THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WELL

Chapter 13 – page 3

“Ai yai yai!” says J. “The horses!” Well it was only about 10 AM or so, no big deal. He ran off to feed them. They were very glad to see him and whinnied and tossed their heads; well Mober did. Pepper was more sensible. He gave them gobs of hay, and more fresh water, and a little grain too. He was smart enough to know that you can’t keep a horse in a small space and feed it lots of grain or it goes bonkers. Ah oh! He saw work ahead. Well back to the old dirty clothes. He would need to clean out the stalls. Now what do you do with horse poop on a ship? Well it was just recycled grass and alfalfa. He thought it wouldn’t hurt to throw it overboard, so he went back up to ask G about it.

“Hmmm . . .” thought G for while. “I’ll go down with you and we’ll have a look-see and see what we find down there.” They found a sliding door with saddles, blankets and everything. There was also a pitchfork like thing to pick up the …. you know. Julio had already changed into his dirty clothes, which Muff certainly preferred. So he got to work while the horses were eating and would keep out of his way. He made a pile while G checked around some more. She found a small cart that could be pulled to put the poop in, and where the cart was, she began poking around some more.

She touched some wooden lever and out opened a slanted metal drawer-like thing. She looked down into the dark and was amazed that the ship went any further down. This was obviously a place to throw the poop she thought ~ she hoped. Maybe it dumped right into the water ~ she didn’t know. But she yelled at J and told him about it. “Great” he replied. He wasn’t really into hauling horse poop around, but Granma, being 129 remember, couldn’t do it anymore. Though she always claimed that she was still ‘stronger than an ox’ she just didn’t do horse poop anymore. So . . . that was taken care of. Whew!

Julio washed up and put his clean clothes on again. It was about time for a little something for sure. When they had passed the deck earlier they hadn’t heard any noise. Seems everyone had slept in! Now as they walked by, they were given a royal welcome with trumpets, flutes, tambourines, and colored flags. They had no idea what all the commotion was all about.