Suddenly there was a crash, a frightened neigh of pain, a series of groans, and poor jolly Tim recoiled from his violent contact with the fence, blood pouring down his chest and forelegs.
Help soon arrived, and Tim was led away a very different looking animal from what he was when he entered.
Master washed out the wounds as well as he could, and applied a lotion made of one ounce calendula to three of soft water. He gave aconite to keep down his fever, and afterward cinchona as a tonic, and in time Tim was about as jolly as ever, though much more cautious.
The next thing that happened was Jean cutting herself on the hip, or rather, just in front of it, where the hip and abdomen join.
Master treated her as he had Tim, only he stitched the jagged edges of the wound together. It was in a place where it could not be kept covered successfully, and flies were bad; besides Jean continually reached back and worried it with her nose. For this they tied her short; then he made a lotion and a very few parts carbolic acid, just how many I do not know, but he tested its strength by touching a little to one edge of the sore. The acid, he said, would cleanse it and keep the flies out.
She got well, but an unsightly scar remained. Another horse laid his shoulder open, and for some reason it would not heal, and he died of blood poison in spite of all they could do.
I fancied that by being careful I was going to escape being impaled on the wretched barbs; but one day, when Mrs. Wallace was driving me, she became frightened at some loose horses, and jerked me into a wire fence by the roadside.
Well, one needs to be cut on a barb wire once to fully appreciate what it means. So many, many sad cases come to one's notice of horses and other domestic animals that are dragging out a miserable existence owing to the introduction of this "new invention." Sometimes it seems that everything is to the end of making man's life easier and that of the dumb brutes harder.
Master had all the barb-wire removed from this place long ago, supplying its place either with board, woven wire or lawn wire fences.
But bad as barb-wire is, it is nothing to the fad for the over-draw check-rein that is shortening the lives of horses everywhere, to say nothing of the torture they endure while they do live.