ill-tempered. This was a tall chestnut mare, with a long handsome neck;
she looked across to me and said, "So it is you have turned me out of my
box; it is a very strange thing for a colt like you to come and turn a
lady out of her own home."

[Illustration]

"I beg your pardon," I said, "I have turned no one out; the man who
brought me put me here, and I had nothing to do with it. I never had
words yet with horse or mare, and it is my wish to live at peace."

"Well," she said, "we shall see; of course, I do not want to have words
with a young thing like you." I said no more. In the afternoon, when
she went out, Merrylegs told me all about it.

"The thing is this," said Merrylegs, "Ginger has a habit of biting and
snapping; that is why they call her Ginger, and when she was in the
box-stall, she used to snap very much. One day she bit James in the arm
and made it bleed, and so Miss Flora and Miss Jessie, who are very fond
of me, were afraid to come into the stable. They used to bring me nice
things to eat, an apple, or a carrot, or a piece of bread, but after
Ginger stood in that box, they dared not come, and I missed them very
much. I hope they will now come again, if you do not bite or snap." I
told him I never bit anything but grass, hay, and corn, and could not
think what pleasure Ginger found it.

"Well, I don't think she does find pleasure," says Merrylegs; "it is
just a bad habit; she says no one was ever kind to her, and why should
she not bite? Of course, it is a very bad habit; but I am sure, if all
she says be true, she must have been very ill-used before she came here.