Page:The Days Work (1899).djvu/74

 inch below the knee, or slightly more powerful quarters? What 's the use o' them advantages to you? Man the Oppressor comes along, an' sees you 're likely an' good-lookin', an' grinds you to the face o' the earth. What for? For his own pleasure: for his own convenience! Young an' old, black an' bay, white an' grey, there 's no distinctions made between us. We 're ground up together under the remorseless teeth o' the engines of oppression!"

"Guess his breechin' must ha' broke goin' daown-hill," said the Deacon. "Slippery road, maybe, an' the buggy come onter him, an' he did n't know 'nough to hold back. That don't feel like teeth, though. Maybe he busted a shaft, an' it pricked him."

"An' I come to you from Kansas, wavin' the tail o' friendship to all an' sundry, an' in the name of the uncounted millions o' pure-minded, high-toned horses now strugglin' towards the light o' freedom, I say to you, Rub noses with us in our sacred an' holy cause. The power is yourn. Without you, I say, Man the Oppressor cannot move himself from place to place. Without you he cannot reap, he cannot sow, he cannot plough."

"Mighty odd place, Kansas!" said Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. "Seemin'ly they reap in the spring an' plough in the fall. 'Guess it 's right fer them, but 't would make me kinder giddy."

"The produc's of your untirin' industry would rot on the ground if you did not weakly consent to help him. Let 'em rot, I say! Let him call you to the stables in vain an' nevermore! Let him shake his ensnarin’ oats under your nose in vain! Let the