[Illustration: PARTING WITH OLD JACK.]
I have had a great many pets since--cats and dogs, squirrels and
rabbits, canary birds and parrots--but never any that I loved more than
I did old Jack; and to this day I am ashamed of the deception I
practiced upon him in the matter of the oats, when trying to catch him.
I don't wonder he resented the trick, and played one on me in return.
But I am transgressing the rule I laid down for myself in the outset of
these stories--not to prate much about my own pets. According to this
rule, I ought to have touched much more lightly upon the life and times
of old Jack.
A correspondent of the Providence (R. I.) Journal, gives an account of a
horse in his neighborhood that was remarkably fond of music. "A
physician," he says, "called daily to visit a patient opposite to my
place of residence. We had a piano in the room on the street, on which a
young lady daily practiced for several hours in the morning. The weather
was warm, and the windows were open, and the moment the horse caught the
sound of the piano, he would deliberately wheel about, cross the street,
place himself as near the window as possible, and there, with ears and
eyes dilating, would he quietly stand and listen till his owner came for
him. This was his daily practice. Sometimes the young lady would stop
playing when the doctor drove up. The horse would then remain quietly in
his place; but the first stroke of a key would arrest his attention, and
half a dozen notes would invariably call him across the street.
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