If the horses were proud of a blanket, they’re proud of anything unusually conspicuous. We tried a flower next time. I fixed a big rose on my colt’s bridle just under her car, and it was great - she pranced downtown with her head turned, literally, to show off her flower. We had to change the decoration from time, put on a ribbon, or a bell, or a feather, but really, it was not necessary for my horse. Old Black Bess needed an incentive to act up, but all I had to do to my horse was to pick up the reins, touch her with my heel, and say, “People”; she would dance from one side of the street to the other, asking to be admired. As she was. As we were.

I would ride down to my father’s store, jump off my prancing colt in the middle of the street, and run up into the shop. The colt, free, would stop short, turn, and follow me right up on the sidewalk, unless I bade her wait. If anyone approached her while I was gone, she would snort, rear, and strike. No stranger could get near her. She became a frightened, frightening animal, and yet when I came into sight she would run to me, put her head down, and as I straddled her neck she would throw up her head and pitch me into my seat, facing backwards, of course. I whirled around right, and off we’d go, the vainest boy and the proudest horse in the state.

“Hey, give me a ride, will you?” some boy would ask.

“Sure”. I’d say, and jump down and watch that boy try to catch and mount my colt. He couldn’t. Once a cowboy wanted to try her, and he caught her; he dodged her forefeet, grabbed the reins, and in one spring was on her back. I never did that again. My colt reared, then bucked, as the cowboy kept his seat, she shuddered, sank to the ground, and rolled over. He slipped aside and would have risen with her, but I was alarmed and begged him not to. She got up at my touch and followed me so close that she stepped on my heel and hurt me. The cowboy saw the point.

“If I were you, kid,” he said, “I’d never let anybody mount that colt. She’s too good”.

That, I think, was the only mistake I made in the rearing of Colonel Carter’s gift horse. My father differed from me. He discovered another error or sin and thrashed me for it. My practice was to work hard on a trick privately, when it was perfect, let him see it. I would have the horse out in our vacant lot doing it as he came home to supper. One evening as he approached the house, I was standing, whip in hand, while the colt, quite free, was stepping carefully over the bodies of a lot of girls, all my sisters and all their girl friends. (Grace Gallatin, later Mrs. Thompson-Seton, was among them). My father did not express the admiration I expected; he was frightened and furious. “Stop that,” he called, and he came running around into the lot, took the whip, and lashed me with it. I tried to explain; the girls tried to help me explain.

I had seen in the circus a horse that stepped thus over a row of prostate clowns. It looked dangerous for the clowns, but the trainer had told me how to do it. You begin with logs, laid out a certain distance apart; the horse walks over them under your lead, and whenever he touches one you rebuke him. By and by he will learn to step with such care that he never trips. Then, you substitute clowns. I had no clowns, but I did get logs, and with the girls helping, we taught the colt to step over the obstacles even at a trot. Walking, she touched nothing. All ready thus the logs, I had my sisters lie down in the grass, and again and again the colt stepped over them. None was ever touched. My father would not listen to any of this; he just walloped me, and when he was tired or satisfied and I was in tears, I blubbered a short excuse: “They were only girls.” And he whipped me some more.

My father was not given to whipping; he did it very seldom, but he did it hard when he did it at all. My mother was just the opposite. She did not whip me, but she often smacked me, and she had a most annoying habit of thumping me on the head with her thimbled finger. This I resented more than my father’s thoroughgoing thrashings, and I can tell why now. I would be playing Napoleon and I was reviewing my Old Guard, she would crack my skull with that thimble. No doubt I was in the way; it took a lot of furniture and sisters to represent properly a victorious army; and you might think as my mother did that a thimble is a small weapon. But imagine Napoleon at the height of his power, the ruler of the world on parade, getting a sharp rap on his crown from a woman’s thimble. No. My father’s way was more appropriate. It was hard. “I’ll attend to you in the morning,” he would say, and I lay awake wondering which of my crimes he had discovered. I know what it is to be sentenced to be shot at sunrise. And it hurt, in the morning, when he was not angry but very fresh and strong. But you see, he walloped me in my own person; he never humiliated Napoleon or my knighthood, as my mother did. And I learned something from his discipline, something useful.

I learned what tyranny is and the pain of being misunderstood and wronged, or, if you please, understood and set right; they are pretty much the same. He and most parents and teachers do not break in their boys as carefully as I broke in my colt. They haven’t the time that I had, and they have not some other incentives I had. I saw this that day when I rubbed my sore legs. He had to explain to my indignant mother what had happened. When he told it his way, I gave my version: how long and cautiously I had been teaching my horse to walk over logs and girls. And having shown how sure I was of myself and the colt, while my mother was boring into his silence with one of her reproachful looks, I said something that hit my father hard.

“I taught the colt that trick, I have taught her all that you see she knows, without whipping her. I have never struck her; not once. Colonel Carter said I mustn’t, and I haven’t”.

And my mother, backing me up, gave him a rap: “There,” she said, “I told you so”, He walked off, looking like a thimble rapped Napoleon.

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