Manners and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, English
“Waal, I’ll tell you this much. They don’t bloat, an’ they don’t
pamp—much. I don’t hold out to be no trotter myself, though I am free
to say I had hopes that way—onct. But I _do_ say, fer I’ve seen ’em
trained, that a trotter don’t trot with his feet: he trots with his
head; an’ he does more work—ef you know what _that_ is—in a week than
you er your sire ever done in all your lives. He’s everlastingly at it,
a trotter is; an’ when he isn’t, he’s studyin’ haow. You seen ’em trot?
Much you hev! You was hitched to a rail, back o’ the stand, in a
buckboard with a soap-box nailed on the slats, an’ a frowzy buff’lo
atop, while your man peddled rum fer lemonade to little boys as thought
they was actin’ manly, till you was both run off the track an’
jailed—you intoed, shufflin’, sway-backed, wind-suckin’ skate, you!”
“Don’t get het up, Deacon,” said Tweezy, quietly. “Now, suh, would you
consider a fox-trot, an’ single-foot, an’ rack, an’ pace, _an_’ amble,
distinctions not worth distinguishin’? I assuah you, gentlemen, there
was a time befo’ I was afflicted in my hip, if you’ll pardon me, Miss
Tuck, when I was quite celebrated in Paduky for _all_ those gaits; an’
in my opinion the Deacon’s co’rect when he says that a ho’se of any
position in society gets his gaits by his haid, an’ not by—his, ah,
limbs, Miss Tuck. I reckon I’m very little good now, but I’m
rememberin’ the things I used to do befo’ I took to transpo’tin’ real
estate with the help an’ assistance of this gentleman here.” He looked
at Muldoon.
“Invijjus arterficial hind legs!” said the ex-car-horse, with a grunt
of contempt. “On de Belt Line we don’t reckon no horse wuth his keep
’less he kin switch de car off de track, run her round on de cobbles,
an’ dump her in ag’in ahead o’ de truck what’s blockin’ him. Dere is a
way o’ swingin’ yer quarters when de driver says,‘Yank her out, boys!’
dat takes a year to learn. Onct yer git onter it, youse kin yank a
cable-car outer a manhole. I don’t advertise myself for no
circus-horse, but I knew dat trick better than most, an’ dey was good
to me in de stables, fer I saved time on de Belt—an’ time’s what dey
hunt in N’ York.”
“But the simple child o’ nature—” the yellow horse began.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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