Dr. Dick looked dark, but only added, "I regret it exceedingly."
"You're a--pair of fools," growled Fred, "and I have had enough of this nonsense! A horse is no more than any other piece of property, and I'll trade every one on the place if I please."
"You dasn't trade Dandy," cried the eldest of the family hopefuls, saucily; "he's Uncle Dick's."
Bob unhitched the new mare and led her into Queen's stall.
But before her harness was fairly off, the unwelcome stranger lay flat on her side, her whole frame quivering and her four legs stretched straight out.
Bob yelled, and both men hurried back to the barn.
Fred stood staring helplessly, and then I surmised, what I afterwards learned to be true, that with all his headstrong swagger he was as helpless as a child when things went wrong.
"Poor thing!" said my Master pityingly, "it is some disease of the foot."
He examined her feet as well as he could and then sent for the smith to remove her shoes.
"There is nothing particular wrong with these shoes," the smith said, "but her feet are in a fearful condition from wrong shoeing and senseless cutting and rasping in the past. I am ashamed of our craftsmen. Blacksmiths are, as a class, the most unenlightened, pig-headed men in the world. I can trace the history of this poor beast's sufferings right down. First some man, with more theory than sense, took her feet, perfect from the hand of the Creator, who, knowing enough to make a horse, knew enough to make its feet, and with his knife trimmed the frog and thinned the sole until he could feel it yield when he pressed on it. (This is an important part of the average farrier's creed). Next, I suppose, he 'opened the heel,' and then proceeded to nail on a shoe, regardless of whether it fitted or not. The chances for its fitting would be about equal to yours or mine if we shut our eyes in a shoe store and picked out a pair of boots at random. As the shoe didn't fit the foot, the foot must be made to fit the shoe, so down came the ever-ready rasp, and the business was finished up speedily. From that hour, doubtless years ago, this poor creature has suffered untold torture. Meantime, dozens of bunglers have tried their knives, rasps and hammers on mangled feet. God forgive them!"