10 THE ITINERANT HORSE PHYSICIAN 



eccentric old man, who folks thereabouts called 

 "Cowboy Charlie." He made a good living by 

 trading horses and by taking city horses for 

 pasturage at a couple of dollars the month. He 

 was a sharp-witted old fellow and square and 

 broad-minded to a fault. He had received a good 

 education in the old country and had gravitated 

 to the level of a horse jockey as the result of 

 domestic disturbances induced by a flighty wife. 



Here, with old Charlie, I spent my holidays 

 and evenings after school. When my compan- 

 ions of the day were playing ball or other games 

 I was with old Charlie, breaking broncos or 

 swapping horses. 



When I had finished school, my father took 

 the bull by the horns, so to speak, and placed me 

 in the wholesale leaf tobacco house, where I was 

 to get my preliminary training for the work he 

 had outlined for my future career. While I 

 worked at this place I kept up my friendship with 

 old Charlie and evenings and Sundays were spent 

 in his company, and there, to old Charlie, I made 

 my protests against the work which my father 

 was forcing me to take up, and which was not to 

 my liking. Every night we would talk about it 

 and old Charlie sympathized with me always. 



When I had been about a year in the leaf 

 tobacco house I began to be so dissatisfied that 

 every day became well-nigh unbearable. I longed 

 for the open, for the roughness of the horse world, 

 and my thoughts were never with my work. 



It was about at this stage of my development 

 that I made the acquaintance of a certain vet- 



