Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Horse's Tale
    A Horse's Tale
    A Horse's Tale
    Ebook87 pages1 hour

    A Horse's Tale

    By Mark Twain

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Horse's Tale written by Mark Twain who was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer.  This book was published in 1907. And now republish in ebook format. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPublisher s11838
    Release dateAug 26, 2018
    ISBN9788869095917
    Author

    Mark Twain

    Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Missouri in 1835, the son of a lawyer. Early in his childhood, the family moved to Hannibal, Missouri – a town which would provide the inspiration for St Petersburg in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. After a period spent as a travelling printer, Clemens became a river pilot on the Mississippi: a time he would look back upon as his happiest. When he turned to writing in his thirties, he adopted the pseudonym Mark Twain ('Mark Twain' is the cry of a Mississippi boatman taking depth measurements, and means 'two fathoms'), and a number of highly successful publications followed, including The Prince and the Pauper (1882), Huckleberry Finn (1884) and A Connecticut Yankee (1889). His later life, however, was marked by personal tragedy and sadness, as well as financial difficulty. In 1894, several businesses in which he had invested failed, and he was declared bankrupt. Over the next fifteen years – during which he managed to regain some measure of financial independence – he saw the deaths of two of his beloved daughters, and his wife. Increasingly bitter and depressed, Twain died in 1910, aged seventy-five.

    Read more from Mark Twain

    Related to A Horse's Tale

    Related ebooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      HUNTING With The Ellements…

      Sep 13, 2021

      HUNTING With The Ellements…
      19 min read

    • Article

      The Ghosts Of HUNTERS PAST

      Jan 8, 2024

      The Ghosts Of HUNTERS PAST
      7 min read

    • Article

      The End Of The Cavalry

      Mar 10, 2020

      The End Of The Cavalry
      8 min read

    • Article

      Black Stump Hotel, Merriwagga

      Nov 14, 2018

      Black Stump Hotel, Merriwagga
      6 min read

    • Article

      Out to Pasture

      Nov 14, 2019

      Out to Pasture
      6 min read

    • Article

      Poetic Justice

      Oct 23, 2017

      Poetic Justice
      18 min read

    • Article

      Hunting Heroines

      Dec 31, 2020

      Hunting Heroines
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Style Guru

      Jan 16, 2020

      The Style Guru
      2 min read

    • Article

      A bloody Long Run

      Nov 28, 2022

      A bloody Long Run
      15 min read

    • Article

      Tales From The Countryside

      Dec 14, 2023

      Tales From The Countryside
      7 min read

    • Article

      My Father’s Spurs

      May 12, 2022

      My Father’s Spurs
      9 min read

    • Article

      Walking On TheWild Side…

      Jul 17, 2023

      Walking On TheWild Side…
      3 min read

    • Article

      Two Bucks Before Breakfast

      Aug 2, 2023

      Two Bucks Before Breakfast
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Modest Man

      Oct 17, 2019

      The Modest Man
      5 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Oct 18, 2023

      Readers’ Letters
      4 min read

    • Article

      Pony Express Writer

      Jul 23, 2019

      Pony Express Writer
      3 min read

    • Article

      To Catch A Woozle

      Apr 1, 2020

      To Catch A Woozle
      5 min read

    • Article

      Power Of The Lynx Effect

      Nov 10, 2021

      Power Of The Lynx Effect
      5 min read

    • Article

      My Renaissance

      Apr 25, 2019

      My Renaissance
      6 min read

    • Article

      Entirely Well-mannered

      Sep 15, 2022

      Entirely Well-mannered
      7 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Dec 2, 2021

      Letters
      3 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Sep 21, 2022

      Readers’ Letters
      6 min read

    • Article

      Coming Of Age In Afghanistan: Reflections Of A Young Officer In The Scots Guards

      Aug 2, 2018

      A great-grandson of Sir Winston Churchill looks back on his own service in the British Army. More than five years ago, after serving seven years in the British Army with the Scots Guards, I called it a day and have since started a career in the com

