Farm Girl
I was working at the stable and my job was not only to clean the muck out of the stalls, but I also was in charge of washing the horses down — which I loved to do — and rubbing them down with the grooming brushes. But one day when I went into this one stallion’s stall he just wouldn’t let me get near him. Wherever I was, he leaned up and practically crushed me. He bobbed his head up and down and tried to hit me. He wouldn’t let me get the reigns over his head or the bridle on or the bit in his mouth to walk him. There was nothing I could do. I complained to the owner of the stable and he said, “Yeah, that’s just King being ornery. I’ll tell you how you fix that. . . .” He then told me exactly what to do. He said it was absolutely necessary or he could not only damage the walls of the barn, but cause harm to himself through kicking and bucking in his stall.
So, I made sure all the other horses were in their stalls, safe and secure, and then, when no one else was around — and that was important because people could get hurt — I went up to his stall door and opened it. Out he shot at a gallop, and he ran wild all through the mud and the fields below. I watched him run madly around the huge paddock for almost a half hour. Eventually he tired himself out and walked back up to the barn. There I managed to get a bridle around him and a bit in his mouth and I tied him up with four ropes to the hooks on the two walls of the inside of the barn. He tried to kick and pull away a few times, but I calmed him down with a few gentle strokes on his perspiring side and by whispering “Shhhhhh” and talking in a soft voice to him.
[Excerpt from the story, “Horsing Around.” Find out what happens next by buying: Match, Cinder & Spark, Volume I: Nymphomania and the Single Girl]
