Here the whole family were painting wooden horses. Two lads painted them white and set them aside to dry. The others took the white horses that had already dried and painted black spots on them and a black stripe down their backs; though, why they did this I cannot tell you, and I doubt if they could have told themselves. Certainly no living white horse ever had such spots on it or such a line down its spine. But horses were scarce in the Toy Valley, and probably no one in it had ever seen a white horse; so they had to do the best they could, and once, away back, no doubt, some carver with a bright imagination had so painted his horses, and ever after, all his descendants, who knew no more about white horses than he did, had painted them that way, too.