The Black Stallion's Blood Bay Colt by Walter Farley

does.”
    â€œÂ â€˜Jimmy Creech says this’! ‘Jimmy Creech says that’!” Uncle Wilmer would bellow, stalking from the room.
    But his uncle’s tantrums did not bother Tom any more than did his aunt’s sarcastic remarks about his living in the barn. For Tom’s world now centered thereand he accepted it. Hour after hour, day after day, he watched the colt.
    He saw the sharp ribs seemingly disappear overnight and the chunky body fill out before his eyes. No longer did the colt shuffle along on uncertain legs. After his second day he was trotting about the paddock, falling only when he took too fast a turn.
    And Tom watched him with wondering eyes, marveling at the rapid growth and agility of one who only a few days ago had been so helpless.
    By the end of the first week, the paddock was almost too small for the frolicking colt, and Tom knew that the time had come to put him and the Queen in the pasture. He had waited for the colt to gain full confidence in his long legs before putting him to the task of coping with the pasture’s hilly and uneven terrain. He had another reason, too, for having kept the Queen and her colt in the paddock. Here he could get to the colt more easily than he’d be able to do in the acres of pastureland. Winning the colt’s confidence and handling him often was his most important job now. And it was a job he loved doing.
    Tom would enter the paddock, slowly approaching the colt. And the colt would watch him with curious and still uncertain eyes. For the colt now knew who his mother was, and he kept close to her, using her big body as his protection against the world.
    Always Tom would stop a few feet away from the mare. He would then stoop down, and sometimes even sit on the ground, for he had learned that the smaller he made himself the more confidence it gave the colt.
    The Queen would come to him, looking for thecarrots in his pockets, and the colt would follow. While feeding the mare, Tom would remain very still, never making a move to touch the colt until the small head was thrust down to him and the soft muzzle searched curiously about his clothes. Tom would let him nibble his fingers and felt only the slightest edges of the colt’s teeth, which were finding their way through tender gums. Very often then, the colt would encircle him, pulling at his clothes, while Tom ran his hand gently over the furry body and down the long slim legs to tiny hoofs.
    Uncle Wilmer watched Tom’s handling of the colt with great curiosity and apparent concern. “Y’oughtn’t to make so much of him,” he would say. “You’ll get more out of him if you show him who’s boss right away, while you can still handle him. No sense in makin’ up to him like you do. Git in there and hold him, if you want to brush him. You let him do what he wants and he’ll kick the teeth out of you before long. He’s gettin’ stronger every day, an’ if you don’t act now, it ain’t goin’ to be so easy later on.”
    Tom had listened, knowing his uncle meant well, but he wanted the colt to come to him of his own accord. He couldn’t have done it any other way. But he knew, too, there was much to what his uncle was telling him. He knew he had to be more careful now, for the colt was throwing his hind legs around more often and with more force. The hoofs, while still small, could do some injury if well directed.
    So as Tom sat on the ground with the colt encircling him, he was more cautious, more alert than he had been the first few days, and he was on guardagainst the slightest movement of the hindquarters toward him.
    Jimmy Creech had said to handle the colt as much as possible, but he hadn’t told him how to go about it. Until he heard from Jimmy, he would go ahead as he was doing, regardless of his uncle’s advice, even though Tom knew it was being given in his own best interest.
    Jimmy Creech’s next