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W. W. Fink: Perkins

When I got out I found Mrs. Perkins at the door.

She had heard the racket, and had sped out to the stable, her only thought being of me and three stovelids which she had under her arm, and one of which she was about to fire at the beast.

This made me mad. "Go away, you unfortunate idiot," I shouted; "do you want to knock my brains out?" For I remembered seeing Mrs. Perkins sling a missile once before, and that I nearly lost an eye by the operation, although standing on the other side of the house at the time. She retired at once. And at the same time the animal quieted down, but there was nothing left of that peck measure, not even the maker's name.

I followed Mrs. Perkins into the house, and had her do me up, and then sat down in a chair, and fell into a profound strain of meditation. After a while I felt better, and went out to the stable again. The horse was leaning against the stable stall, with eyes halfclosed, and appeared to be very much engrossed in thought. "Step off to the left," I said, rubbing his back.

He didn't step. I got the pitchfork and punched him in the leg with the handle. He immediately raised up both hind legs at once, and that fork flew out of my hands, and went rattling up against the timbers bove, and came down again in an instant, the end of the handle rapping me with such force on the top of the head that I sat right down on the floor under the impression that I was standing in front of a drug store in the evening. I went back to the house and got some more stuff on me. But I couldn't keep away from that stable. I went out there again. The thought struck me that what the horse wanted was exercise. If that thought had been an empty glycerine can, it would have saved a windfall of luck for me.

But exercise would tone him down, and exercise him I should. I laughed to myself to think how I would trounce him around the yard. I didn't laugh again that afternoon. I got him unhitched, and then wondered how I was to get him out of the stall without carrying him out. I pushed, but he wouldn't budge. I stood looking at him in the face, thinking of something to say, when he suddenly solved the difficulty by veering and plunging for the door. I followed, as a matter of course, because I had a tight hold on the rope, and hit about every partition stud worth speaking of on that side of the barn. Mrs. Perkins was at the window, and saw us come out of the door. She subsequently remarked that we came out skipping like two innocent children. The skipping was entirely unintentional on my part. I felt as if I stood on the verge of eternity. Mylegs may have skipped, but my mind was filled with awe.

I took that animal out to exercise him. He exercised me before I got through with it. He went around a few times in a circle; then he stopped sud. denly, spread out his forelegs and looked at me. Then he leaned forward a little, and hoisted both hind legs, and threw about two coal-hods of mud over a line full of clothes which Mrs. Perkins had just hung out.

That excellent lady had taken a position at the window, and whenever the evolutions of the awful beast permitted, I caught a glance at her features.

She appeared to be very much interested in the proceedings; but the instant that the mud flew, she disappeared from the window, and a moment later she appeared on the stoop with a long poker in her hand, and fire enough in her eye to heat it red hot.

Just then Stiver's horse stood up on his hind-legs and tried to hug me with the others. This scared me. A horse never shows his strength to such advantage as when he is coming down on you like a frantic piledriver. I instantly dodged, and the cold sweat fairly boiled out of me.

It suddenly came over me that I once figured in a similar position years ago. My grandfather owned a little white horse that would get up from a meal at Delmonico's to kick the President of the United States. He sent me to the lot one day, and unhappily suggested that I often went after that horse, and suffered all kinds of defeat in getting him out of the pasture, but I had never tried to ride him. Heaven knows I never thought of it. I had my usual trouble with him that day. He tried to jump over me, and push me down in a mud hole, and finally got up on his hind-legs and came waltzing after me with facilities enough to convert me into hash, but I turned and just made for that fence with all the agony a prospect of instant death could crowd into me. If our candidate for the Presidency had run one-half as well, there would be seventy-five postmasters in Danbury to-day, instead of one.

I got him out finally, and then he was quiet enough and took him up along-side the fence and got on him. He stopped an instant, one brief instant, and then tore off down the road at a frightful speed. I laid down on him and clasped my hands tightly around his neck and thought of my home. When we got to the stable I was confident he would stop, but he didn't. He drove straight at the door. It was a low door, just high enough to permit him to go in at lightning speed, but there was no room for me. I saw if I struck that stable the struggle would be a very brief one. I thought this all over in an instant, and then, spreading out my arms and legs, emitted a scream, and the next moment I was bounding about in the filth of that stable yard. All this passed through my mind as Stiver's horse went up into the air. It frightened Mrs. Perkins dreadfully. "Why, you old fool!" she said, "why don't you get rid of him?" "How can I?" said I, in desperation. "Why, there are a thousand ways," said she.

This is just like a woman. How different a statesman would have answered. But I could only think of two ways to dispose of the beast, I could either swallow him where he stood and then sit down on him, or I could crawl inside of him and kick him to death.

But I was saved either of these expedients by his coming toward me so abruptly that I dropped the rope in terror, and then he turned about, and kicking me full of mud, shot for the gate, ripping the clothes-line in two, and went on down the street at a horrible gallop, with two of Mrs. Perkins' garments, which he hastily snatched from the line, floating over his neck in a very picturesque manner.

So I was afterwards told. I was too full of mud myself to see the way into the house.

Stiver got his horse all right, and stays at home to care for him. Mrs. Perkins has gone to her mother's to recuperate, and I am healing as fast as possible.