Early as he got up the next morning, his partners in the enterprise were waiting for him just around the corner of the barn, where he found them as he went for the cows, and they walked to the pasture with him in order to discuss the matter.
Ben Cushing was in light-marching and acrobatic costume, worn for the occasion in order to give a full exhibition of his skill; and Reddy had been up so long that he had had time to procure Mr. Douglass's wonderful steed, which he had already led to the pasture so that he could be experimented upon.
"I thought I'd get him up there," he said to Toby, "so's you could try him; 'cause if we don't get money enough to hire one of Rube Rowe, you'll have to ride the blind one or the lame one, an' you'd better find out which you want. If you try him in the pasture the fellers won't see you; but if you did it down by your house, every one of 'em would huddle 'round."
Toby thought the general idea was a good one; but he was just a trifle uncertain as to how the blind horse would get along on such uneven ground. However, he said nothing, lest his companions should think he was afraid to make the attempt; and when Ben and Bob proceeded to mark out a ring, he advised them as to its size.
The most level piece of ground that could be found was selected as the place for the trial, but several small mounds prevented it from being all a circus-rider could ask for.
Bob volunteered to lead the horse around the track several times, hoping he would become so accustomed to it as to be able to go by himself after a while; and Toby made his preparations by laying his hat on the ground with a stone on it, so that he should be sure to find it when his rehearsal was done.
It was a warm job Bob had undertaken, this leading the blind animal along the ill-defined line that marked the limits of the ring, for the sun shone brightly, and there were no friendly trees to lend a shelter; but he paid no attention to his discomfort because of the fact that he was doing something towards the enterprise which was to bring them in both honor and money.
The poor old horse was the least interested of the party, and he stumbled around the circle in an abused sort of way, as if he considered it a piece of gross injustice to force him on the weary round when the grass was so plentiful and tender just under his feet.
Ben was busily engaged in lengthening Mr. Douglass's rather weak and aged bridle with a small piece of rope, and from time to time he encouraged the ambitious clown in his labor.
"Keep it up, if it is hot!" he shouted; "an' when we get him so's he can do it alone, he'll be jest as good a circus-hoss as anybody would want, for we can stuff him with hay an' grass till he's fat," and Ben looked at the clearly defined ribs in a critical way, as if trying to decide how much food would be necessary to cover them with flesh.
"Oh, I can keep on as long as the hoss can," said Bob, as he wiped the perspiration from his face with one hand, and clung firmly to the forelock of the animal with the other; "but we've been round here as many as six times already, an' he don't seem to know the way any better than when we started."
"Oh yes, he does," cried Reddy, who was practising for his duties as ring-master, anxious that his education should advance as fast as the horse's did; "he's got so he knows enough to turn out for that second knoll, though he does stumble a little over the first one."
By this time Ben had the bridle adjusted to suit him, Toby was ready to make his first attempt at riding since he left the circus, and the more serious work was begun.
Ben bridled the horse after some difficulty, Reddy drew out from its hiding-place a whip made by tying a piece of cod-line to an alder branch, and Toby was about to mount, when Joe Robinson came in sight.
He had been running at full speed, and was nearly breathless; but he managed to cry out so that he could be understood after considerable difficulty:
"Hold on! don't go to ridin' till after we get some hoops for you to jump through."
"I guess I won't try any jumpin' till after I see how he goes," said Toby as he looked rather doubtfully first at the horse's weak legs, and then at his sharp back; "besides, we can't use the hoops till he gets more used to the ring."
Joe threw himself on the ground as if he felt quite as much aggrieved because he was thus left out of the programme as the horse apparently did because he was in it, and Bob consoled him by explaining that he had no reason to feel slighted, since he, who, as the clown, was to be the life of the entertainment, could take no other part in these preparatory steps than to lead a blind horse around a still blinder ring.
"Hold him while I get on," said Toby as he clutched the mane and a portion of the prominent backbone, drawing himself up at some risk of upsetting the rather shaky steed.
But there was no necessity of his giving this order, for, although four boys sprang to do his bidding, the weary horse remained as motionless as a statue, save for his hard breathing which proclaimed the fact that the "heaves" had long since singled him out as a victim.
Toby succeeded in getting on the animal's back after some exertion; but he found standing there an entirely different matter from standing on the broad saddles that were used in the circus, and the boy and the horse made a shaky-looking pair.
"Shall I start him?" asked Bob, while Reddy stood as near the centre of the ring as he could get, prepared to snap his cod-line whip at the first signal.
Toby hesitated a moment; he knew that to attempt to stand upon, or on either side of, that prominent backbone, after its owner was in motion, would be simply to invite his own downfall; and he said, as he seated himself carefully astride the bone:
"Let him walk around once till I see how he goes."
Reddy cracked his whip without producing any effect upon the patient steed, but, after much coaxing, Bob succeeded in starting him again, while Toby bounced up and down much like a kernel of corn on a griddle, such a decided motion did the horse have.
"He won't ever do for a ridin' hoss," said Toby with much difficulty, when he was half-way around the circle, "'cause you see his bones is so sharp that he feels as if he was comin' to pieces every time he steps."
"Jest get him to trottin' once, an' then you can tell what he's good for," suggested Reddy, anxious to try the effect of his whip; and, without waiting for the rider's permission, he lashed the unfortunate animal with the cod-line until he succeeded in rousing him thoroughly.
It was in vain Toby begged him to stop, and Bob shouted that such a course was not the proper one for a ring-master to pursue. Reddy was determined the rider should have an opportunity of trying the horse under full speed, and the result was that the animal broke loose from Bob's guiding hand, rushing out of the imaginary ring into the centre of the pasture at a rate of speed that would have surprised and frightened Mr. Douglass had he been there to see it.
Shaken first up, then down, and from one side to the other, Toby stretched himself out at full length, clasping the horse around the neck as the patched bridle broke, and shouting "Whoa!" at the full strength of his lungs.
After running fully fifty yards, until it seemed to Toby that his head and his body had been pounded into one, the horse stopped, leaned one heel up against the other, and stood as if dreamily asking whether they wanted any more circus out of him.
"Couldn't anybody ride him, he jolts so," said Toby to his partners, as they came running up to where he stood trying to find out whether or not his tongue was bleeding, and fearing it was, because his teeth had been pounded down on it so hard two or three times. "You see, in the circus they had big, wide saddles, an' the hosses didn't go anything like him."
"Well, we can fix a saddle," said Bob, thoughtfully; "but I don't know as we could do anything to the hoss."
"Perhaps old Whitey'll go better, 'cause she's lame," suggested Reddy, feeling that considerable credit was due him for having made it possible to test the animal's qualities in so short a time.
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