“God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear, To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here. "What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors great and small, appal ?" Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth ROBERT BROWNING. IN the June of 1889, some of the friends with whom I have taken many an excursion into the fertile fields of literature and up the easier hillslopes of science, - with whom it is still my privilege to work, and for whom I am glad to grow old, startled me with a kindness that, for the time being, may I confess, seemed a burdensome token of affection. They presented me with a purse, accompanied with the imperative command, "Go, get thee a horse." This was opening a closed door in my heart. It was arousing abandoned dreams and suggesting forbidden pleasures. It came like the sweet, high temptation that disturbs the cloistered retirement of the voluntary exile of him who has fled the world that he might serve it. I, who was born and bred on the farm, who had had childhood companionship with horses, and who, during my three years' experience in the artillery service, had learned the comradeship possible between a soldier and his 3 horse, now resented in my heart as a forbidden pleasure, a dangerous concession to the pleasure-loving side of my life, the prospect of a saddle-horse all my own. It was a luxury not becoming to me, an indulgence which I felt I could not afford, either in point of time or in point of money. But there was no alternative left me, and I went in quest of my "white elephant." What solemn weeks were those in which I went jockeying from stable to stable, from one auction sale to another; how attentive the dealers became, how ready they were to serve. At almost any hour of any day a saddle-horse might be seen in front of my study door, a horse sent around by some dealer, "thinking I might like him." Questions of color, size, and gait became absorbing ones. There were several which my judgment approved. But early in the quest a six-year-old mare, a little undersized, but alert, clean-limbed, supple, nervous, albeit of the gentle, cosseting kind, had captured my heart. I tried to choose some one of the other horses, because this one was too expensive, too spirited; in short, too much to my liking. From the first, though greatly excited to find herself in the noise of a great city, at the end of the alarming tortures of a railroad ride, she seemed to confide in me. The experimental rides were very promising, and, after three weeks of resistance, judgment surrendered to affection, and the proud, timid, alert little creature was mine. In memory of an earlier love, a favorite of the farm home, she was named "Jess," a name suggestive of the political campaign of 1856. The name written long would be "Jessie Fremont," that of the admired wife of the mountain pathfinder. In two days Jess and I started out on our first tramp. We soon understood each other. I think the affection was mutual. We had not been on the road three hours before I discovered that she had adopted me as I had her. We rested each other often by my breaking the ride with long walks. I found that she needed no leading strings; faithful as a dog, she followed wherever I went. Hundreds of miles, during the four years of our summer companionship, she followed me without word or bridle. Often in my musings I would forget all about my silent companion; suddenly recalling myself, I would look around, wondering whether she had resented the neglect and abandoned me; but always she was close at hand. Sometimes she, too, would be lost in 斷 |