When we all went out riding, I always carried the mistress. Her voice was sweet, and her hand was so light on the reins that I hardly felt it. If people only knew what a comfort a light hand is to a horse!
I had often wondered why Sir Oliver had such a short tail. It was only six or seven inches long. One Sunday in the orchard I asked him if he had lost it in an accident.
“Accident!” he said with a fierce look. “It was no accident! It was a cruel, shameful thing. When I was young, they tied me up so that I could not move, and they cut off my long, beautiful tail, through the flesh and through the bone. The pain was terrible. But the worst is this: I can never brush the flies away. You can’t imagine what it is like when they land on you and bite and bite.”
“Why did they do it?” asked Ginger.
“For fashion!” said the old horse, and he stamped his foot. “And they do the same to dogs. They cut off their tails and ears to make them look brave and sharp. I once had a dear friend, a little terrier called Skye, who had five pretty puppies in my stall. One day a man took them all away. In the evening poor Skye brought them back, one by one in her mouth, bleeding and crying. Part of their tails and the soft ends of their ears had been cut off. What right have people to hurt God’s creatures like that?”
What he said was so new and so terrible to me that I felt bitter against men for the first time. Ginger threw up her head and said that men were brutes and fools.
“Who is talking about fools?” asked Merrylegs, who had just come up from the old apple tree. “That is a bad word.”
“Bad words were made for bad things,” said Ginger, and she told him what Sir Oliver had said.
“It is all true,” said Merrylegs sadly, “but we won’t talk about it here. You know that the master, John and James are always good to us. Talking against men in a place like this isn’t fair or grateful.”
These wise words calmed us all down. To change the subject, I asked, “Can anyone tell me what blinkers are for?”
“No!” said Sir Oliver shortly. “Because they are no use.”
“They are meant to stop horses from getting frightened,” said Justice in his calm way. “But when we are ridden in crowded streets, we see wheels all around us, and we don’t run away. It is only fashion.”
“And they are dangerous at night,” said Sir Oliver. “We horses can see much better in the dark than men can. When our master’s carriage turned over, before you came here, people said John would have seen the deep hole in the road if the lamp had not gone out. But if old Colin had not worn blinkers, he would have seen it, lamp or no lamp. He was badly hurt, and the carriage was broken.”
Merrylegs lifted his little face. “I’ll tell you a secret. I believe John doesn’t like blinkers either. I heard him tell the master that it would be good if all young horses were broken in without them. So cheer up, and let’s run to the other end of the orchard. I think the wind has blown down some apples, and we might as well eat them before the slugs do.”
Nobody could say no to Merrylegs, and we cheered ourselves up with the sweet apples lying in the grass.