The Horse Tamer

by Walter Farley

  The peddler grinned. “You got a real sense of duty to warn me, stranger.” He had suddenly changed his mind about this man. The fellow might be thin but he seemed made of steel. “Now what do you suggest I do?” he asked.

  “Let me take him over,” Bill answered, thoroughly at ease despite the towering hulk beside him.

  “You?” the peddler asked suspiciously. “You seem to have your own troubles.” He eyed the bay mare beyond without realizing that she wore neither bridle nor reins.

  “I’ll loan you a horse until I’m done with yours,” Bill said, ignoring the big man’s remark. “It’ll take me a couple of days. Your colt must have had bad treatment long before you got him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m lookin’ at him, that’s how I know.” Bill’s tone was self-reliant, confident. It made up for his want of size. “It’s my business to know,” he added.

  The peddler frowned in perplexity. “What business are you in, anyway? Horse dealing?”

  “No, carriage making,” Bill answered. He turned to look back at his brother and the shattered buggy. “That is, I was in it,” he added. “I’m not so sure now. Anyway, you come to my shop in Birdsboro and I’ll loan you a horse that you won’t need to use a whip on.”

  “How do you know I won’t run out on you?” the peddler asked, grinning.

  “You’re leavin’ too good a colt behind and you know I’m goin’ to straighten him out for you, that’s why.”

  The peddler noted the look of cold command in the other’s eyes. “Yes, I know that, all right. But don’t ask me how I know it.” He threw down the buggy whip and offered his hand good-naturedly. “My name’s Caspersen, Finn Caspersen.”

  “Mine’s Bill Dailey. An’ over there is my kid brother Hank.”

  “Want me to come along to your shop now?” the peddler asked a little nervously. He didn’t like being made to feel uneasy. He decided, too, that he wouldn’t want to come to blows with Bill Dailey despite his small size.

  “Yes, we’ll hitch up my mare to your wagon and lead the colt,” Bill answered.

  “What about your buggy?”

  “I’ll come back for it later.”

  “Maybe you can fix it up,” the big man suggested hesitantly.

  “Maybe I can. But first I want to fix up your colt. He’s young an’ he’s had some bad times.” Bill Dailey’s eyes were half-closed as he squinted in the bright sun.

  The peddler put on his fine coat slowly. “You sure got a heap of feelin’ for bad horses, Bill,” he said almost in awe. “You sure have.”

  DRIED OSSELETS AND APPLES

  2

  Early the next morning Bill took his brother into the apple orchard behind his carriage shop.

  “Some horsemen say,” he told Hank, “that the best remedy for a balker like this colt is to take osselets, or small bones, from his legs, dry and grate them fine, then blow a thimbleful into his nostrils. He’ll then go off without trouble.” Bill picked several apples and put them into his pockets. “But I’ve had better luck with these,” he added, laughing.

  “But will the dried osselets work?” Hank asked curiously.

  “About like ammonia or red pepper. They’re only temporary aids. They disconcert a balker long enough to get him to start, but they don’t keep him goin’.”

  A few minutes later Bill led the gray colt, wearing harness, down a back road. He stopped and started him repeatedly, each time rewarding the colt with a bit of apple and stroking his neck and head.

  “There’s nothin’ wrong with this colt that some kindness won’t help,” he told Hank. “Winning a young horse’s confidence is always the first step. This fellow’s had too much abuse.”

  Bill untied the long reins from the harness and for the first time stood a little to the side and rear of the colt. “Now, boy,” he said, tapping him lightly over the hips, “get along, an’ do the same thing you been doin’ with me up front.”

  The colt moved off smartly and continued down the road until commanded to stop. He looked around and Bill gave him a bit of apple and a pat on the head. Then he was sent off once more until a touch of the reins brought him to another halt.

  After repeating this many times with no trouble, Bill said, “Now for my wagon, Hank.”

  They hitched up the colt and he immediately began to fret.

  “He’s afraid of it,” Bill said, “an’ now we’ll try to find out why. If we do, curin’ him of balkin’ won’t be any trick at all.”

