In his Collingwood workshop, a carpenter named Jim Smith makes beautiful rocking horses that are so realistic that Jim and his daughter Elsie almost believe the horses will run away. Elsie's favourite is named Dapple. They can't bear to sell Dapple, so they keep him with them. But then Elsie grows up, and her parents move to South Africa. Dapple is sent to an emporium in Bourke St to be sold. When a woman buys him one day, he goes to his new home at Balaclava.
