Sometimes I am so full of fun and frolic that my Master lets me play
awhile. Then I just enjoy running about the stage, kicking up my heels,
showing my teeth at people, and making believe I am very savage, hitting
a note on the chimes, and dashing across to the cash register, opening
the drawer and ringing the bell, and then picking up a colored cloth in
my teeth and shaking it as if I were angry. But as soon as I have had
enough of this I quieted down, and we go ahead with a “show” as steadily
as can be. You see, my Master understands me, and doesn’t all the time
feel that he has to hold me in to make me “behave”—as people call it.
I’d like to know why I shouldn’t have high spirits and be happy and
jolly, if any horse on earth should. I’m well cared for day and night; I
have all I want to eat of the very best that money can buy; I am housed
in the most comfortable stable that can be hired, with plenty of good,
clean bedding, and a rug to keep me warm at night; I have my companions,
the pigeon, and Prince, the fox terrier, and Jasper is on hand all the
time, so why shouldn’t I be full of frolic. That comes from being happy
and healthy, and any one with sense can see that I am both, for my eyes
are clear, my breath is sweet, my skin is clean and I am full of life
and spirits.
My Master is good to me and I love him very dearly, but I am free to
confess I have a special affection for Madame Ellis’s little girl. She
is about ten years old, and we are real chums. Her name is Margaret. She
comes nearly every day to see me, and she pets me, and I pet her. She
brings me sugar and apples, and then after I have eaten them she sits on
my back, and after a while we play circus. She takes her shoes off—so
that she won’t hurt me—and stands on me, walks from my shoulders to my
tail, standing either looking frontwards or backwards, and I walk around
carefully so as not to make her fall. And when we get through she hugs
and kisses me, and I like it amazingly and kiss her back, and would hug
her if I knew just how to do it.
And now I have told my story. Now that the San Diego Exposition is over
my master, I expect, will take me all over the country, so that more
people may see me and become interested in my education. He feels that
the performances I give will interest children and those who have to
handle horses and thus lead them to treat all horses with more respect
and kindness. When human beings feel that horses have intelligence,—no
matter how small in quantity, or good in quality it may be,—they will
act differently towards them. It will lead them to be more tolerant,
patient and kind.
We hope to work with all the Humane Associations and Societies for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, for my master knows, as I also well
know, that when children and teamsters see me and watch what I can do,
their hearts become more gentle towards all animals, and thus the day is
hastened when kindness and love shall reign supreme upon the earth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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