led me into my box, took off
the saddle and bridle with his own hands, and tied me up; then he called
for a pail of warm water and a sponge, took off his coat, and while the
stable-man held the pail, he sponged my sides a good while, so tenderly
that I was sure he knew how sore and bruised they were. 'Whoa! my pretty
one,' he said, 'stand still, stand still.' His very voice did me good,
and the bathing was very comfortable. The skin was so broken at the
corners of my mouth that I could not eat the hay, the stalks hurt me. He
looked closely at it, shook his head, and told the man to fetch a good
bran mash and put some meal into it. How good that mash was! and so soft
and healing to my mouth. He stood by all the time I was eating, stroking
me and talking to the man. 'If a high-mettled creature like this,'
said he, 'can't be broken by fair means, she will never be good for
anything.'

"After that he often came to see me, and when my mouth was healed the
other breaker, Job, they called him, went on training me; he was steady
and thoughtful, and I soon learned what he wanted."

08 Ginger's Story Continued

The next time that Ginger and I were together in the paddock she told me
about her first place.

"After my breaking in," she said, "I was bought by a dealer to match
another chestnut horse. For some weeks he drove us together, and then we
were sold to a fashionable gentleman, and were sent up to London. I had
been driven with a check-rein by the dealer, and I hated it worse
than anything else; but in this place we were reined far tighter, the
coachman and his master thinking we looked more stylish so. We were
often driven about in the park and other fashionable places. You who
never had a check-rein on don't know what it is, but I can tell you it
is dreadful.

"I like to toss my head about and hold it as high as any horse; but
fancy now yourself, if you tossed your head up high and were obliged to
hold it there, and that for hours together, not able to move it at all,
except with a jerk still higher, your neck aching till you did not know
how to bear it. Besides that, to have two bits instead of one--and mine
was a sharp one, it hurt my tongue and my jaw, and the blood from my
tongue colored the froth that kept flying from my lips as I chafed and
fretted at the bits and rein. It was worst when we had to stand by the
hour waiting for our mistress at some grand party or entertainment, and
if I fretted or stampe