How Animals Talk 



loosely across his back, and controlled him by a 

 word. 



Some years later I was riding behind that same 

 horse, jogging quietly along a country road, when 

 my friend, with an odd twinkle in his eye, said, 

 "Take the reins a moment while I get out this 

 robe." I took them, and what followed seemed 

 like magic or bedevilment. I had noticed that the 

 reins were loose, just "feeling" the horse's mouth; 

 I shifted them to my hand very quietly, without 

 stirring a hair, and blinders on the bridle prevented 

 the horse from seeing the transfer. Yet hardly 

 had I touched them when something from my 

 hand (or from my soul, for aught I know) flowed 

 along the leather and filled the brute with fire. 

 He flung up his head, as if I had driven spurs into 

 him, and was away like a shot. 



Again, I was crossing the public square of 

 Nantucket one morning when I saw a crowd of 

 excited men and boys eddying at a safe distance 

 around a horse an ugly, biting brute that had 

 once almost torn the side of my face off when I 

 passed too close to him, minding my own affairs. 

 Now he was having one of his regular tantrums, 

 squealing, kicking, plunging or backing, while his 

 driver, who had leaped to the ground, alternately 

 lashed and cursed him. I heard an angry voice 

 near me utter the single word " Fools !" and saw a 



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