
BUYING A HORSE - BY William Dean Howells - BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY - The Riverside Press Cambridge 1916 - COPYRIGHT, 1879 BY HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO. - COPYRIGHT, 1916 BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BUYING A HORSE
A modest country dweller suddenly discovers how daunting the simple wish to own a horse can become. After a well‑meaning professor offers a laundry list of technical specifications—short legs, sturdy barrel, solid fore‑feet—our hopeful buyer is left to translate vague advice into a realistic budget. When he reaches out to the reputable Chevaliers, he is met with prompt courtesy, only to learn that the exact animal he imagined has just been sold.
Undeterred, he soon finds himself surrounded by a parade of eager dealers, each presenting a bewildering assortment of “pony‑horses,” mustangs, and hefty workhorses that barely match the professor’s criteria. The flood of options turns the quiet search into an almost theatrical horse‑fair, forcing him to navigate a maze of prices, measurements, and personalities. As he learns to sift through the noise, the story captures the humor and frustration of an ordinary man confronting the surprisingly complex world of equine commerce.
Language
en
Duration
~38 minutes (37K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Julia Miller, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
Release date
Oct 14, 2007
Rights
Public domain in the USA.
Subjects

1837–1920
A leading voice of American realism, he brought sharp social observation and everyday life to the page. Best known for The Rise of Silas Lapham and his influential editorship of The Atlantic Monthly, he helped shape American literature in the late nineteenth century.
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by William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

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