OUR HORSE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 129, 30 May 1908, Page 13

OUR HORSE.

(By Max Adeler.)

Last June I bought a horse. He was warranted sound and kind in harness, but I discovered that it was a very poor kind. He had an Irresistible propensity to back. He seemed to be impressed with a conviction that nature had put his hind legs in front, and that he could see with his tail, and whenever I attempted to start him he always proceeded stern foremost, until I whipped him savagely, and then he would go in the proper manner; but suddenly, and with the air of a horse who had a conviction that there was a lunatic in the carriage who didn't know what he was about. One day, while we were going down the street, this theory became so strong that he suddenly stopped and backed the carriage through the plate-glass window of Mackey's drug store. After that I always hitched him up with his head toward the carriage, and then he seemed to feel better contented, only sometimes he became too sociable, and used to put his head over the dashboard, and try to chew my legs or to eat up the lap cover. Besides, the peculiar arrangement of the animal excited unpleasant remark when I drove out, and when I wanted to stop, and would hitch him by the tail to a poet he had a very disagreeable way of reaching out with his hind legs and sweeping the sidewalk whenever he saw anybody that he felt as If he would like to kick. He was not much of a saddle noree: not that he would attempt to throw his rider, but whenever a saddle was put on him It made bis back itch, and he would always insist upon rubbing It against the first tree or fence, or corner of a house that he came to, and if he could bark the rider's leg, he seemed to feel better contented. The last tine I rode him was. upon tbe day of Aleck Banger's wedding. I had on my best suit, and on my way to the festival there was a creek to be forded. When the horse got Into the middle of it he took a drink, and tben looked around at the scenery. Then he took another drink and gazed again at the prospect Then he suddenly felt tired, and lay dowu in the water. By the time he was sufficiently rested I was ready to go home. The next day he was taken sick. My hired man said it was the epizooty, and he mixed him up some turpentine in a bucket of warm feed. That nigbt the home had spasms, and kicked four of the beet boards out of the side of the stable. Cooley said that horse hadn't the epizooty but the botts, and that the turpentine ought to hare been rubbed on the outside of him Instead of going into his stomach. So we rubbed 61m with turpentine, aud next morning ho hadn't a hair ou his body. Judge Pitman told mc that If I wanted to know what really niled that horse he would tell mc. It was glanders, and If he wasu't bled ho would die. Bo the Judge bled him for mc. Wo took away a tub full, and" the horse thinned down so that his ribu made him look as it ho had swallowed a hoop skirt. It made him hnngry, too, for that night he ate the feed box, a breeching strap, and two trace chains. Then I sent for the horse doctor, and he said there was nothing the matter with the horse but heaves, and he left some medicine "to patch up his wind." The result was that the horse coughed for two days as It he had gone into galloping consumption, and between two of the coughs he kicked the hired man through the partition, and bit our black and tau terrier in tfco. I thought perhaps a little exercise might improve his health, so I drove him out one day, and he proceeded In such a peculiar manner that I was afraid he might suddenly come apart and fall to pieces. When he reached the top of White House hill, whicb is very steep by the side of the road, he stopped, gave a sort of shudder, coughed a couple of times, kicked a fly off his near shoulder with his hind leg, and then laid down and calmly rolled over the bank. I got out of the carriage before he fell, and I watched him pitch clear down to the valley beneath, with the vehicle dragging after him. When we got to him he was dead, and the man at the farmhouse close by said he uad the blind staggers. I sold him for eight dollars to a man who wanted to make him up into knife handles, suspender buttons, and glue; and since then, when we have wanted to take a ride, we have walked. The next time I attempt to buy a horse I will get & mole, . . ,