"Well," said she, "if I had 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 any one, horse or man, that was kind to me, or that 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 my under 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