Boot, Saddle, to Horse, and Away!

by Ruth Doan, age 13

The American Girl Magazine,
December, 1952
From the "By You" section: 
First Fiction Award
Photo:  A 1950s magazine cover

          The Horse stood solidly there, munching vulgarly at the long green grass. I gazed at him in disgust and distaste. He seemed not to notice my vehement looks and took another chomp of grass.     
           "Well," said I, "Dad says I’ve got to ride you, so I might as well get it over with. But," I added, unsnapping his halter, "let’s get this settled. I’m the boss around here!"
          .When Dad had written to me, saying that he’d bought a horse, I’d come blithely home from camp expecting to see a slim, pretty, young horse like those I was used to. I glared at the horse in front of me. He was fat in the wrong places, and bony in the wrong places. He was an uninteresting shade of brown--no tints of gold; nothing. His former owner vowed that he was only ten years old. I personally thought that he was the grandfather of Methuselah. His name was Prince, and a more unfitting name I’ve yet to hear. He secretly reminded me of Stonewall Jackson, namely: "There he stands like a stone wall." So he remained known to me as "The Horse."
           The Horse didn’t look up. His next chomp seemed full of defiance, saying: "Oh, yeah?"
           .I said nothing, but ground my teeth. I menacingly held up the bridle. The Horse glanced at me--merely glanced--and sidestepped quickly away--that is, as quickly as his overgrown frame would move. I stepped forward. He stepped back.
          "Now, look," I said. "I’m not any happier about this than you are. But I’ve got to ride you."
          .The Horse gave a resentful wheeze, and, with the air of a martyr, allowed me to slip on the bridle.  As I lifted the saddle—a heavy, worn, Western relic—he wheezed again and sidestepped away. I grabbed the dragging reins
         " Let’s not go through that again," said I, and slipped the girth strap into the buckle. He tried the trick of filling himself full of air, and then letting it out, but I was used to that and talked him out of it. I fixed the stirrups, and gave a sigh of relief. The worse was over. Now, all I had to do was to bump about twice around the field, and retire,
.          .I climbed up. It wasn’t hard to mount The Horse, for there was a lot of him to land on. Picking up the reins, I clucked softly to him. No response. I clucked again, this time a bit louder. Still no response. Then I let loose with a cluck that would have done justice to all the poultry in America. The Horse was off in a flash--a rather jouncing flash at that. I flew up and down on that saddle. I tried vainly to post, but The Horse was as Western as his saddle and denounced (or should I say "debounced") all my efforts.
          "Whoa!" I yelled, feeling like a clodhopper from Kansas..
          "  "The Horse paid no attention. He raced around the field, with me bobbing madly on his back.
          "Just call me Miss Rubber Ball of 1952," I thought grimly.
          What a gait he had! So different from the dainty, well-trained trots of the horses at camp,
          I pulled on the reins until I thought the bit would split his mouth..
          "Who-o-o-a!" I managed to gasp out between bounces.
           The Horse whoaed. He certainly did. I flew over his head and landed with an undignified thud on the ground.
           Gingerly I picked myself up and felt for broken bones.  Unluckily, there were none.           "You--you--you--prehistoric APE!" I shouted,
          The Horse said nothing. But I caught an ever-so-faint twinkle in one of his eyes. "Okay!"said I. "
           No horse is ever going to have the laugh on me. I’ll ride you until you know who’s boss!"
          I climbed back on.  And rode him.  I rode him  AND rode him.  And half an hour later, when I climbed creakingly off, it was very evident who was boss. The Horse was!
           But, as I staggered up the hill to my house, I didn’t feel the same distaste as I had in the beginning.  The Horse had personality—my anguished bones could vouch for that

RUTH DOAN (age 13)
Laconia, New Hampshire

Ruth comments, "I borrowed the title of the story from Robert Browning's galloping poem with the same title. I think I see the influence of another Robert in the piece; I was a big fan of Robert Benchley. "Oh, perhaps the website readers would be interested to know that story was inspired by a real horse, indeed named Prince (but I announced to my parents that he looked more like the Pauper), purchased by my father from a farmer friend—or rented, because Prince went back to the farmer after the summer. Our house at 233 Gilford Avenue had once been a farm, so there was a sort of stable out back, Prince's palace in the summer but not his winter quarters. Prince was mainly my sister's horse. My father taught us both to ride, but I wasn't a horse-crazy girl, so Penny did most of the riding as well as the manure-shoveling."

Copyright by Girl Scouts of America & Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved

Our thanks to Sherry Williams who has graciously allowed us to use one of her photographs of a 1950s The American Girl cover as our illustration for this article.