In “Jer­ry’s New Year,” the chap­ter from “Black Beau­ty” focus­es on the harsh real­i­ties and the small joys expe­ri­enced by Jer­ry, a cab­man, his fam­i­ly, and his horse dur­ing the Christ­mas and New Year’s Eve cel­e­bra­tions. Despite the fes­tive sea­son, Jer­ry and his horse, pos­si­bly Black Beau­ty, face demand­ing work hours amidst the harsh win­ter weath­er, wait­ing for hours out­side par­ties while their patrons enjoy the warmth inside.

On New Year’s Eve, Jer­ry and his horse endure a par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult night, wait­ing in the cold until after 1 AM for two gen­tle­men who show no remorse for the delay. Exposed to the cut­ting sleet with­out shel­ter, Jer­ry strug­gles to keep warm, ulti­mate­ly falling ill with a severe cough upon return­ing home. His wife, Pol­ly, is depict­ed as car­ing and atten­tive, prepar­ing warm meals for both Jer­ry and the horse to com­fort them upon their late return.

The fol­low­ing days high­light the sever­i­ty of Jer­ry’s ill­ness, iden­ti­fied as bron­chi­tis, cast­ing a shad­ow of con­cern and silence over their house­hold. Their sit­u­a­tion bright­ens with an unex­pect­ed ges­ture of com­mu­ni­ty and kind­ness from Gov­er­nor Grant, who offers to tem­porar­i­ly take Jer­ry’s horse, Hot­spur, to work, eas­ing the finan­cial strain on Jer­ry’s fam­i­ly dur­ing his ill­ness. This act of sol­i­dar­i­ty not only aids in sus­tain­ing the fam­i­ly but also relieves Har­ry, Jer­ry’s son, from man­ag­ing Hot­spur’s spir­it­ed nature sin­gle-hand­ed­ly.

The chap­ter con­cludes with a turn towards hope. Jer­ry’s con­di­tion improves, and through a let­ter from Mrs. Fowler, a for­mer employ­er of Pol­ly’s, the fam­i­ly is pre­sent­ed with an oppor­tu­ni­ty to move to a cot­tage near her estate. This offers Jer­ry a less phys­i­cal­ly demand­ing job and promis­es a bet­ter future for the entire fam­i­ly. This chap­ter intri­cate­ly weaves themes of hard­ship, fam­i­ly sol­i­dar­i­ty, com­mu­ni­ty sup­port, and hope, encap­su­lat­ing the lives of those whose work often goes unno­ticed dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son, empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of kind­ness and sup­port in over­com­ing adver­si­ty.