  “The peddler had a big load,” Hank reminded his brother. “Maybe he was overloaded and the colt refused to pull.”

  “Overloading wouldn’t cause fear,” Bill said.

  “Maybe the crosspiece struck his legs once,” Hank suggested, trying his best to be helpful.

  Bill Dailey slid a pole over the gray haunches but the colt neither kicked nor made any effort to break away. Finally Bill touched him with the reins. For a second the colt hesitated and Bill urged soothingly, “Easy, boy, get along with you now.”

  The colt took a single stride and the wheels of the empty wagon turned noiselessly behind him. As he took another stride, and still another, Bill walked alongside but a little to the rear, talking to the colt all the while. Hank followed.

  They could see the colt’s confidence return as he moved in the stillness of the early morning. His fine body stopped trembling and only the backward flicking of his ears indicated his concern for what was going on behind him. Bill stopped him repeatedly, rewarding him each time with a bit of apple, and then going on again. Finally Bill started for home.

  “It’s got to be Caspersen’s wagon he’s afraid of,” Bill told his brother. “There’s nothin’ wrong with him while he’s pullin’ mine.”

  “Maybe it’s not so much Caspersen’s wagon as what’s in it,” Hank suggested. He wanted very much to be helpful, for in a way that’s why he was here. Before long he’d have to make his own way in life just as Bill was doing. He’d have to face the realities of an adult world alone. Bill would help prepare him to meet this new and sometimes terrifying challenge.

  “Think of all the merchandise Caspersen sells,” the boy went on eagerly. “Think of the buffalo robes an’—”

  “I am thinkin’ of them,” Bill interrupted, his eyes half-closed. “This wouldn’t be the first horse to be frightened by a buffalo robe or an umbrella. You might be right at that, Hank.”

  “Or maybe bright scarves scare him,” the boy put in quickly. “Or it could be the lightning rods, bells, books, bull rings, tinware …”

  Bill Dailey nodded in agreement as his brother went on breathlessly. He was pleased with Hank. He was pleased with all he saw in the bright, deep-set eyes. Hank was growing up fast, and already was as tall as he. His weight was distributed like their father’s—solid through the shoulders, back and chest. Hank probably wouldn’t get much bigger, none of them did—and they were seven, all boys. He’d be a natural leader, too. Hank was the youngest of them all, but his smaller size hadn’t stopped him from holding his own during their childish games and roughhousing, his body straining and weaving in competition against theirs. They were a closely knit family even though, there being so many of them, it was economically necessary for them to leave home early in search of work. But no number of miles would ever destroy the firm and joyful allegiance they had for each other.

  Bill knew exactly why his father had sent Hank to him this summer. And he was aware of his responsibility in setting a good example, for Hank would watch everything he did with quiet, reverent eyes.

  “… and don’t forget those buggy whips,” Hank was concluding excitedly. “Maybe he’d been beaten and just the sight of them—”

  “No,” Bill answered. “I don’t think we’ll find it’s whips he’s scared of. Although I do know Caspersen made matters a lot worse by beating him when he balked. Nope, Hank, this colt’s scared of something besides whips. It’s something simple and we’re goin’ to find out what it is.”

&
nbsp; Back at the stable Hank asked, “What do you want me to do, Bill?” His voice was eager but respectful, the younger toward the older. “I can find some of the things that were in the wagon. We can try them one at a time.… ”

  “No, Hank, we won’t need many. That is, I hope we won’t.”

  “But you said—”

  “I said we’d find out what’s scarin’ this colt an’ we will,” Bill interrupted. “But look at it this way. He not only balks but he runs away. One moment Caspersen can’t start him an’ the next he can’t stop him. So I figure it might have more to do with noise than things.”

  “You mean the rattling of all that tinware maybe?” Hank asked.

  Bill Dailey nodded. “It makes more sense to me that way. First the colt won’t go because if he does the noise behind him starts up. And for some reason he’s afraid of it. So when he’s made to go, he runs away tryin’ to get clear of it.”

