We were quick to discover that in “Old John” we had an excellent servant and an eccentric man, while the slow years piled up proof upon proof of his loyalty. He won my heart at once by quickly learning the individual characters of our horses. One in particular, my favorite saddle-horse, I was a bit anxious about, since he was getting the reputation of being ugly. He (Creole by name) was a big, spirited Kentucky horse, with an exquisitely tender mouth, requiring a very light as well as steady hand. Two or three great fellows, with sledge-hammer fists, had tried to ride him on his bridle, instead of on his back, and he had, as the result, lifted them not too gently over the top of his handsome head, and they raised the cry of ugliness, when he had simply acted in self-defense, as would any other Kentucky gentleman.
But when “Old John” returned from exercising Creole for the first time, he remarked: “Ah, he’s a fine fellow; he’s got a mouth as tender as a baby’s, and a heart as bold as a lion’s. I will be glad to see you on him, ma’am.”
John loved the horses as much as people love their children. When he came to us the horses were most all in their prime, but as the years crept by they aged and weakened together, and I was always amused, albeit touched as well, to see “Old John’s” fervent efforts to prove to the world that they still preserved all the nerve, vitality and fire of youth. And when the time came when the carriage-horses ought really to have been replaced, “Old John” was a sorrowful man and an anxious one; and at our faintest suggestion of a change, with frowning brow and trembling lips, the old man would march stiffly off to the stable, where he would assure its occupants that “they were mighty fine horses, and people ought to know it by this time.”
Like most people of affectionate disposition, he was very fond of keeping anniversaries. All high-days, holidays, and birthdays were precious boons to him, but they came to be occasions of more or less anxiety to the family, owing to his utter inability to express his joy without the help of an explosion. It would seem that the comparatively harmless running up of flags, backed by explosions of varying degrees of heaviness, would be a sufficient outlet for any man’s joy. But John Hickey had still a “card up his sleeve,” so to speak, for the climax of his love and enthusiasm, the actual perfect flowering of his joy could only be attained by the aid of blazing tar. A great bonfire of wood was not to be despised, but tar was the material worthy of his attention, and when he had diligently sought for and found the most dangerous possible places, and had put in each a kettle of flaming tar, and could gallop wildly back and forth from one kettle to another, trying to prevent a general conflagration, he was the most perfectly happy man I ever saw.