The Horse, as Comrade and Friend 



who did not should mostly perish untimely 

 and leave no descendants. When the foal 

 first endeavours to get up, he will slip on his 

 lubricators leaving thick streaks of the jelly 

 on the grass, and it is only when the softer 

 ropy mucilage has been rubbed off and worn 

 down to the harder material, near the hoof 

 proper, that he will get any foothold at all. 



The foal's eyes are getting more accustomed 

 to the brightness of the light and although 

 he still quakes with the cold and blinks a Uttle, 

 he begins already to take an interest in the 

 things of this wide world, in which he has so 

 suddenly found himself. Tlie scent of the 

 grass is the very first thing that attracts him 

 and he puts down his nose to touch and to 

 smell it. Once or twice he does so, and 

 approves. It is the grass that he touches. 

 He knows all about it, and, in that dreamland, 

 has seen it before and the buttercups as well. 

 A big buttercup touches his nose, but he dis- 

 dains it, and pushes down to the young grass 

 that his dam found so sweet. The mare lies 

 motionless stretched out with closed eyes, the 

 foam about her nostrils and mouth and on the 

 herbage, telling of the throes of the struggle 

 safely past. 



With clearing vision the foal looks about him. 

 His eyes are wide open now, and comprehension 

 comes into his gaze. He has seen all these 

 things before, mistily maybe, but the same 



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