  They gathered all the stable pails they could find and put them in the back of the wagon. From the moment one pail clanged against another the colt became uneasy. At first there were only little spots of perspiration on his gray coat but later, as Bill Dailey intentionally banged the pails against each other, white lather appeared between the colt’s hind legs. He began digging into the dirt road with his right foreleg.

  When Bill Dailey took up the reins and clucked, the colt wouldn’t budge. “There’s our balker,” Bill said quietly.

  “The noise made by Capersen’s pails and tinware is our answer then,” Hank added. “But why is he scared, Bill?”

  “I don’t know, and it’s not important just now. All we need to do is to teach him that he has nothin’ to fear from such noise.”

  “Maybe he stepped in a pail and hurt himself once,” Hank suggested.

  “Maybe he did. It’s happened before.” But the man wasn’t talking to the boy. His words were for the colt and they were as soft and kind as his hands. He rubbed him and soothed him, humming all the while, and then he gave him an apple.

  Later he removed all the pails from the wagon and, slinging one over an arm, returned to the colt. The animal fastened frightened eyes on the pail but Bill ignored it completely, merely continuing to talk soothingly to him. Soon he got the colt to take one step forward and then another. Finally he was able to walk him up and down the road, the pail swinging lightly between them. The colt’s eyes never left it but no longer did he perspire in the cool morning air.

  By noon Bill Dailey was able to drop the pail on the road without upsetting the colt. Still later in the day he was kicking it, sending it along with loud and seemingly never-ending clanks. When the colt had become so accustomed to the noise that he ignored the pail completely, Bill told his brother that he felt their work was done.

  Throwing the pail into the wagon, he picked up the reins. “Now, boy,” he said, “let’s go home!”

  The colt went down the road at a hard trot, the pail rattling and the dust and dirt rising in his wake.

  Finn Caspersen returned the following afternoon and the gray colt was hitched up to his loaded wagon. He drove noisily down the road and back, stopping and starting at will. Finally he said in amazement, “Dailey, I wouldn’t have believed this possible. What did you do to him? What system did you use?”

  “My own,” Bill answered, smiling faintly. “A few apples and a pat on the head.”

  The big man removed his stovepipe hat. “Be honest with me, sir! I know nothing about horses except how to drive them in the course of my work but I would pay five dollars to learn what you did!”

  “It’s not worth five dollars,” Bill protested. “Your colt was afraid of all the noise your pots, pans an’ pails made. I showed him that he needn’t be. That’s all there was to it. Trouble is, mister, you didn’t even take the time to find out.”

  Finn Caspersen drew himself up to his full height. He didn’t relish being criticized so sharply.

  “Pails, pots and pans you say?” he asked finally, regaining his professional composure. “Now that you mention pails I recall …” He paused to run a big hand through his unruly hair. “It most certainly does fit very well with what you have told me.” He paused again, this time breaking out into hearty laughter before he went on.

  “I remember this colt as a weanling,” Caspersen said with the air of one about to tell a good story. “He belonged to a friend in Harrisburg who had no pasture. Since the colt was very friendly he was allowed to go grazing on people’s lawns. They all got to thinking of him as they would a big dog. But one old man in the neighborhood got sore and tied a big tin pail to his tail to frighten him off. The colt was all right until he moved; then when the pail started rattling and thumping against his heels it scared the daylights out of him and he took off. The faster he ran the worse it became. I don’t know how they ever caught up with him.”

  As he finished Finn Caspersen became uneasy and his gaze shifted from Bill Dailey to the boy standing alongside. “Of course, I’d forgotten all about it. It was a long time ago.”

  “But the colt didn’t forget,” Bill said quietly.

  “I realize that now. Should have thought of it, of course. But that’s not the way my mind runs. Say, it didn’t take you long to figure it out, though!” He slapped Bill on the shoulder, glancing around the stable yard as he did so. “It occurs to me, sir, that you’re in the wrong business. You seem to have more horses around here than carriages.”

  Bill Dailey shrugged. “That’s because I’ve been trading carriages for horses,” he answered, slightly amused by Caspersen’s criticism. “They had bad habits, all of them. I guess that’s how we got together. They needed help and I traded for ’em.”

