4 FOUR-FOOTED AMERICANS 



ing for the horses. Cliilclren play about the farm, who 

 feed me with bunches of pmk clover and little lumps 

 of nice-tasting stuff they call sugar. I mistrusted it 

 at first, it looked so like the hard pebbles in the brook, 

 but it chewed up all right when I nibbled some." 



^^You don't look as if you had been having /ia?f enough 

 to eat, in spite of the good times," said Tom, pityingly. 

 " Only look at your ribs. I can count every one of 

 them. If you were harnessed to a plough, you would 

 come apart at the very first pull. How could you 

 drag a load of hay? As for working in the thresh- 

 ing-machine, those little feet of yours would catch 

 between the slats. What use are thin horses, any- 

 way ? " concluded Tom, rather rudely, not realizing 

 that his remarks were impolite, while Jerr}^ looked 

 proudly along his fat sides and pawed the ground with 

 a hoof nearly as large as a dinner plate. 



Comet was going to answer angrily and say some- 

 thing very saucy about clumsy work horses, but he 

 stopped himself in time, being every inch a thorough- 

 bred ; for good breeding shows in the manners of 

 animals as well as in House People. 



" No," he answered after a moment, '' I can't plough, 

 nor drag a load, nor work the threshing-machine ; but 

 horses are made for different kinds of work. You do 

 not think a cow useless because she gives milk instead 

 of doing any sort of pulling, do you? Now I can drag 

 the little wagon over to the railway station — where 

 the great iron horse drags the string of covered wagons 

 along the ground on the queer shiny fence rails — in 

 half the time it takes you to go round the ten-acre 

 lot. When I hear that horse coming, breathing hard 



