[4] In 1891 President Benj. Harrison attended a meeting of The Association of Road and Trotting Horse Breeders, at White River Junction, Vermont. In the course of his remarks on that occasion he said: “I understand that it was so arranged that after I had seen the flower of manhood and womanhood in Vermont I should be given an exhibition of the next grade in intelligence and worth in the State--your good horses. I had, recently, through the intervention of my Secretary of War, the privilege of coming into possession of a pair of Vermont horses. They are all I could wish for, and, as I said the other day at the little village from which they came, they are of good Morgan stock, of which some one has said, ‘their greatest characteristic is that they enter into consultation with the driver, or rider, whenever there is a difficulty.’”--_The Morgan Horse, page 27, Joseph Battell._ CHAPTER III. CEPH’S UNHAPPY FATE. Never had Ceph been treated kindly by anyone; he’d never had “half a chance in life,” as Gipsey said. Nobody ever praised him, everybody blamed him, and he had nothing but blows and hard words for his portion. Even his food, which always came irregularly, had to be gobbled, for fear time enough to eat it comfortably would not be given him! Nobody ever rubbed him down when he was hot and tired, and his work was harder and more exacting than that of the other two. For the most part he took it philosophically, with only an occasional groan until, perhaps, he saw better food measured out for his neighbors than was measured out for him, then he stamped and grunted and sometimes bit at them, crossly. For many years he had been subject to spavin, at times his hock swelled badly and he went lame and limped painfully. At last Silas could close his eyes no longer to the fact that unless something were done for the old horse he would become entirely useless. In Springfield a horse doctor lived who knew, among other things, how to “fire” a spavined hock. True had once seen this man thrust a sharp knife into a horse’s mouth who had lampers; the flow of warm red blood had made the colt shudder and, remembering this, he was very sorry when he found out this cruel person was to visit Ceph. Gipsey recalled that this Dr. Quack had once been sent for to see a neighbor’s suffering cow; he arrived, looking wise and solemn, and declared the cow had a disease called “hollow-horn.” He thereupon split her tail lengthwise and filled the raw opening with salt and pepper.[5] The poor cow died, and none but her barn-mates knew the distressing fact that she had really died of “hollow stomach,” not “hollow horn,” because their owner was so cruelly economical with food!