A Good Horse by Jane Smiley

Cribbing. Kicking the walls of the stall. Look in that one.”
    I looked over the door of a horse two stalls down. One whole side of the stall was dented and scraped. Jane said, “That mare runs her teeth back and forth over that spot four or five hours a day. Just bored to tears. But the owner won’t let her go out for fear that she’ll run around and hurt herself.” She shook her head. “It’s a shame.”
    Then she said, “But come with me. I found you something.”
    I gave Black George a last pat and we headed down the barn aisle, only to stop by Gallant Man’s stall for a moment when he nickered and give him a piece of sugar and a pat. He looked cute and fat and whiter than he had been in the spring. Jane said, “I wish Melinda could come back, but there are a couple of little girls riding him. Beginners. He’s happy.”
    I saw that I would be too big for him now.
    She led me into the main tack room, which was next to the office. Over the back of a chair was a pair of canary breeches, and beside the chair was a pair of high boots, polished to an ebony shine. She said, “The breeches might be a little big, and the boots might be a little small. But try them on. We’ll see.”
    She took a pair of boot hooks off the desk.
    I took off my jodhpurs and boots and put on the breeches and buttoned the buttons down below my knees.
    You don’t need boot hooks with jodhpur boots or cowboy boots, but I knew how they worked—you hold the handles and slip the hooks into the flat little loops inside the tops of the boots, then you stick your foot in toe first and slide yourself down into the boot. If you can. And I could, with the rightboot. It was a little tight, but I just pulled harder, and down it went. My right leg looked good. I had to admire it.
    Then I slipped the hooks into the loops of the left boot and stuck my toe in, balancing on my right foot. My foot would go in only so far, and then there I was, half in, half out. I pulled and pulled on the hooks and pushed and pushed on my foot, but couldn’t get my heel down below the ankle of the boot.
    “Hmmm,” said Jane, trying to help me by sitting down and shoving on the sole of the boot. The thing seemed stuck—not going on, not coming off. Jane said, “I guess your left foot is bigger than your right. Or Lily Grayson is built opposite to you. She has a horse here, but she’s gone to college, and I know—Well, let’s try something else.”
    I sat down in the chair and she pulled the boot off. Then she went over to the row of lockers and opened one. She took out a pair of stockings and handed me one. She said, “Take off your sock and pull this over the bottom of your breeches leg.” We did that and tried the boot again. It slid on. But it was tight. I flexed my ankle. That was okay. But I knew I would have to make myself not think about how tight the boot was. We left my things in the locker and went out to get Black George. The boot. Was. Tight. I was limping by the time we got to his stall.
    There was a man there, about my height, slender and wiry. He said, “Are ye ready, then, lass?” And Jane said, “Yes, thank you, Rodney.” He turned to me and gave me a big grin, then he held out his hands and said, “Let’s throw ye up there, lass.” And he did. I put my knee in his hand, and he nearly launched me over Black George and onto the roof of the barn.
    Jane said, “Abby, this is Rodney Lemon. He’s been working for us for about a year. He’s from England.”
    I said, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Lemon,” and he gave a little bow, but with a big grin on his face, like he was making fun of everything, including himself. As we walked away, he smacked Black George on the haunch and said, “That’s for a bit of luck, now!”
    “He’s a character,” said Jane.
    But he had done everything—cleaned the horse, cleaned the tack, pinned the number to the saddle pad, oiled Black George’s hooves so they shone, combed the mane and the tail. As I rode