Black Beauty: Ginger’s Story

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All these messages mean so much to me and I just want to let you know that I have really loved reading through all of these and , as I said , this is another listener suggestion episode because I have gotten so many requests for more Black Beauty chapters or other horse stories , and so I thought we'd continue reading Black Beauty with Ginger's story .

So snuggle up your blankets and have sweet dreams .

Why not , I said , because it has been all so different with me . She replied I never had anyone , horse or man , that was kind to me whether I cared to please For in the first place I was taken from my mother as soon as I was weaned and put with a lot of other young colts . None of them cared for me and I cared for none of them .

There was no kind master like yours to look after me and talk to me and bring me nice things to eat . The man that had the care of us never gave me a kind word in my life . I do not mean that he ill-used me , but he did not care for us one bit further than to see that we had plenty to eat and shelter in the winter .

A footpath ran through our field and very often the great boys passing through would fling stones to make us gallop . I was never hit , but one fine young colt was badly cut in the face and I should think it would be a scar for life .

We did not care for them , but of course it made us more wild and we settled it in our minds that boys were our enemies . We had very good fun in the free meadows , galloping up and down and chasing each other round and round the field , then standing still under the shade of the trees . But when it came to breaking in , that was a bad time for me .

Several men came to catch me , and when at last they closed me in at one corner of the field . One caught me by the forelock , another caught me by the nose and held it so tight I could hardly draw my breath . Then another took under my jaw in his hard hand and wrenched my mouth open , and so by force they got on the halter and the bar into my mouth .

Then one dragged me along by the halter , another flogging behind , and this was the first experience I had of men's kindness . It was all force . They did not give me a chance to know what they wanted . I was highbred and had a great deal of spirit and was very wild , no doubt , and gave them , I dare say , plenty of trouble .

But then it was dreadful to be shut up in a stall day after day instead of having my liberty , and I fretted and pined and wanted to get loose . You know yourself as bad enough when you have a kind master and plenty of coaxing , but there was nothing of that sort for me .

There was one , the old master , mr Ryder , who I think could soon have brought me round and could have done anything with me , but he had given up all the hard part of the trade to his son and to another experienced man , and he only came at times to oversee .

His son was a strong , tall , bold man , they called him Samson , and he used a boat , but he had never found a horse that could throw him . There was no gentleness in him as there was in his father , but only hardness , a hard voice , a hard eye , a hard hand .

And I felt from the first that what he wanted was to wear all the spirit out of me and just make me into a quiet , humble , obedient piece of horse flesh . Horse flesh , yes , that is all he thought about . And Ginger stamped her foot as if the very thought of him made her angry . Then she went on .

If I did not do exactly what he wanted , he would get put out and make me run round with that long rein in the training field till he had tired me out . I think he drank a good deal and I am quite sure that the oftener he drank , the worse it was for me .

One day he had worked me hard in every way he could and when I lay down I was tired and miserable and angry . It all seemed so hard and angry . It all seemed so hard . The next morning he came for me early and ran me round again for a long time .

I had scarcely had an hour's rest when he came again for me with a saddle and bridle and a new kind of bit . I could never quite tell how it came about . He had only just mounted me on the training ground when something I did put him out of temper and he chucked me hard with the rain .

The new bit was very painful and I reared up suddenly , which angered him still more , and he began to flog me . I felt my whole spirit sit against him and I began to kick and plunge and rear as hard as I had never done before and we had a regular fight For a long time .

He stuck to the saddle saddle and punished me cruelly with his whip and spurs , but my blood was thoroughly up and I cared for nothing he could do . If only I could get him off At last . After a terrible struggle , I threw him off backward backward .

I heard him fall heavily on the turf and , without looking behind me , I galloped off to the other end of the field . There I turned around and saw my persecutor slowly rising from the ground and going into the stable . I stood under an oak tree and watched slowly rising from the ground and going into the stable .

I stood under an oak tree and watched , but no one came to catch me . The time went on and the sun was very hot . The flies swarmed round me and settled on my bleeding flanks where the spurs had dug in . I felt hungry , for I had not eaten since the early morning , but there was not enough grass in that meadow for a goose to live on .

I wanted to lie down and rest , but with the saddle strapped tightly on , there was no comfort . There was not a drop of water to drink . The afternoon wore on and the sun got low , I saw the other colts flood in and I knew they were having a good feed At last . Just as the sun went down , I saw the old master come out with a sieve in his hand .

He was a very fine old gentleman with quite white hair , but his voice was what I should know him by among a thousand . It was not high , nor yet low , but full and clear and kind . And when he gave orders it was so steady and decided that everyone knew , both horses and men , that he expected to be obeyed , that he expected to be obeyed .

He came quietly along now and then , shaking the oats about that he had in the sieve no-transcript . Come along , lassie . Come along , lassie , come along , come along . I stood still and let him come up . He held the oats to me and I began to eat without fear . Fear . His voice took away all my fear .

He stood by , patting and stroking me while I was eating and seeing the clots of blood on my side . He seemed very vexed . Poor Lassie , it was a bad business , a bad business . Then he quietly took the rein and led me to the stable . Just at the door stood Samson . I laid my ears back and snapped at him .

Stand back , said the master , and keep out of her way . You've done a bad day's work for this filly . He growled out something about a vicious brute . Hark ye , said the father . A bad-tempered man will never make a good-tempered horse . You've not learned your trade yet , samson .

Then he led me to my box , took off the saddle and bridle with his own hands and tied me up . Then he called for a pill of warm water and a sponge , took off his coat and while the stableman held the pail he sponged my sides a good while , so tenderly that I was sure he knew how sore and bruised they were . Whoa , my pretty one .

