by Jane Smiley
Secretly, Ornery George and I said, “I guess we’ll see about that.”
Everything we did, we did just enough. His jog was just lively enough. His walk was just energetic enough. He took the proper lead at the lope, but I had to think about making him do it. He dropped into the halt, but not in a balanced way, more as if he weren’t bothering to go forward any longer. A halt, as Daddy always said, is different than just stopping. A halt is as much of an exercise as a lope or a jump. You want the horse to think about it, set himself up, and then come to a standstill. Ornery George just stopped. A horse that just stops is doing what he wants to do, not what you want to do. He reined back. He was okay at that, though his ears flattened to show he was unhappy.
I did some figure eights at the trot, trying to make nice circles. When I tried it at the lope, dropping back to the trot to change leads, he bunched up a little for a buck or two but didn’t actually do it, even though at the thought he might, my heart began to pound a little. After about twenty-five minutes, Daddy was satisfied, and I dismounted. As I led Ornery George back to the barn to be untacked and groomed, he and I continued to have our secret about who was the boss, but tomorrow was Sunday, I thought, and I wouldn’t have to deal with him again until Monday afternoon.
When I was putting him away, Gloria’s mom’s white Impala turned into our road, and pretty soon here they were. Gloria jumped out of the passenger side, and Mrs. Harris opened her door more slowly and then got herself out of the driver’s side.
Mrs. Harris was a big woman, at least a head taller than Mom, and older, too, I think. Gloria was an only child, and Mrs. Harris had always treated her, Mom said, like she didn’t know the first thing about children and was afraid of them to boot. But she was nice in her awkward way, and she always talked to me as if Mom and I were about the same age. Now she walked over to me and said, “Good morning, Abby. I hope you’re well. It’s wonderful to see you.” She held out her hand, and I offered her mine to shake. She was wearing sunglasses. “I understand you have a new foal, and I would love to be introduced to the young man.” She picked up one of her feet to show me her cowboy boot. She always wore red cowboy boots when she came out. I don’t think she’d ever been on a horse.
Gloria had always been about my size, that is, not short and not tall, not fat and not thin. I sometimes wondered if we would look like our moms when we got older, and if so, when her future size would kick in, but it hadn’t so far, even though lots of the girls had gotten their growth, as my mom would say. Gloria was wearing jeans, a jean jacket, and sneakers. She seemed excited, and that made me excited, too. I said, “They’re out. Over here!”
We walked over to the gate, and in a moment, Mom joined us. She and Mrs. Harris had a little hug.
It was quite sunny and warm by now, and the grass in the mares’ corral had greened up nicely, because only one mare was out there much. The foal’s dam was eating calmly and the foal was stretched out on his side, sleeping, though his little tail flicked against the grass from time to time, and his little ears flicked, too. Mom said, “Follow me. It’s time to get acquainted.” She opened the gate.
As we walked toward the mare, she looked up at us and then moved around the foal so that she was between him and us. “Perfect,” said Mom. She pulled out a handful of carrot pieces. She said, “Okay, girls, now each of you can take some carrots, and we’re going to go up to the mare, not the foal, slowly but confidently, and we’re just going to feed her some carrots and pet her and pretty much ignore the baby for a while.” We did this. The Jewel ate the carrots quite happily, Gloria and I petted her on the face and down the neck, and Mom slipped the halter on her. She said, “Just keep petting her, all over. As if you were brushing her with your hands.” We did this, a little carefully, in case she might change her mind about whether she trusted us, but she stood quietly, keeping her eye on the foal but enjoying the petting.
After a little bit, the foal rolled up onto his chest, blinking a little. His eyelashes were really long. He even yawned, which was very cute. Then he got to his feet. This was a production. First he used his front feet to lever himself up, then he got his back feet under him and pushed off and sort of jumped into the air. Then he shook all over and yawned again. Gloria started laughing and her mother said, “Oh, how darling!” but we just kept petting the mare until after a moment, she walked over to him. Mom followed her, holding the lead rope. The foal started to nurse. Mom said, “Okay, now come over here, nice and easy, and start petting her again, on the side away from him, just petting her. We’ll see how she likes it.”
She liked it fine. The foal nursed and we petted the mare, Gloria and I at the neck and shoulders on the side away from the foal and Mom in front, stroking her face and head. Mom inched her way to the side the foal was on, and then every so often, she let her hand drop smoothly to his shoulder. Then she stroked him lightly but smoothly, so as not to be mistaken for a fly. He did shiver his skin, the way horses do to shake off flies, but after a few minutes, he even stopped doing that. Then she said, “Okay, Abby, trade places with me.” I did and then did just what she had done.
