Part 5

I think I can truthfully answer that I do not show temper very often. I must confess, however, that now and again I am not as well-dispositioned as I generally am. Sometimes I feel a little out of sorts, and then I act up just as a naughty boy or girl does. I want my Master to hurry up my performance and let me get away, and I bungle and stumble and do the very thing I ought not to do. When I feel like this and have to pick out the colors, I grab the cloth viciously, and sometimes deliberately take the wrong one, or slam the drawer of the cash-register, and when it comes to playing the chimes it is too funny the way I find myself acting. When I reach the last few notes I hit them one after another as fast as I can, and then run around the stage to show Master I am impatient to get away. I suppose boys and girls get that way in school sometimes. Anyhow that is what Master and some of the people who come to see me say, and I can well believe it, for there is not so much difference between my actions and those of boys and girls, if people could only understand them aright.

One day Jasper brought a pigeon into the stable. I heard him say a lady had given it to him. We soon became the best of friends. The pigeon would coo to me and come onto my feeding rack, and I would nuzzle up to her and whinney. She flies about me and lights on my head and struts up and down my neck and back, and I just enjoy it. We often go to sleep together, I with my head close up against the pigeon, she snuggling close to my soft nose. I feel so much better now that I have so nice a companion. I am not so nervous when I hear strange footsteps, or just before we are going to have a show.

Sometimes I am so full of fun and frolic that my Master lets me play awhile. Then I just enjoy running about the stage, kicking up my heels, showing my teeth at people, and making believe I am very savage, hitting a note on the chimes, and dashing across to the cash register, opening the drawer and ringing the bell, and then picking up a colored cloth in my teeth and shaking it as if I were angry. But as soon as I have had enough of this I quieted down, and we go ahead with a “show” as steadily as can be. You see, my Master understands me, and doesn’t all the time feel that he has to hold me in to make me “behave”—as people call it. I’d like to know why I shouldn’t have high spirits and be happy and jolly, if any horse on earth should. I’m well cared for day and night; I have all I want to eat of the very best that money can buy; I am housed in the most comfortable stable that can be hired, with plenty of good, clean bedding, and a rug to keep me warm at night; I have my companions, the pigeon, and Prince, the fox terrier, and Jasper is on hand all the time, so why shouldn’t I be full of frolic. That comes from being happy and healthy, and any one with sense can see that I am both, for my eyes are clear, my breath is sweet, my skin is clean and I am full of life and spirits.

My Master is good to me and I love him very dearly, but I am free to confess I have a special affection for Madame Ellis’s little girl. She is about ten years old, and we are real chums. Her name is Margaret. She comes nearly every day to see me, and she pets me, and I pet her. She brings me sugar and apples, and then after I have eaten them she sits on my back, and after a while we play circus. She takes her shoes off—so that she won’t hurt me—and stands on me, walks from my shoulders to my tail, standing either looking frontwards or backwards, and I walk around carefully so as not to make her fall. And when we get through she hugs and kisses me, and I like it amazingly and kiss her back, and would hug her if I knew just how to do it.

And now I have told my story. Now that the San Diego Exposition is over my master, I expect, will take me all over the country, so that more people may see me and become interested in my education. He feels that the performances I give will interest children and those who have to handle horses and thus lead them to treat all horses with more respect and kindness. When human beings feel that horses have intelligence,—no matter how small in quantity, or good in quality it may be,—they will act differently towards them. It will lead them to be more tolerant, patient and kind.

We hope to work with all the Humane Associations and Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, for my master knows, as I also well know, that when children and teamsters see me and watch what I can do, their hearts become more gentle towards all animals, and thus the day is hastened when kindness and love shall reign supreme upon the earth.

HOW I BOUGHT AND TRAINED CAPTAIN By His Owner, W. A. SIGSBEE

(EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION. To render the story of Captain complete it was essential that the reader should know something of his trainer, his educator, the man to whose enthusiasm and ability we owe the pleasure the horse has afforded us. Consequently I have questioned Capt. Sigsbee, again and again, as to his methods and the story which here follows contains his answers to these many questionings which I have put into consecutive and readable form, but, as nearly as is possible, in his own words.)

I was brought up in the horse business. My father and uncles were horsemen before I was born. They lived in Dane County, Wisconsin, twelve miles from Madison, and there I first saw the light. One of my uncles had trotting horses, and almost as soon as I could do anything I used to go and help him. When I was fourteen years old I was regularly employed by him during my vacations, to help on the farm, in the stables, and to accompany him to the trotting track. I soon learned to ride, as a jockey, and up to the time I was eighteen years old that was my occupation. Then I began to work for myself. I bought, educated or trained, and then sold horses and dogs. I was much interested in them, and always seemed to have fair success in their management.

