We called him Goliath, he was so tall: strong as an elephant,
too: a powerful hand at a horse-rake and mowing-machine. Well, well, how
time flies, to be sure! He's been dead and gone these five years, and
Tom and Jerry, they were used up long ago--there's a deal of hard work
to be done on a farm of this size, I can tell you; and as to Filly, she
came to a sad end, for she got mired down in the low pasture, and had to
be hauled out with ropes, poor critter, and died of the wet and the
cold.
"Well, as I was saying, I never was put to hard work. I was born and
raised on the place, and I do suppose--though I say it, who
shouldn't--that I was an uncommon fine--looking colt, dark chestnut in
color, and not a white hair on me except this spot in my forehead that
gave me my name. When I was three months old, master made a present of
me to his oldest boy on his sixteenth birthday, and every half-hour
Master Fred could spare from his work, he used to spend in dressing down
and feeding me and teaching me cunning tricks. I could take an apple or
a lump of sugar from his pocket, walk down the slope behind the barn on
two legs, with my forefeet on his shoulders, and shake hands, old master
used to say, 'just like a Christian.
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