  “You should sell what you know, sir,” the big man went on persuasively. “If it’s worth five dollars to me it’s worth the same to a lot of other people.”

  “I’m a carriage-maker,” Bill answered, with a sudden rush of pride in his craft. “Last year I took first prize at two county fairs in Berks, first for a single carriage, the second for a double.”

  “You do all the work yourself?” Caspersen asked. “All the painting and trimming? You do that, too?”

  “Yep.”

  “And you think you’ll be able to compete with the big carriage manufacturers much longer? Have you been in that new Studebaker Brothers store over in Pottstown? Why, sir, they’re giving door prizes just for going in and looking at their wagons! How can you compete against a big firm like that? And have you seen the special buggy Sears, Roebuck is selling for $54.70?” he asked hurriedly. “You haven’t? Look here, then!”

  Pulling a huge catalog from behind the wagon seat, Finn Caspersen opened it to page 692 and shoved it into Bill Dailey’s arms. “Are you going to be able to compete against the ‘Cheapest Supply House on Earth,’ sir? Are you?”

  “No, I can’t make a carriage for that,” Bill admitted calmly but with some of the sadness, too, of a man whose bridges were being burned behind him. He flipped over the hundreds of pages displaying all kinds of merchandise before handing the catalog back to Caspersen. “Any more than you can sell your things cheaper.”

  Finn Caspersen said agreeably, “That’s right, sir, but I have other ways of earning a living—and so have you.” He paused for effect, then continued in a confidential, friendly tone. “There’s a farmer over in Pottstown who has a mare that bites worse than any horse I’ve ever seen. It’s worth ten dollars to him to get her cured. I’ve heard him say so a dozen times. You could do it for him, Bill. You sure could.”

  “I’d be glad to help him out,” Bill said. “But I don’t want his money.”

  “Let me take care of that end,” Finn Caspersen said hastily. “You just take care of his mare. Let me worry about everything else.”

  “She shouldn’t be bitin’ like you say,” Bill mused. “She’ll hurt somebody bad if she isn’t taught to stop.”

  “That’s what I was hoping you’d say, Bill. You’ll take her on, then?”

  “Somebody ought to
help her or she’ll get herself into a peck of trouble.”

  “Somebody sure had, Bill. Will it be you? Will it?”

  “All right. Tomorrow. I got time to do it tomorrow.”

  WILD BESS

  3

  “I must warn you,” the Pottstown farmer said, “that she’s the most vicious, biting mare known in this end of the county. When turned loose, she runs at a man with all the ferocity of a bulldog. I would’ve got rid of her long ago if I hadn’t paid so much for her.”

  He finished milking his cows and concluded, “We’ll have some breakfast and then go see her.”

  “We’ve eaten,” Bill Dailey said impatiently. “I’d like to get started. I got work at home. That’s why we came so early.”

  The farmer smiled. “You cure my mare like Mr. Caspersen says you can an’ it’ll be enough work for one day. Fifty dollars is a lot of money for a day’s work.”

  “F-Fifty dollars?” Bill stammered unbelievingly.

  Finn Caspersen explained. “I suggested to Mr. Boyer that he gather ten of his neighbors, at five dollars each, to watch your performance, Bill. You will then be giving instruction to ten persons at a nominal charge. You might say,” he added, “that you are about to conduct your first class in horse taming.”

  “I’m no horse-tamer,” Bill protested. “I just want to help out Mr. Boyer.”

  “And that you’ll be doing, son,” the farmer said, “if you can handle her.”

  “Did she bite when you bought her?” Bill asked, wanting to get back to the mare.

  “Just nipped, but she went from bad to worse. I couldn’t do anything with her.”

  “Did you try?” Bill asked.

  The farmer shifted uneasily. “Not often. You see, it became too dangerous to approach her. I had no choice but to leave her alone. I even had to feed her from above.”

  “Y’mean you left her alone in her stall?” Bill asked incredulously. “Y’never even took her out?”