Read Girl and Five Brave Horses, A for Free Online

seemed such a heartless thing to say under the circumstances. Then I realized he had. “
My
fault!” I blazed with the last ounce of my strength.
    “Yes,” he said, “it was. You were careless and let your head drop down. Next time she’s liable to knock out your teeth.”
    It was brutal of him to chastise me at such a time, but I was to find that this was his way. He seemed to have a theory that sympathy bolstered weakness and that strength was begotten by strength. Anyway, I was the momentary victim of whatever he thought and, though I felt like crying, I didn’t. In place of tears I turned on my heel and strode away to my dressing room, telling myself he was a tyrant and a bully and that I’d die rather than cry in front of him and give him that satisfaction.
    After a couple of days of ground training I was black and blue all over and so sore when night came I could hardly move. I couldn’t touch myself without whimpering or move without a moan. All my muscles felt as if they’d been tied in granny knots and the tissues as if they’d been boiled. Still I knew, or at least hoped, that soon that part would be over and I’d be whole again.
    During the time of my misery the platform was being built and day by day rose higher, like a dinosaur skeleton. The ridged spine was a series of sills (two-by-fours) put up in the ground at four-foot intervals. They were staggered in height so that those at the foot of the ramp were very low and those at the top forty feet high. After the men had them in place they laid uprights on the ground and then pulled them up against the sills with ropes. These were then nailed into place in a pattern of ribbon and crossbraces in order to give the tower strength. After the skeleton was up, flooring was laid on the ramp and a handrail was put up on either side.
    At the top, the ramp was joined to the main part of the tower by means of a six-foot aisle which leveled off from the ramp and slanted slightly down at the point of drop-off. Here a series of planks was nailed against the uprights to form one wide piece. This was called the kickoff board because it gave the horse something to kick against when he took off. It was padded so that he couldn’t slip. The sides of the platform were padded, too, to help protect the rider from friction burns that often resulted when a horse dived off at an angle rather than straight ahead and threw or scraped the rider against one of the uprights.
    After the tower was completed the tank was dug, and it was enormous—forty feet long, twenty feet wide, and eleven feet deep. Both Al and Dr. Carver watched carefully the entire time it was being dug to make sure that all the measurements were correct.
    The depth was particularly important and had been arrived at only after several years of trial and error. They had first experimented with one sixteen feet deep but found that the horse was so buoyant that at such a depth he didn’t go down far enough in the water for his feet to touch the bottom. Touching bottom was important, for it gave the horse the control he otherwise lacked. If he didn’t touch he was liable to come up tail to the audience, sideways, rolling, or what have you. At the head of the tank an incline was placed which the horse used to pull himself out of the tank.
    To keep the pool from leaking or draining, it was lined with an enormous canvas attached around the sides by large grommets that were put over stakes driven into the ground. When the tank was filled it held thirty-five thousand gallons of water and made an excellent swimming pool for exercising between performances.
    When the whole structure was finished the tower and ramp were painted white and lights were strung along the railing. Streamers of lights were also run from the top of the platform to the ground. These had to be carefully placed so that none were reflected in the pool. To a horse a reflection is not a reflection but the real thing and, being a sensible animal, he is