tracted--an' the upshot was that--waal, I've come up
the Back Pasture to-day, an' the coupe's tipped clear over twice, an'
I've waited till 'twuz fixed each time. You kin judge for yourselves. I
don't set up to be no better than my neighbours,--specially with my
tail snipped off the way 'tis,--but I want you all to know Tedda's quit
fightin' in harness or out of it, 'cep' when there's a born fool in
the pasture, stuffin' his stummick with board that ain't rightly hisn,
'cause he hain't earned it."

"Meanin' me, madam?" said the yellow horse.

"Ef the shoe fits, clinch it," said Tedda, snorting. "I named no names,
though, to be sure, some folks are mean enough an' greedy enough to do
'thout 'em."

"There's a deal to be forgiven to ignorance," said the yellow horse,
with an ugly look in his blue eye.

"Seemin'ly, yes; or some folks 'u'd ha' been kicked raound the pasture
'bout onct a minute sence they came--board er no board."

"But what you do not understand, if you will excuse me, madam, is that
the whole principle o' servitood, which includes keep an' feed, starts
from a radically false basis; an' I am proud to say that me an' the
majority o' the horses o' Kansas think the entire concern should be
relegated to the limbo of exploded superstitions. I say we're too
progressive for that. I say we're too enlightened for that. 'Twas good
enough's long's we didn't think, but naow--but naow--a new loominary has
arisen on the horizon!"

"Meanin' you?" said the Deacon.

"The horses o' Kansas are behind me with their multitoodinous thunderin'
hooves, an' we say, simply but grandly, that we take our stand with all
four feet on the inalienable rights of the horse, pure and simple,--the
high-toned child o' nature, fed by the same wavin' grass, cooled by the
same ripplin' brook--yes, an' warmed by the same gen'rous sun as falls
impartially on the outside an' the inside of the pampered machine o'
the trottin'-track, or the bloated coupe-horses o' these yere Eastern
cities. Are we not the same flesh an' blood?"

"Not by a bushel an' a half," said the Deacon, under his breath.
"Grandee never was in Kansas."

"My! Ain't that elegant, though, abaout the wavin' grass an' the
ripplin' brooks?" Tuck whispered in Nip's ear. "The gentleman's real
convincin' I think."

"I say we are the same flesh an' blood! Are we to be separated, horse
from horse, by the artificial barriers of a trottin'-record, or are we
to look down upon each o