A stable of snails

When I was nine I loved horses. I wanted to catch a wild horse and tame it, just like the kids in the stories I read. There was a problem with this.
There weren’t any wild horses around.
But there were wild snails.Our hillside was full of snails. They were easy to catch as they crawled along. When I picked them up, they pulled themselves up into their shells. I carried them up to the wall around our tiny patio. When I put them down they would slowly poke their heads back out and slowly unfold their eye stalks. I petted their smooth shells and told them that they were horses.

Horses live in stables so I made stables for them in the cracks between the rocks in the wall. Horses need lots of exercise so I had races on the flat rocks on top of the wall. The snail-horses didn't quite understand this activity, but they would willingly crawl away. Then I would pick them up again and put them back in their stalls.
I never managed to tame them.
Every night all my snail horses escaped. In the morning there would be shiny silver trails showing where they had run away. I would have to saddle up my pretend horse and gallop off to round them up again.
I found out lots about snails while I played with them. But I didn't find out much about horses - that would have to wait until later.