"And what shall I do?" asked Dallas eagerly.
"Come and see," said Mr. Devering, and to my delight he began to lead the way to my cabin, first calling out, "Come from behind the lilacs, you sly-boots."
That was I, and I bowed my head a great many times to propitiate him as I joined them.
Oh! what a lesson he gave my young master on the proper way to take care of a pony.
"Horses are true friends of man," he said, as he led the way past my cabin and the barns up to the long horse stable on the hill. "Every boy should know how to take care of them. There are two classes of stables—town and country. We won't talk about the first to-day. This is supposed to be a model country stable. It is not in a barn where if the hay got on fire the horses might burn. It has a double row of stalls with doors opening outward—you see the ground is high, well-drained, and the stalls have an east and west exposure so all the horses can get a bit of sunshine."
"Is it of stone?" asked Dallas.
"No, concrete with a hollow centre for a dead air space."
We walked inside the nice fresh-smelling stable and Dallas looked round him. "Where are the horses?"
"Out to pasture—let us go down this main alleyway and I will explain the lay-out to you."