As I grew older I used to go with my own horses to the County and State Fairs, the latter being held at Madison. When I was twenty-four years old I married, settled down on a farm, and as horse-trading seemed to be the business I was especially adapted for, naturally I followed it. Whenever my neighbors wanted a horse that was extra well trained they would come to me, and if I showed them one that could do a few tricks, they liked it none the less, and were not unwilling to pay a little extra for the pains I had taken.

The year after I was married I moved to Humboldt, Iowa, where I bought another farm and for four more years continued my work as farmer and horse-trader. Then I bought the Park Hotel, in the town of Humboldt, which I ran for eleven years, never, however, for one moment losing my interest in horses. In fact, it was one of the most profitable parts of my business. Many farmers, show-men, circus-men and others came to the town and stopped at my hotel, so I was never away from the atmosphere of the horse ring. Many a time, when they were in a tight place, the show or circus men would come and ask me to help them out, for my reputation as a trainer had spread, and it was pretty generally understood that I was an exceptional hand for teaching horses and dogs rather unusual and interesting tricks.

In time the great circus-masters, like Barnum and Bailey, Al Ringland and others, came to me and asked me to train horses for them, so that my horse business grew, and with it my reputation. Naturally I was always on the look out for colts that promised well, or horses that seemed extra intelligent, and my eyes were keen for mares that showed a superior order of intelligence that were soon to have colts.

About this time my eyes were attracted to a beautiful mare, evidently with foal. No sooner did I see her than I wanted her. I found on inquiry that she had been bred to a spotted Arabian, as fine and beautiful a creature as she herself was. Satisfied that she was what I wanted, I purchased her. Already I had begun to speculate as to what I should do with her colt. If it was a prettily shaped animal, was as intelligent as the father and mother, I decided it should receive the best education I was capable of giving. As the days of the mare’s time passed I grew more and more anxious. My hopes were raised high, and I was correspondingly expectant and at the same time afraid. What if the colt should prove stupid? I awaited the birth of that colt as eagerly as a royal family awaits the birth of the child of a king, hence you can understand my delight and satisfaction, when the little lady came, that I found her faultless in appearance, neat, trim, dainty and beautiful, with intelligent eyes and face and every indication of being a most superior animal.

From the hour of her birth I watched her far more closely than many a child is watched. I was in and out of the stable a score of times a day. While she appeared intelligent, I wanted to know with certainty as soon as I could. I was not long in discovering, and this was how it was done. My barn had double doors—one on each side. As it was warm weather I had both doors open to allow a current of air through the building. When the colt was four or five days old, I wished to hitch up the mare and drive her, but did not think it wise to let so small and young a colt go along. So I closed the doors and left her inside. She became much excited at being separated from her mother; ran around wildly, whinnied, and generally fretted. But I felt she would have to learn to lose her mother, so I drove away and left her to fight it out as best she could.

The next day I went into the barn and groomed down the mare, the colt apparently paying no attention, but the moment I took the harness from its peg and began to put it upon the mother the little miss ran out of doors. I thought I had scared her in some way and paid no particular attention, but when I was ready to drive away and tried to get her back into the barn she positively refused to go or be driven. She was as resolved to stay out as I was to have her go in, and it was only when I secured additional help that I was able to get her inside.

The same thing occurred on the following day, and then I began to suspect that the colt knew as well as I did what was going on, and was resolved not to be left behind. So I called to my wife to come and watch with me, while we experimented. So long as I merely fussed around with the mare, cleaning her, etc., it was all right, but the moment I touched the harness and made it appear I was going to hitch up, out shot the colt from the barn in a moment. We tried this out a dozen times and always with the same result. This occurred when she was nine days old, and with conviction I turned to my wife and exclaimed: “She’ll do, the little Trixy; she’s got brains, and I’ll begin to train her right away.” Thus she got her name, and I started upon her education.

In my past experience I had taught many horses to respond to questions with a Yes or No, to paw out numbers, to kiss me, to sit down, lie down, roll over, and other similar simple tricks. I would ask if they would like a drink, a feed of oats, a lump of sugar, etc., and teach them how to answer with a nod of the head, and with a shake when I asked: “Shall I whip you?” or “I guess you don’t want any feed today,” but with Trixey I determined to go further than this and see if she really could be trained, or, better still, educated in any degree.

Thus began Trixey’s education, which continued persistently for eighteen months. Every day I kept at it, and it might be interesting here to state that while I was educating Trixey, she was educating me. I learned a great deal about horses and horse nature in those eighteen months. In due time I had trained her so that she could pick out numbers on call, colors, could add, subtract, multiply and divide; could count with her feet, sit in a chair, on my lap, and answer questions.

