The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

flicked an ear at it. To him, planes landing and taking off had become
common as trees.
Partway down the road Butter balked, and wanted to turn and go back
home. I made him continue. He went stubborn after that, mouthing the bit and
flicking his ears at me, as though cursing me in some low horse language. He
walked slower than ever, and I thought with longing of Jonathan’s horse. A
month ago I’d been thrilled with Butter, and now I wanted something more.
Two months ago I’d not seen trees.
Eventually we made it to Maggie’s house, and around to the stable yard.
Mr. Grimes was there in the yard, rinsing a big gray horse with water from a
bucket. “Aye,” he said when he saw me.
“Aye,” I said back, suddenly feeling shy. He hadn’t said I could visit—only
Maggie’s mum had said that, and maybe Mr. Grimes wouldn’t like it. I slid
off Butter and put my right foot behind my left.
Mr. Grimes looked me up and down. “Wait there,” he said. He put the
horse he was tending into a stall. “Now,” he said, coming toward me, “explain
what you were doing riding this poor animal down the road.”
“I wanted help,” I said. “I can’t make him go.”
“I should think not.” He bent toward Butter’s forefeet. “Hasn’t had his feet
trimmed in years, has he? Bet not since that other one died. That Miss
Becky.” He stalked off, and came back with his hands full of metal tools.
“You just hold him,” he said. He cradled Butter’s hoof upside down in his
hand, and then with a sort of pincher thing he cut Butter’s hoof right off.
I screamed. Butter startled. Mr. Grimes straightened, dropping Butter’s
foot. Butter still had quite a bit of hoof left, I saw. But the cut-off part lay on
the cobbled yard, curved and thick and horrible-looking. Mr. Grimes said,
“Does it look like I’m hurting him?”
It didn’t. I couldn’t believe it. Butter stood perfectly calm.
“Ponies’ hooves are like our fingernails,” he said. He picked up another
tool and rasped Butter’s short hoof smooth. “They grow and they have to be
trimmed.”
Miss Smith was a bear for having our fingernails trimmed. She’d trimmed
them the second day we were with her, and our toenails too, and she kept on
us to trim them every week. With clippers, not just nibbling off the broken
bits like I was used to. It was strange, but Mr. Grimes was right, it didn’t hurt.
“His are so overgrown they’re hurting him,” Mr. Grimes continued,
moving on to Butter’s other front foot. “Probably hurts him to walk at all, and