Doc Gets Religion - And Then Loses It

There are several small churches in our little town and on Sundays many local folk can be seen on their way there, dressed in what Jack calls their "Sunday go to meetin' clothes". We're not sure what they do there but years ago, at our first barn, Doc had his own encounter with religion.

The woman was away and had left us to graze on the several acres of grass in front of the house, making sure to close the gate behind her (drat). Being young lads, Doc and I did some mock stallion fighting, chewed some fencing and even managed to eat a bit of late fall grass. Then strangers appeared at the gate. We rushed to greet them. They were fiddling with the catch on the gate and we took them by surprise, causing one of the females to scream. This mysterious outburst caused Doc to become overwrought and he galloped around in tight circles next to the gate. The people looked highly agitated and left. Most perplexing - and disappointing.

The strangers appeared again the next week but this time our woman was in the barn. She came out to meet them and one of the strangers, who was clad in a collection of animal pelts sewn together, began speaking very earnestly and quickly and trying to give the woman two magazines that had to do with religion of some sort. The woman said no thank you but still the strangers stayed and talked and talked. Then Doc, who was at the top of the paddock, spotted them and came barreling down to welcome them, sliding to a stop just inches away from the gate and showering them in clods of mud . "eeeeeeekkkkkkk !" screamed the pelt-clad female, "It's HIM - it's that big horse again! We were here last week and he wouldn't let us in the gate." A complete lie; we very much wanted them to come in but they rebuffed our warm invitation. Doc snorted in her face, inspected the pelts closely with his tongue, which caused him to sneeze violently, and snatched the magazines from her hand. With that the stranger hiked up the fur pelts and the whole group beat a hasty retreat to their conveyance. Gravel flew and they were gone.

Doc was devastated. "I liked them dudes", he said "expecially that fur one - and she even thought I was a BIG horse. Those paper things was borin - I wonder what humans see in this religion stuff. It tastes like cr**" He sighed and trudged off. The woman sighed and trudged back to the barn and I sighed and trudged off because that's just my normal mode. The whole ordeal has caused Doc and self to swear off anything to do with religion. There's an old saying about staying clear of religion and politics but I must confess, I find politics too enthralling to ever consider withdrawing from that sphere. I'm quite happy to leave religion to the humans though.