There was one advantage in having the stable and everything about it on a small scale—it lessened the depth of the manure pit. The very first night we put Bob in his stall we heard a loud noise in the stable. Isobel suggested that we had overfed Bob, and that he had swelled out and pressed out the sides of the stable, but I thought it more likely that the weather-boarding had slipped loose. I had seen the thoughtful carpenters putting that weather-boarding on the stable. But Isobel and I were both wrong. Bob had merely dropped into the manure pit.
I was glad then that I had chosen a strong horse, for he did not seem to mind the drop in the least. He stood there with his front feet in the basement, as you might say, and with his rear feet upstairs, quite as if that was his usual way of standing. After that he often fell into the manure pit, and he always took it good-naturedly. He got so he expected it, after awhile, and if his stall floor did not drop once a day, he became restless and took no interest in his food. Usually, during the day, Bob and Mr. Prawley dropped into the basement together while Mr. Prawley was currying Bob, but at night, when we heard Bob calling us in the homesick, whinnying tone, and kicking his heels against the side of the stable, we knew what he wanted, and to prevent him kicking the stable to ruins, we—Isobel and I—would go out and drop him into the basement a couple of times. Then he would be satisfied.
There was but one thing we feared: Bob might become so fond of having his forefeet in the basement and his rear feet upstairs, that he would stand no other way, and in course of time his front legs would have to lengthen enough to let his head reach his manger, or his neck would have to stretch. Either would give him the general appearance of a giraffe. While this would be neat for show purposes, it would attract almost too much attention in a family horse. I have no doubt this is the way the giraffe acquired its peculiar construction, but we were able to avoid it, for we awoke one night when Bob made an unaided descent into the manure pit, and when we went to aid him we found he had descended at both ends, on account of the economical hinges used on the drop floor of the stall of our equine palace. Bob showed in every way that he had enjoyed that drop more than any drop he had ever taken, but I drew the line there. I had other things to do more important than conducting a private Coney Island for a horse. If Bob had been a colt I might not have been so stern about it, but I will not pamper a staid old family horse by operating shoot-the-chutes and loop-the-loops for him at two o'clock in the morning.
“Isobel,” I said, “if that horse is to continue in my stable you may tell Mr. Prawley that it is necessary for his health that he sleep in the stable-loft hereafter. It will be good exercise for him to get up at midnight and pull Bob out of the manure pit.”
“This present Mr. Prawley will not do it,” said Isobel. “He has a wife and family at East Westcote, and he—”
“Very well,” I said, “then get another Mr. Prawley!”
Of the new Mr. Prawley it is necessary to speak a few words.