the rest of the story. One morning a hundred and fifty nine years ago Anna went to
school without her umbrella. She was a lively fourteen. Sometimes daydreams pushed
aside more practical considerations. In those weeks of the English summer hot
humid overcast the skies were likely to burst at any moment. Her mother had
even mentioned it to her and reminded her of the long walk to and from school
had asked her to take her umbrella but Anna had not. Now it was mid-afternoon
driving down pouring rain. Mother was watching out the windows Anna ran up the
steep carriage drive her bonnet her hair her clothing everything drenched mother
hurry to open the door but before she could she was alarmed to hear a loud cry
of pain. It was Anna's cry. Flinging the door open wide mother saw the girl
sprawled on the driveway her face contorted in agony both ankles horribly
twisted. Mother carried Anna into the living room later gently on the sofa how
had it happened? Anna didn't know she had slipped and fallen somehow both feet
had turned as she fell and then the girl looked down gasping her legs appeared
like those of a wagon horse she'd seen the year before and that horse had
fallen on frozen cobblestones and had to be shot. Mother clasped Anna's hand the
girl would be just fine she assured the doctor would come and make her good
as new she assured. A physician was summoned by the time he arrived the mud
spatters on Anna schoolbooks had dried both the girls ankles were quite swollen
bad sprains the doctor called them and he treated them accordingly healing would
take a while he said weeks passed however and then months but Anna remained
crippled now this is the rest of the story a Lorena still could not walk she was
permitted even encouraged to ride soon after Anna's injury mother rented a
pony from a nearby livery stable and on the back of that pony the teenager could
rump and run through the English countryside as she could not possibly do
otherwise the pony became as much a friend as she would ever have for hours
and almost every day the little girl rode him through the bright meadows
sometimes stopping to sit in the fragrant grass and just talk to her pony this
was to be Anna's only freedom her only true happiness for the rest of her
time was spent as an invalid confined to her bed deprived of friends her own
age Anna's ankles never did heal properly as long as she lived she was able to
walk only sometimes was able to stand unassisted for only a few moments the
rest of her days and nights were endured in bed almost always in pain but one
benefit which emerged from the mysterious girlhood injury was ours I mean
yours and mine it was a book that Anna wrote her only book dedicated to a little
pony that had become her legs and to all of the horses that had spared her
life of utter confinement so poignant was Anna Searywood's book that it was
considered primarily responsible for the increasingly humane treatment of
horses in the second half of the 19th century and now I hope you'll always
recall the painful mishap of a rainy afternoon in 1834 when you read or hear
the touching novel the tender tribute entitled Black Beauty because now you know
the rest of the story
