Black Beauty: Ginger’s Story

Chapters

• 0:20 Ginger's Struggle for Kindness
• 15:47 Trauma of Mistreatment and Defense
• 22:18 Black Beauty's Transformation Through Kindness

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:20

Welcome to Dreamful Podcast bedtime stories for slumber. I would like to start this episode by thanking our newest supporters, lee, savannah and Richard and Jade. Thank you all so much, and I hope you have the sweetest of dreams. If you'd like to support the show and gain access to subscriber-only episodes while receiving a shout-out, visit dreamfullstoriescom and, on the support page, find a link to become a Buzzsprout supporter or subscribe via Supercast.

Speaker 1: 0:53

If you listen on Spotify that I want to thank everyone who has been using the text, the show link in the show notes to say hi or to send in amazing story suggestions that I've just been loving, or also just to let me know that the show has helped you through sickness or heartache. 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.

Speaker 2: 1:49

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 2:31

One day when Ginger and I were standing alone in the shade we had a great deal of talk. She wanted to know all about my bringing up and breaking in. And I told her about my bringing up and breaking in. And I told her Well, said she, if I had your bringing up I might have had as good a temper as you. But now I don't believe I ever shall. 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.

Speaker 1: 3:27

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.

Speaker 1: 4:48

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.

Speaker 1: 5:37

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.

Speaker 1: 7:41

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.

Speaker 1: 9:54

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.

Speaker 1: 10:41

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.

Speaker 1: 12:22

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.

Speaker 1: 13:04

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.

Speaker 1: 14:57

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.

Speaker 1: 15:47

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.

Speaker 1: 17:00

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.

Speaker 1: 17:43

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.

Speaker 1: 18:15

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.

Speaker 1: 18:51

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.

Speaker 1: 19:42

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.

Speaker 1: 20:51

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.

Speaker 1: 22:18

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.

Speaker 1: 23:19

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.