I then decided to take her out on the road and give exhibitions with her. But first of all I decided to give a test exhibition at our County Fair, at Humboldt, my own town. Of course I was well known, and my horse-training proclivities were the subject of conversation all throughout the country, but few knew how much I had accomplished with Trixey. Hence that first appearance was a great surprise to my neighbors. Needless to say, it was also a wonderful success. Every one was delighted with the exhibition and marveled at the intelligence the beautiful little creature displayed.

I now started to go throughout the country with confidence. I knew what Trixey could do and what the effect of the exhibition would be upon an audience. In those days an educated horse was unknown. There were a few trained circus horses, but a horse like mine excited great wonder and interest. My method was to go to County and other Fairs, explain what Trixey could do, and I would undertake to exhibit her before the grand stand between races. The Fair Associations would engage me, and thus I would earn a good financial return.

Soon after we began to travel I changed the colt’s name to Princess Trixey, and this was the name by which she was ever afterwards known. About this time I came in contact with William Harrison Barnes, of Sioux City. He had been a newspaper reporter, but was naturally a showman, and shortly before I met him he had drifted into the show business. He was exhibiting such horses as “The Pacing Wonder,” “Johnny, the Guideless Wonder,” and when he saw the Princess there was nothing for it but that he should become my partner and go along with us. For four years we traveled together, Barnes making the business arrangements for our appearance at Carnivals, State Fairs, Amusement Parks, and under the auspices of various organizations. Then I sold Princess Trixey to him, continuing to travel with him for four years, after which I returned to Humboldt, bought another farm and for two or three years did a little desultory training of horses, as before.

Let me here, in parenthesis, tell of Princess Trixey’s unfortunate end. Barnes showed her all over the country to the great delight of all who ever saw her, until about ten years ago, when she was killed in a railway wreck at Baltimore.

Soon after my return to Humboldt I was urged by Dode Fisk, of Wonewoc, Wis., to plan and organize for him a show of trained horses, dogs, monkeys, etc., with a one-ringed circus. I did so, doing all the training of the animals myself. When we were ready to travel we had a sixteen-wagon show and I was appointed the arenic director. For four years I occupied this position, helping build up the show all the time, and at the end of three years we ceased traveling in wagons and became an eleven-car railway show. It was my regular duty to keep the animals in good condition, see that they were healthy and kept up to their work, and to train any new stock we might buy.

Four years of this life tired my wife, and she expressed the desire to get away from a large show. She wanted a rest at home, she said, and then, if I desired to travel she suggested I buy a young horse or a colt, train or educate it, and we would travel with that, without all the hard work, flurry and daily excitement attendant upon a large show.

In the main I agreed with my wife and, anyhow, I felt that she ought to be considered as much as myself, so I began looking out for such a horse as I had in mind. I wanted another Trixey or, better, but scarcely hoped to find one very soon, or very easily. I was nearer to the end of my search, however, than I supposed, for almost immediately I heard of just such a colt as I was looking for at Oregon, Ill. Right away I went to see him, and there, to my unspeakable delight, I found Captain. His owner was Judge Cartwright, a great lover of and breeder of good horses. Captain was of standard bred trotting stock, and was half brother to the famous Sydney Dillon. His sire was the well-known horse Syed and his dam was the almost equally well known Robey. At first sight he pleased me immensely, and I sought to gain all the information possible about him. I learned that as a colt he was very friendly and playful, showing keen intelligence. He also possessed great speed, sometimes pacing in the pasture as fast as his mother could run. This had led his owner, as soon as he was two years old, to train him for ninety days for the development of speed, so that he was able to step his mile in 2:16. He undoubtedly would have made a fast pacing horse with further training. But fate had another destiny in store for him. I resolved to buy him. Naturally Judge Cartwright hated to part with so promising an animal, but I candidly laid my heart’s desire before him. I showed him the influence it would have upon the rising generation if I could demonstrate that animals can reason, that they are capable of thought. Then I expatiated upon the easier life Captain himself would live than if he were to become a regular race-horse, and I appealed to the feeling of pride he—the judge—would possess were I successful—as I knew I should be—at having introduced so world-famous a horse as Captain would become, that he had bred and reared. And, finally, to clinch the matter, I produced a certified check for a thousand dollars, which I placed in his hand.

Thus the purchase was made, with the express understanding that Judge Cartwright should always be given the credit for the raising of Captain.

Perhaps here I ought to state that the colt’s name up to this time had been Sid Bell. As I felt my whole future life’s work and fame were going to center on this beautiful, young and intelligent creature, I renamed him, calling him by the name by which I was known to all my professional associates, Captain Sigsbee.

It was not long before we became intimately acquainted. He was a handsome fellow, a dappled chestnut, fifteen and one-half hands high, with broad forehead, large, intelligent eyes, well-shaped ears, deep, sensitive nostrils, mobile mouth, strong nose, a most pleasing face, and perfectly formed in every way.