My second public domain EPUB is available for download.
https://archive.org/details/arthur-c-bartlett-game-legs
Game-Legs, first published in 1928, is a lovely and charming story by Arthur C. Bartlett, who wrote two more horse stories for children, General Jim, and 4-H Cowboy.
The main character of Game-Legs is Jimmy Burbank. Jimmy contracted polio as a young child, and needs to use walking sticks to get around. His father, a doctor, has a favorite mare he has bred, hoping for a good foal. But, when the mare gives birth, the foal can’t stand on her own. Jimmy identifies with the weak filly and becomes concerned for her. He does not realize that her weakness could result in her being put down.
In real life, a foal that can’t stand is of great concern, and life threatening. Particularly if the foal is down for an extended period.
At school, Jimmy learns that the chances are poor for the foal and she will be shot. Jimmy successfully pleads for the life of the foal with his father, and the filly is given to him. How Jimmy manages to care for his foal is glossed over. One imagines she would have to be held up to nurse. It seems doubtful Jimmy coped by himself with this task. He may have bottle fed her, but this was not specified. All the reader knows is that gruff Dr. Wragg, the veterinary, was helpful with instructions for the filly’s care:
The impotent limbs were to be gently massaged, tenderly bathed and anointed with a certain pungent-smelling balm which he produced from the depths of his kit. Exceptional care as to feeding and bedding, of course, would be required. A tonic was prescribed for her. And every day Jimmy was to try to get her on her feet, that she might get exercise as soon as her legs would hold her up.
A friend of Jimmy’s father helps out when Jimmy has to go back to school in the fall. This gives the ongoing foal-care scenario some credence, but the author should have provided more detail to convince his readers.
Just as Jimmy is losing hope, the filly turns things around. She has the will to stand; and the care she has been given pays off.
Jimmy doesn’t ride, but he enjoys driving his father’s horses. In due time, the yearling filly learns to accept a harness and be driven. Realistically, driving a horse in harness as a yearling is not often done, but time-lines do get compressed in fiction.
One of the difficulties Jimmy faces is mostly mental; constant verbal bullying from a schoolmate. This boy, Preston Gilligan, challenges Jimmy to a race. Jimmy exercises good horse sense; he knows his filly is not up to racing yet. Instead, he proposes to accept the challenge and race a year later. It’s pleasing to see Jimmy be firm in his response to the bully! He knows what’s best for his horse.
How Jimmy finds out that his weak-kneed filly can trot with the best is for the reader to discover.
The ending is bittersweet and could be tough on a sensitive child. Parents of a disabled child should know that there are multiple references to Jimmy as a “cripple.” But Jimmy also has a lot of friends and is well-liked by them. The book is an excellent story with good lessons for a child to absorb. It is also a pleasing step back in time for the adult reader.
The book has a single illustration, a full-color frontispiece painting by Harold James Cue that also appears on the cover.