HORSE BUYING AND TRYING 



regularly and plentifully, that 's what he is for ; 

 nor, if you and the groom and the children and 

 grandma and the entire outfit will all persist in feed- 

 ing him and in driving him, perhaps only to the 

 post-office and back, can you blame either Charlie or 

 his former master if some day, in sheer lightness of 

 heart, he sends the dasher flying about your ears. 

 Secondly, never believe the ghost story that 

 Charlie or any other horse is, was, or will be 

 " safe for women to drive," for that means 

 safe under every and all possible (and impossible) 

 conditions ; no such horse was ever foaled, and 

 putting women aside, no horse is " absolutely 

 safe" for any man to drive. There are three 

 very excellent reasons why no woman, unaccom- 

 panied by a man, should drive any horse ; that is, 

 the average woman who "sometimes used to 

 drive old Nellie and the carryall when a girl," 

 and who, now that Henry is able to afford a turn- 

 out, wants to take the family out behind the new 

 horse because the dealer said "a woman could 

 drive him/' A woman has never been taught to 

 shut her hands (and has no strength when they 

 are shut) ; she wears gloves generally much too 

 small for her, or, if large enough, they button tight 

 around the wrist, which is as bad, so far as cramp- 



17 



