horse who was
always standing in harness before some door or other--a philosopher with
the appetite of a shark and the manners of an archbishop. Tedda Gabler
was a new "trade," with a reputation for vice which was really the
result of bad driving. She had one working gait, which she could
hold till further notice; a Roman nose; a large, prominent eye; a
shaving-brush of a tail; and an irritable temper. She took her salt
through her bridle; but the others trotted up nuzzling and wickering for
theirs, till we emptied it on the clean rocks. They were all standing
at ease, on three legs for the most part, talking the ordinary gossip
of the Back Pasture--about the scarcity of water, and gaps in the fence,
and how the early windfalls tasted that season--when little Rick blew
the last few grains of his allowance into a crevice, and said:

"Hurry, boys! 'Might ha' knowed that livery plug would be around."

We heard a clatter of hooves, and there climbed up from the ravine below
a fifty-center transient--a wall-eyed, yellow frame-house of a horse,
sent up to board from a livery-stable in town, where they called him
"The Lamb," and never let him out except at night and to strangers. My
companion, who knew and had broken most of the horses, looked at the
ragged hammer-head as it rose, and said quietly:

"Ni-ice beast. Man-eater, if he gets the chance--see his eye. Kicker,
too--see his hocks. Western horse."

The animal lumbered up, snuffling and grunting. His feet showed that
he had not worked for weeks and weeks, and our creatures drew together
significantly.

"As usual," he said, with an underhung sneer--"bowin' your heads before
the Oppressor that comes to spend his leisure gloatin' over you."

"Mine's done," said the Deacon; he licked up the remnant of his salt,
dropped his nose in his master's hand, and sang a little grace all to
himself. The Deacon has the most enchanting manners of any one I know.

"An' fawnin' on them for what is your inalienable right. It's
humiliatin'," said the yellow horse, sniffing to see if he could find a
few spare grains.

"Go daown hill, then, Boney," the Deacon replied. "Guess you'll find
somethin' to eat still, if yer hain't hogged it all. You've ett
more'n any three of us to-day--an' day 'fore that--an' the last two
months--sence you've been here."

"I am not addressin' myself to the young an' immature. I am speakin' to
those whose opinion an' experience commands respect."

I saw Ro