A pitifully thin, frail white horse is depicted eating listlessly. This may be the plow horse Nissho’s family bought with the little money they had when starting out. They were unaware that the horse dealer had sold them a tired, old horse, which died soon afterwards. Perhaps Nissho saw himself in the poor horse, who had been forced to do hard labor in the fields every day. Nissho was around 19 years of age at the time.