“Oh, lots and lots of things. You have to have shoes on your feet.”
“Oh, now I’m sure you’re fooling me!” cried Tinkle in horse-talk. “Who ever heard of ponies having shoes!”
“Well, of course they’re not leather shoes, such as boys and girls wear,” went on Prince. “They are made of iron, and they are nailed on your hoofs.”
“Nailed on!” cried Tinkle. “Oh, doesn’t that hurt?”
“Not a bit when a good blacksmith does it,” explained Prince. “You see our hoofs are just like the finger nails of boys and girls. It doesn’t hurt to cut their finger nails, if they don’t cut them down too close, and it doesn’t hurt to fasten the iron shoes on our hoofs with sharp nails. Don’t you remember how Dapple Gray used to tell about his iron shoes making sparks on the paving stones in the city when he ran and pulled that funny shiny wagon with the chimney?”
“Oh, yes,” answered Tinkle; “I do remember. Well, I suppose I’ll have to be shod then.”
“Of course,” returned Prince. “If you don’t have the iron shoes on your hoofs they would get sore when you ran around on the stony streets. A city is not like our green meadow. There are very few soft dirt roads here. That is one thing I don’t like about a city. Still there is always something going on here, and lots to see and do, and that makes up for it, I guess.”
“I wonder how I shall like it,” thought Tinkle. “But first I must see what my new home is like.”
He looked around the stable. It was a large one, and there were a number of stalls in it. In each one was a horse, like Prince, munching his oats or chewing hay. Tinkle saw that his stall was different from the others. It was like a big box, and, in fact, was called a “box stall.” Tinkle did not have to be tied fast with a rope or a strap to the manger, which is the place where the feed for the ponies and horses is put. There was a manger in Tinkle’s stall and he could walk up to it whenever he felt hungry.