THE horse's rescue, 289 



about the worst condition of any I ever worked on." 

 After making a conditional bargain with him, I went 

 to work on this horse. Reader, here is a lesson. I 

 dread to tackle this horse again. His feet were very 

 high. About half-way from the top of his foot to the 

 bottom, they were pinched in all around. H3 had to 

 be changed by degrees. This shell could not be all 

 cut away at once. I cut his feet down as far as I 

 could, and spread them. They were as hard as they 

 could be ; it took a long time to get them soft enough 

 to operate on with safety. At this time I did not have 

 control of this horse. I exercised him myself. This 

 was a tough job. I wanted this horse used every day. 

 In about four weeks I took off his shoes, cut his feet 

 down, spread again, and so on every four weeks. I 

 wanted to do, but I could not have him in my control 

 to do as I liked ; so I quit and let him go. I kept 

 watch of him. His shoes were allowed to remain on 

 three months. His toes got long; the structure of his 

 foot was nowhere in harmony of action when I quit 

 him. He was not driven on the road. At that time 

 of the year he was working on the farm, plowing, and 

 putting in crops in the spring. It did not hurt him to 

 rise over that lever on soft ground as bad as it did 

 when he was sailed on the hard road. He took one of 

 these sails; it wrecked him at once. Of course I was 

 around again. This poor horse was in a terrible suf- 

 fering condition. T told Mr. Ives what ailed his horse. 

 He thought the trouble all lay in his shoulder. He 

 did not have much shoulder ; he was deformed so. 

 This time he was so stiff he had to be pulled along. 

 Mr. Ives I saw was getting discouraged about his horse 



