Horse Stories, and Stories of Other Animals. Thomas Wallace Knox
Читать онлайн книгу.
to the young Irish mother, who had many children about her, to take better care of the youngest!'”
“That's a very nice story,” said Charley, as his father paused. “I've read something like it in an English book; it was about a gentleman that was riding one night along a road and happened to be hit on the head by a projecting limb of a tree. He was stunned by the blow and fell to the ground. The horse went at once to the house he had started from, which was about a mile away; the family had gone to bed, but he made such a noise at the door as to rouse them. When some one came out he turned around and immediately led the way to where his master was lying senseless in the road.”
“And I've read about a horse,” remarked George, as his brother paused, “that showed its gratitude to a lady that had befriended it. It was in an open piece of ground near her house and the poor animal's shoulder was raw and bleeding. She coaxed him to come to her by giving him pieces of bread, and then she covered the wound with some adhesive plaster which she spread on a piece of leather. Then the horse went to grazing again, evidently feeling very much better. A little while afterward the horse's master came and led him away.
“The next day the horse came again to the lady's gate, and after looking around a while he put his head over it and whinnied. The lady went out and found that the plaster was gone from the sore spot; she put on another, and the next day the horse came again for the same attention, which was given. After that the plaster remained and the horse recovered. Ever after that when he saw the lady he showed his gratitude by whinnying and then rubbing his nose very gently against her. Sometimes he came to the gate and called her, and she used to go out and pet him, which seemed to give him a great deal of pleasure.”
“After those two stories,” said Mr. Graham, “I think you ought to have the horses you want. I'll buy them for you in a few days, and in the meantime we'll go to the training school for the horses of the New York Fire Department and see how they educate the animals there.”
Charley and George were delighted with the prospect of having horses of their own, and waited with some impatience for the purchase of their steeds. The day after the conversation just narrated they accompanied their father to one of the engine-houses and afterward to the training school. They were greatly interested in what they saw there, and Charley afterward wrote an account of the visit. He was assisted by a reporter for one of the newspapers whom he happened to meet in the engine-house, and we are permitted to copy the following from their story:
“The engine house was a big square room, smelling horsey and strong, yet was scrupulously clean and neat and resplendent with the polished steel and brass and the painted woodwork of the engine and hose-cart and chiefs wagon. In this particular engine-house the hose-cart happened to be in the front of the room, before the street doors, with the horse stalls on either side of it, against the sides of the room. The stalls were parallel with the hose-cart. Back of the hose-cart was the engine, big and shiny, with the 'ready' steam hissing into it through pipes from the boiler below. The chiefs cart was at one side of the engine, and in a corner of the room was the fuel wagon. In the side stalls stood two magnificent white horses—silent, motionless, but with ears erect, and wide open eyes watching the foreman and the strangers and apparently very anxious to join in the conversation.
“Suddenly a jingle bell in the room beat a lively rattle, and the fire gong began to ring out an alarm. The firemen slid down from upstairs on the polished rods of brass which stretched from the ground floor through scuttle-holes into the firemen's sitting-room, and took their several stations. The man on 'house watch' counted the gong strokes. As the electric snap on the bits of the horses in their stalls were unfastened, the horses jumped to their places at a bound, down came the hanging harness upon them, and collar, headstall and reinbit were fastened by ready hands in less than two seconds. Before the gong stopped sounding, engine and men and horses were ready to rush into the street if the alarm should turn out to be a call from their part of the city. The alarm did not so turn out, and all went back to their places.”
On the way from the engine-house to the training school in Harlem, Charley asked how the horses were obtained and where they came from. On this point the newspaper man enlightened him.
“The horses are generally selected,” said he, “by Captain Joseph Shea, who has charge of the training school, or by one of his assistants. They only deal with dealers whom they know to be trustworthy, and who have, in fact, furnished most of the horses to the department for years. Strength, agility, intelligence, kindness—these are the traits the buyers look at.
“When a horse has been picked out, he is sent to the training stables, and Captain Shea takes him in hand. The horse is set to tugging big loads, is punched, examined, trotted and exercised generally for fifteen days. Captain Shea has an old fire-engine at his quarters, and the horse is drilled with this, too, and is taught to notice and to mind the gong. If Captain Shea doesn't like the horse, the animal is sent back to the dealer or his former master. No horses are bought except on probation. If the horse seems to be a good one. Captain Shea sends him to some engine-house for practical trial. There the horse is made to do the same kind of work that other horses do, and if after fifteen days more the officer in command of the company doesn't like him, back he goes to the stables. It he is a very bad or stupid horse, the department rejects him finally. But the department has other uses for horses, of course, besides that of tugging engines and trucks to fires. It needs horses for supply wagons and in its repair shops, and in a great many other places, and if the horse can be used at all he is put at these kinds of work.”
When our friends reached the training school they were cordially welcomed by Captain Shea, to whom Mr. Graham presented a letter of introduction. Then they were shown through the establishment, and during the visit the Captain talked in a very interesting way about the intelligent animals which he had in charge.
“Some horses are kind o' dead like,” said he. “We coax 'em and show 'em over and over again what to do, but it's no use—they never know anything. Then an intelligent horse is sometimes vicious, and though very quick at getting to fires has some trick or other, so that we always have to be on the lookout. But a horse, if he's got the making of a good fire-horse in him, generally gets to learn his business in about three months. I have come to believe more and more that a horse is about as intelligent as a man. We can let some of 'em out in the street, and when they hear the gong sound they'll come back to the engine-house and get by the pole in a jiffy. Now you take a good horse for a tender, he don't wait for his driver to get into the seat, but out he goes when the engine goes, driver or no driver. A good tender horse'll never be more than 100 feet behind the engine as he goes down the street.
“A horse comes to know his feeding times, and he gets restless and uneasy when those times come, though I suppose all horses do the same. A fire-horse gets so accustomed to regularity, though, that he knows when he ought to be fed just as if he could read the clock. The driver generally feeds and takes care of the horses, though he consults with the company officer about what he shall give 'em. He puts the feed in the forward corner of the stall, opposite the corner across which the horse has to rush to his engine. Otherwise the latter corner would get slippery, and the horse would stumble as he dashed across it.
“One of the hardest things we have to teach a horse is to leave his food and get to the engine when the gong sounds. It's a good test of the stubbornness or docility of a horse, whichever way you've a mind to put it, whether he'll do this or not. There are a great many horses in the department that wont do it. Most of those which will, are the old horses. It annoys a real spirited horse to run out to the pole every don't get a chance to snap the collars, and at noontime it's generally a race between the men and the horses to see who gets to the pole first.”