A story about horses, part four

            I remember the new green bucket. The old red bucket was older than me, and it had suffered greatly in its years of service. It had been kicked, stepped on, tossed in the air. I had worn it on my back like a turtle, peeking my head out and slowly creeping across the barn floor. The old red bucket had one handle; the other had broken off at some point. And then one day I was mucking stalls, and the single handle broke off. The old red bucket was retired and the new green one with yellow handles came to replace it.
            Mark did not like the new green bucket. He did not like how large it was. He did not like how shiny it was. He did not like the noise it made, which was ever so slightly different than the noises the friendly old red one had made when I dragged it across the ground. When he saw the new green bucket, Mark would throw his head up in the air and shake it back and forth. He would neigh and snort and back up to get away from it. And when he was far enough away, he would put his head down low to the ground and snort and look at me with the most pitiful expression, asking me to take away that scary nasty unfriendly bucket. It just made him feel wrong to see that thing in his stall or his field.
            So I talked to him. I stood in front of the bucket, and I told Mark that it was all right, I would not let the bucket eat him. I had that bucket under control. It wasn't going to get up and chase him around, because I would not let it. He looked at me doubtfully. But Mark wanted to trust me. He wanted to believe that I would keep the bucket from doing something terrible to him, that I could fix the wrongness of it somehow.
            I brought the bucket out into the field. Mark got a good look at it from all sides, but a good distance away where he could dash to safety if it showed signs of life. It didn't. The bucket just sat there, and Mark decided that maybe it wasn't alive after all.
            I brought out his halter and lead rope, and led him around far away from the bucket. When he was calm, I brought him up to it and let him sniff it. After a moment, Mark looked at the bucket, looked at me, and nudged it gently with his nose. "Ok," he seemed to say, "I guess it's ok now."
            Mark did not ever spook at the bucket again.