=You have never overloaded, or overworked me; never hitched me where water could drop on me, or where I had to stand too long in the wet, and if it was cold weather you have always covered me with a blanket. My feet have always been well shod; you have always examined my teeth to see that they were kept in good condition, and never allowed “fox tails” to pierce my gums and make my mouth sore. You have never been so wicked and cruel as to cut away my tail so that I could not defend myself from flies and mosquitoes, and at night or day time, you have never tied my head up so tightly that it was in an unnatural position and prevented me from moving it easily, or lying down to sleep.= =You have always seen that I had plenty of clean and cool water to drink, day and night, and you have watched me with care so that I should not get sick. While I love the warm sun you have not tied me where, when it was very hot, I could get no shelter. In winter time you have never allowed a frosty bit to be put in my mouth.= =And though I am still young and healthy and apparently not likely to become feeble and useless for many years to come, the kindness you have already shown me assures me that when I do lose my strength and ability you will not turn me out into some poor pasture where I may starve or freeze, or sell me to some human brute who will whip and torture me to get the last fragment of work out of me, while he slowly starves me to death with poor and insufficient food. If it is impossible to put me where I shall have proper food and shelter I know you will mercifully, kindly, and swiftly take my life, and thus, even in the hour of death, I shall thank you with my whole heart.= =And, though I am a horse, I am sure you have remembered that God is my Father and Creator as well as yours, or I should not be here, and that His Son said that His Heavenly Father cared even for the sparrows, two of which were sold for a farthing, and that He himself ever sanctified a stable by the fact that He was born in one and cradled in the manger at Bethlehem. So, In His Name, I give you thanks for all your kindness to me, recalling to your memory His words that “inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”= =—Amen.= [Illustration: Captain and a group of his admiring friends at the Panama-California International Exposition, San Diego. Captain W. A. Sigsbee (his owner and trainer) and President G. A. Davidson of the Exposition at his head.] [Illustration: Captain and George Wharton James with the pigeons at the San Diego Exposition, 1916.] TRANSCRIBER NOTES Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Inconsistencies in punctuation have been maintained.