of corn, and Dad
started over the same old ground with the same old plough. How I
remember that old, screwed and twisted plough! The land was very hard,
and the horses out of condition. We wanted a furrow-horse. Smith had
one--a good one. "Put him in the furrow," he said to Dad, "and you
can't PULL him out of it." Dad wished to have such a horse. Smith
offered to exchange for our roan saddle mare--one we found running in
the lane, and advertised as being in our paddock, and no one claimed
it. Dad exchanged.

He yoked the new horse to the plough, and it took to the furrow
splendidly--but that was all; it did n't take to anything else. Dad
gripped the handles--"Git up!" he said, and tapped Smith's horse with
the rein. Smith's horse pranced and marked time well, but did n't
tighten the chains. Dad touched him again. Then he stood on his
fore-legs and threw about a hundredweight of mud that clung to his
heels at Dad's head. That aggravated Dad, and he seized the
plough-scraper, and, using both hands, calmly belted Smith's horse over
the ribs for two minutes, by the sun. He tried him again. The horse
threw himself down in the furrow. Dad took the scraper again, welted
him on the rump, dug it into his back-bone, prodded him in the side,
then threw it at him disgustedly. Then Dad sat down awhile and
breathed heavily. He rose again and pulled Smith's horse by the head.
He was pulling hard when Dave and Joe came up. Joe had a bow-and-arrow
in his hand, and said, "He's a good furrer 'orse, eh, Dad? Smith SAID
you could n't pull him out of it."

Shall I ever forget the look on Dad's face! He brandished the scraper
and sprang wildly at Joe and yelled, "Damn y', you WHELP! what do you
want here?"

Joe left. The horse lay in the furrow. Blood was dropping from its
mouth. Dave pointed it out, and Dad opened the brute's jaws and
examined them. No teeth were there. He looked on the ground round
about--none there either. He looked at the horse's mouth again, then
hit him viciously with his clenched fist and said, "The old ----, he
never DID have any!" At length he unharnessed the brute as it
lay--pulled the winkers off, hurled them at its head, kicked it
once--twice--three times--and the furrow-horse jumped up, trotted away
triumphantly, and joyously rolled in the dam where all our water came
from, drinking-water included.

Dad went straightaway to Smith's place, and told Smith he was a dirty,
mean, despic