He said Stand still , stand still . His very voice did me good and the bathing was very comfortable . The skin was so broken at the corners of my mouth that it could not eat the hay . The stalks hurt me . He looked closely at it , shook his head and told the man to fetch a good bran mash and put some meal into it .

How good that mash was and so soft and healing to my mouth . He stood by all the time I was eating , stroking me and talking to the man . If a high-mettled creature like this said he can't be broken by fair means , she will never be good for anything .

After that he often came to see me and when my mouth was healed , the other breaker Job they called him , went on training me . He was steady and thoughtful and I soon learned what he wanted . The next time that Ginger and I were together in the paddock , she told me about her first place After my breaking in .

She said I was bought by a dealer to match another chestnut horse . For some weeks he drove us together and then we were sold to a fashionable gentleman and were sent up to London . I had been driven with a check rein by the dealer and I hated it worse than anything else .

But in this place we were reined far tighter , the coachman and his master thinking we looked more stylish . So the coachman and his master thinking we looked more stylish . So we were often driven about in the park and other fashionable places . You who never had a check ring on don't know what it is , but I can tell you it is dreadful .

I like to toss my head about and hold it as high as any horse . But fancy now yourself if you tossed your head up high and were obliged to hold it there , and that for hours together , not able to move it at all , except with a jerk still higher , your neck aching till you did not know how to bear it .

Besides that , to have two bits instead of one and mine was a sharp one it hurt my tongue and my jaw and the blood from my tongue colored the froth that kept flying from my lips as I chafed and fretted at the bits and rain .

It was worst when we had to stand by the hour waiting for a mistress at some grand party or entertainment , and if I fretted or stand with impatience the whip was laid on . It was enough to drive one mad . Did not your master take any thought for you ? I said no , said she . He only cared to have a stylish turnout , as they call it .

I think he knew very little about horses . He left that to his coachman , who told him I had an irritable temper , that I had not been well broken to the check ring , that I should soon get used to it .

But he was not the man to do it , for when I was in the stable , miserable and angry , instead of being smoothed and quieted by kindness , I got only a surly word or a blow . If he had been civil I would have tried to bear it . I was willing to work , and ready to work hard too , but to be tormented for nothing . But their fancies angered me .

What right had they to make me suffer like that ? Besides the soreness in my mouth and the pain in my neck , it always made my windpipe feel bad , and if I had stopped there long , I know , it was the world my breathing . But I grew more and more restless and irritable . But I grew more and more restless and irritable .

I could not help it and I began to snap and kick . And anyone came to harness me For this . The groom beat me , and one day , as they had just buckled us into the carriage and were straining my head up with that rain , I began to plunge and kick with all my might . I soon broke a lot of harness and kicked myself clear .

So that was an end of that place . After this I was sent to Tattersall's to be sold . Of course I could not be warranted free from vice , so nothing was said about that . My handsome appearance and good paces soon brought a gentleman to bid for me , and I was bought by another dealer .

He tried me in all kinds of ways and with different bits , and he soon found out what I could not bear . At last he drove me quite without a checkerine and then sold me as perfectly quiet horse to a gentleman in the country . He was a good master and I was getting on very well . But his old groom left him and a new one came .

This man was as hard-tempered and hard-handed as Samson . He always spoke in a rough , impatient voice , and if I did not move in the stall the moment he wanted me , he would hit me above the hawks with a stable broom or the fork , whichever he might have in his hand . Everything he did was rough and I began to hate him .

He wanted to make me afraid of him , but I was too high-meddled for that , and one day , when he had aggravated me more than usual , I bit him , which of course put him in a great rage , and he began to hit me about the head with a riding whip . After that he never dared to come into my stall again .

Either my heels or my teeth were ready for him , and he knew it were ready for him and he knew it . I was quite quiet with my master , but of course he listened to what the man said and so I was sold again . The same dealer heard of me and said he thought he knew of one place where I should do well . T'was a pity .

He said that such a fine whore should go to the bad for want of a real good chance . And the end of it was that I came here not long before you did . But I then made up my mind that men were my natural enemies and that I must defend myself . Of course it is very different here , but who knows how long it will last .

I wish I could think about things as you do , but I can't . After all , I have gone through . Well , I said I think it would be a real shame if you were to bite or kick John or James . I don't mean to , she said , while they are good to me . I did bite James once , pretty sharp , but John said try her with kindness .

But John said try her with kindness . And instead of punishing me as I expected , james came up to me with his arm bound up and brought me a brown mash and stroked me , and I have never snapped at him since and I won't either . I was sorry for Ginger , but of course I knew very little then and I thought most likely she made the worst of it .

However , I found that as the weeks went on , she grew much more gentle and cheerful and had lost the watchful , defiant look that she used to turn on any strange person who came near her . And one day James said I do believe that mare is getting fond of me . She quite whinnied after me this morning when I had been rubbing her forehead .

She quite whinnied after me this morning when I had been rubbing her forehead . Aye , aye , jim tis the Burtwick balls . Said John , she'll be as good as Black Beauty by and by . Kindness is all the physic she wants . Poor thing . Master knows the change too .

And one day , when he got out of the carriage and came to speak to us , as he often did , he stroked her beautiful neck . Well , my pretty one . Well , how do things go with you now ? You're a good bit happier than when you came to us . I think she put her nose up to him in a friendly , trustful way while he rubbed it gently .

We shall make a cure of her , john . He said yes , sir , she's wonderfully improved . She's not the same creature that she was . It's the Burtwick ball , sir , said John , laughing . This was a little joke of John's . He used to say that a regular course of the Burtwick horse balls would cure almost any vicious horse .

These balls , he said , were made up of patience and gentleness , firmness and petting , one pound of each to be mixed up with half a pint of common sense no-transcript .