A STRIKING LESSON.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1144, 23 January 1874, Page 3

A STRIKING LESSON.

It is sound business judgment to avoid the vicinity of any animal whose skin is so short that he can't ever drop his ears without raising his heels, the more so if he happens to be so particularly lively that he can go through both motions at once. My father once had a horse in his stables, a fine, spirited creature, which I was fond of fooling around. The old gentleman warned me that he might kick, but I didn't thank him for that ; of course he might kick—■any horse might, for that matter. But I hadn't been round the stables when supposed to be at school for nothing. I had noticed that when a horse kicked he laid his ears back. So I waltzed around " John the Baptist"—that was the noble animal's name, though why so christened, unless because of his ability to kick a path through a wilderness I do not know—just as usual, and relied on a religious observation of his ears for saftey. At the least dropping of that barometer I stood ready to jump. One day, having business about his manger —business not wholly unconnected with a hen's nest—l approached by what may be designated as a flank movement, and requested him to stand over on the other side of the stall, as I wished to come in. That there might be no mistake about my meaning, I made it quite clean by pricking the flank most in my way gently with a pitch-fork-. But I was careful to watch his ears very carefully while making the request. Now if you'll believe me, I didn't see his ears drop, neither did I see his foot rise. But I did hear a boy about my size strike against the other side of the barn with a bang. And after an hour or two, when 1 had collected my scattered thoughts and picked up the jews bar >s, and jack-knives •and green apples an 1 stolen watermelons that the industrious animal had kicked out of me, and climbed up m the hay-loft for th-3 double purpose of picking up the top of my head—which according to all evidence of the senses, ■must have landed there—and get a better view of what was going oil down below, I remarked that that horse's ears were laid down on his back as flat as though a tailor's goose had lit on them. But the warning did me very little good then. And when I went into the house, and the old gentleman said that he told me so, and that it would only have served me right if the horse had kicked me into the middle of next week. I found no relief for my bursting bosom till I had emptied the red pepper cruet into the manger of " John the Baptist"—turning his clover hay into the very wildest kind of honey—and set him sneezing till those confounded ears of his stood up so stiff and straight that they raked forward like a .jack-rabbit's. And I made up my mind then and there never again to let my liking for a brisk business bring me round anything the further end of which one has to watch to see what the nearer end is going to do, especially ■when that —--nearer one Still, and nearer one Yet than the other, has a way of lifting so quick and easy.— Jean l'aul.

[For remainder of news see 4th page.]