Thoughts of a Farmer: XII, Old Kit

XII— Old Kit

After ten years of experience on the farm a fairly accurate

inventory may be made of the animal life with which one has to

do. Horses have their individualities that give relative values

as to service and breeding. Work values, and breeding values

may differ, but they often coincide when a general summing of

their usefulness is considered.

Old Kit, now well along in years, furnishes a good example

of those qualities which make for success after years of service

and, when grouped into a general estimate, furnish an average

valuation of life. She is slow, but steady. It has always been

a task to find others that would make a matched team, especially

when six horses are required for some farm implement. Nobody

wants to drive her, and when the boys work her off onto some

one else the joke is enjoyed as a feat of mental strategy. She

never hurries up. She never gets excited, and she has a slow

gait that requires special diligence to accelerate. She goes in

her own way which usually provokes some passionate expletives.

Her driver is late hitching her up and getting her to the plow.

She delays the regulation rounds in the fields, and goes to the

water at noon in such a fashion as to belate her driver who is

hungry and wants his dinner. Often she is the victim of unjust

abuse and is a standing joke on the farm.

During the ten years she has never once been lame nor sick ;

has never run away, and has been a safety brake when other

horses, hitched with her, have undertaken such a damaging prac-

tice. She pulls a fair-sized load and never balks. During that

time she has witnessed other swifter horses come and go. Death-

bed scenes of her mates have neither shocked nor injured her

nervous system. Every spring Old Kit has presented her owner

with a handsome colt which she has carefully reared to the

weaning time.

Swifter horses have been prone to balk when the load be-

came heavy. They have indulged in runaways which also

caused considerable damage. They have been subject to colic.

Their high life has carried them into barbed wire fences with

most damaging results. They have kicked one another and

320 IMPROVEMENT ERA

sometimes their drivers. Their enforced lay-offs have sometimes

covered months. Old Kit has never kicked either a horse or

driver.

"Have I got to drive Old Kit? Why don't you sell her?"

Such are the questions the boys put as they stand in fear of what

they may be asked to do when the teams are matched for work.

Boys rarely know the life long value of things. Sometimes

men do not recognize them. As I look over the list of about

fifty mares, I am led to believe that not a single one exceeded in

value her service to the farm either for work or breeding, and

only a few of them have equaled her. They, too, have been

slow but careful. It is the old story of "winning out in the

long run."

Quick-won successes are the mania of the age. The exces-

sive speeding-up processes of life are full of runaways, breakages

colic, and early deaths. They all belong to the curses of im-

patience and passion. They are full of uncertainties, and grave

misgivings. They have few real excellencies. They give rise to

distorted visions of life, and lack the value of long-sustained

efforts. Men run away with themselves. Communities leap be-

yond their abilities to recover themselves; and nations jump

headlong into dangers that cripple them.

Old Kit was never a favorite, and she was always reliably

useful. She has earned a well-deserved rest in old age. Through

the years of her service she never wandered away, and was

always ready for her harness when duty called.

Old Kit has served another useful purpose on the farm. She

was a reliable mate with which to break young colts. They soon

learned to take the steady gait she set for them and felt the

safety of her presence.

In an age of wild distortions of vision and plunging, we

should not view with impatience those who move slowly with

the burdens of life. What we really need is more safety and

less speed, more sustained effort and fewer spasmodic dashes.

Wasted energy through needless bounds, destroy the powers of

recovery. Too many are actuated by their wild emotions over

the probabilities of achievement rather than by conservative cal-

culations about results. The waste of the age is the haste which

men are putting into life. Wild frolics with chance are too often

the disasters of vouth.