ly on my simple rights--the inalienable rights o' my unfettered
horsehood. An' I am proud to say I have never, since my first shoes,
lowered myself to obeyin' the will o' man."

"'Must ha' had a heap o' whips broke over yer yaller back," said Tedda.
"Hev ye found it paid any?"

"Sorrer has been my portion since the day I was foaled. Blows an' boots
an' whips an' insults--injury, outrage, an' oppression. I would not
endoor the degradin' badges o' servitood that connect us with the buggy
an' the farm-wagon."

"It's amazin' difficult to draw a buggy 'thout traces er collar er
breast-strap er somefin'," said Marcus. "A Power-machine for sawin' wood
is most the only thing there's no straps to. I've helped saw 's much as
three cord in an afternoon in a Power-machine. Slep', too, most o' the
time, I did; but 'tain't half as interestin' ez goin' daown-taown in the
Concord."

"Concord don't hender you goin' to sleep any," said Nip. "My
throat-lash! D'you remember when you lay down in the sharves last week,
waitin' at the piazza?"

"Pshaw! That didn't hurt the sharves. They wuz good an' wide, an' I
lay down keerful. The folks kep' me hitched up nigh an hour 'fore they
started; an' larfed--why, they all but lay down themselves with larfin'.
Say, Boney, if you've got to be hitched to anything that goes on wheels,
you've got to be hitched with somefin'."

"Go an' jine a circus," said Muldoon, "an' walk on your hind legs. All
de horses dat knows too much to work [he pronounced it 'woik,' New York
fashion] jine de circus."

"I am not sayin' anythin' again' work," said the yellow horse; "work is
the finest thing in the world."

"'Seems too fine fer some of us," Tedda snorted.

"I only ask that each horse should work for himself, an' enjoy the
profit of his labours. Let him work intelligently, an' not as a
machine."

"There ain't no horse that works like a machine," Marcus began.

"There's no way o' workin' that doesn't mean goin' to pole er
single--they never put me in the Power-machine--er under saddle," said
Rick.

"Oh, shucks! We're talkin' same ez we graze," said Nip, "raound an'
raound in circles. Rod, we hain't heard from you yet, an' you've more
know-how than any span here."

Rod, the off-horse of the pair, had been standing with one hip lifted,
like a tired cow; and you could only tell by the quick flutter of the
haw across his eye, from time to time, that he was paying any attention
to the argument. He thrust