      7 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Feb 25, 2021

      Letters
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Horse's Tale

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Horse's Tale - Mark Twain

      Hitchcock

      Table of Contents

      Acknowledgements

      Part I

      I. SOLDIER BOY—PRIVATELY TO HIMSELF

      II. LETTER FROM ROUEN—TO GENERAL ALISON

      III. GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER

      IV. CATHY TO HER AUNT MERCEDES

      V. GENERAL ALISON TO MERCEDES

      VI. SOLDIER BOY AND THE MEXICAN PLUG

      VII. SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS

      VIII. THE SCOUT-START.  BB AND LIEUTENANT-GENERAL ALISON

      IX. SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS AGAIN

      X. GENERAL ALISON AND DORCAS

      XI. SEVERAL MONTHS LATER.  ANTONIO AND THORNDIKE

      XII. MONGREL AND THE OTHER HORSE

      Part II. IN SPAIN

      XIII. GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER

      XIV. SOLDIER BOY—TO HIMSELF

      XV. GENERAL ALISON TO MRS. DRAKE, THE COLONEL’S WIFE

      Acknowledgements

      Although I have had several opportunities to see a bull-fight, I have never seen one; but I needed a bull-fight in this book, and a trustworthy one will be found in it.  I got it out of John Hay’s Castilian Days, reducing and condensing it to fit the requirements of this small story.  Mr. Hay and I were friends from early times, and if he were still with us he would not rebuke me for the liberty I have taken.

      The knowledge of military minutiæ exhibited in this book will be found to be correct, but it is not mine; I took it from Army Regulations, ed. 1904; Hardy’s Tactics—Cavalry, revised ed., 1861; and Jomini’s Handbook of Military Etiquette, West Point ed., 1905.

      It would not be honest in me to encourage by silence the inference that I composed the Horse’s private bugle-call, for I did not.  I lifted it, as Aristotle says.  It is the opening strain in The Pizzicato in Sylvia, by Delibes.  When that master was composing it he did not know it was a bugle-call, it was I that found it out.

      Along through the book I have distributed a few anachronisms and unborn historical incidents and such things, so as to help the tale over the difficult places.  This idea is not original with me; I got it out of Herodotus.  Herodotus says, Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all: the conscientious historian will correct these defects.

      The cats in the chair do not belong to me, but to another.

      These are all the exceptions.  What is left of the book is mine.

      MARK TWAIN.

      Lone Tree Hill, Dublin,

      New Hampshire, October, 1905.

      Part I.

      I.

      SOLDIER BOY—PRIVATELY TO HIMSELF

      I am Buffalo Bill’s horse.  I have spent my life under his saddle—with him in it, too, and he is good for two hundred pounds, without his clothes; and there is no telling how much he does weigh when he is out on the war-path and has his batteries belted on.  He is over six feet, is young, hasn’t an ounce of waste flesh, is straight, graceful, springy in his motions, quick as a cat, and has a handsome face, and black hair dangling down on his shoulders, and is beautiful to look at; and nobody is braver than he is, and nobody is stronger, except myself.  Yes, a person that doubts that he is fine to see should see him in his beaded buck-skins, on my back and his rifle peeping above his shoulder, chasing a hostile trail, with me going like the wind and his hair streaming out behind from the shelter of his broad slouch.  Yes, he is a sight to look at then—and I’m part of it myself.

      I am his favorite horse, out of dozens.  Big as he is, I have carried him eighty-one miles between nightfall and sunrise on the scout; and I am good for fifty, day in and day out, and all the time.  I am not large, but I am built on a business basis.  I have carried him thousands and thousands of miles on scout duty for the army, and there’s not a gorge, nor a pass, nor a valley, nor a fort, nor a trading post, nor a buffalo-range in the whole sweep of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains that we don’t know as well as we know the bugle-calls.  He is Chief of Scouts to the Army of the Frontier, and it makes us very important.  In such a position as I hold in the military service one needs to be of good family and possess an education much above the common to be worthy of the place.  I am the best-educated horse outside of the hippodrome, everybody says, and the best-mannered.  It may be so, it is not for me to say; modesty is the best policy, I think.  Buffalo Bill taught me the most of what I know, my mother taught me much, and I taught myself the rest.  Lay a row of moccasins before me—Pawnee, Sioux, Shoshone, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, and as many other tribes as you please—and I can name the tribe every moccasin belongs to by the make of it.  Name it in horse-talk, and could do it in American if I had speech.

      I know some of the Indian signs—the signs they make with their hands, and by signal-fires at night and columns of smoke by day.  Buffalo Bill taught me how to drag wounded soldiers out of the

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1