Page:My Life and Loves.djvu/182

 Chapter VIII.

rompted by Dell, before leaving Chicago I bought some books for the winter evenings, notably Mill's "Political Economy"; Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship" and "Latter Day Pamphlets"; Col. Hay's "Dialect Poems", too and three medical books, and took them down with me to the ranch. We had six weeks of fine weather, during which I broke in horses under Reece's supervision, and found out that gentleness and especially carrots and pieces of sugar were the direct way to the heart of the horse; discovered, too, that a horse's bad temper and obstinacy were nearly always due to fear. A remark of Dell that a horse's eye had a magnifying power and that the poor, timid creatures saw men as trees walking, gave me the clue and soon I was gratified by Reece saying that I could "gentle" horses as well as anyone on the ranch, excepting Bob.

As winter drew down and the bitter frost came, outdoor work almost ceased. I read from morning till night and not only devoured Mill, but saw through the fallacy of his Wage-Fund theory. I knew from my own experience that the wages of labor depended primarily on the productivity of labor. I liked Mill for his humanitarian sympathies with the poor; but I realized clearly that he was a second-rate