The foal’s coat wasn’t smooth and soft, like the mare’s. It was rough and thick, to keep him warm. And he was warm. Because he’d been lying in the sun, his coat was almost hot. I let my fingers stray through it, but smoothly, like Mom had done. At one point, he stopped nursing for a moment and realized that I was next to him. He jumped a little bit, as if startled, which made me jump, too, and that made Gloria jump, and we laughed. I switched places with Gloria. By this time, the colt was more or less used to us being around and even to us petting him, and he didn’t seem nervous. In fact, he got bored and walked away, over toward the George corral, just to look at the geldings. Then he jumped in the air and galloped around for a minute or two.
“Now’s the test,” Mom said. She followed the mare again when the mare followed the colt. We stood there quietly, just the way we had done before, petting the mare and giving her some more carrots. Finally, the colt turned around and looked at us, all standing there. He snorted and jumped, then stopped and looked. Then, the best thing, step by step, he came toward us, toward his mom. His tail kept flicking back and forth. He stopped, took a step or two, stopped again. But finally he was back beside the mare, him on his side and us on our side. He peeked under her neck at us. Mom’s hand moved toward his neck and then stroked it. His skin shivered, but he stood still. “Smart boy,” said Mom.
“Oh, how lovely,” said Mrs. Harris.
“I think that’s enough for one day,” said Mom.
“I love him,” said Gloria. “You are so lucky, Abby.”
I knew I was, but I said, “Daddy says that a foal is a terrible responsibility.”
“I have every confidence that you are up to it,” said Mrs. Harris.
Mom smiled. We went inside for tea, and Gloria and her mom stayed almost until supper. Gloria had a Seventeen magazine with her, and we went into my room and sat on the bed and leafed through it. She pointed at a couple of the models and said, “Did I tell you my cousin Emily saw them in Florida at Christmastime? They were sitting together in the restaurant of the hotel where she was staying, and they all had matching outfits on.”
“They must have been doing a shoot.”
“I guess. Don’t you wonder how much they make?”
“I heard it was like a hundred dollars an hour.”
“Wow.” We stared at the models cavorting in the snow (this was, after all, the February issue), and then Gloria read me the dating column that was written by the guy they had. It was about whether boys like popular girls best or not. As far as I could tell, he wished that they didn’t, but he knew that they did. All in all, Gloria and I had a nice afternoon, just the sort of afternoon we had been having ever since we first played Chutes and Ladders in second grade, ever since we got coloring books and her crayon box (forty-eight colors) was always in perfect order. If she broke one, her mom taped it together so all the tips were the
same height. My crayon box would be half empty because even though I only liked certain colors, Daddy said I had to use all the colors before I could have a new box. So Gloria would loan me hers and we would color all afternoon. They went home before supper. We hadn’t said a word about Stella, and I didn’t know if that was good or bad.
Chapter 5
NOW WE COULD MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE COLT, AND WE DID. THE path to a colt’s heart is through his mom, and the first thing I did was to make friends with the Jewel (whom I called “Pearl,” just between us, as in “Hey, Pearl! Hey, sweet thing! What a good girl you are, Pearl!”). Every time I passed the stall or, if they were out, the corral, I called to Pearl and gave her a couple of pats or a bit of carrot. Pretty soon, she was looking for me and nickering to me. She and the colt stayed out more and more as the weather got better. Mom was cautious about putting the two mares out together with the foal, but the other Jewel didn’t mind staying in and eating hay most of the day and then going out at night. I was happy we didn’t have any more mares, because that would have meant more stalls to clean.
Daddy started talking about going back to Oklahoma and buying more horses. Horses were cheap in Oklahoma, and there were plenty of them, but now that Danny was out of the house, Daddy hated to leave Mom and me on our own. Then he started talking about whether his brother, Luke, in Oklahoma might bring us some horses, but then Luke would have to be cut in on the profits, and anyway, Luke had a different idea of a good horse from Daddy’s idea. Luke was older than Daddy, and though they got along, you never knew whether that would last. Sometimes they didn’t fight for a month and sometimes only for a few days. Luke hated for Daddy to “boss him around” or “tell it to him straight” (whichever of these it was depended on your point of view). Whenever they had a fight, Mom said that Daddy felt a strong obligation to witness to Luke, but older brothers, in particular, didn’t care to be witnessed to by the boys they had spent a lifetime beating up and bossing around. So, for the time being, there were no horses from Oklahoma. The other thing my mom said once in a while was, “Mark, you should make things up with Danny.”
“He needs to work at a hard job for a while and see what life is like.”
“If he works long enough, he’ll never come back.”
“If it’s hard enough, he’ll learn his lesson.”
“You never know what lesson he’s learning.”
They went round and round like this. But it was a touchy subject, and Mom was careful to not bring it up very often. I think she thought that the idea of horses from Oklahoma and the idea of making up with Danny would come together of their own accord, and better not to push them together before Daddy was ready. In the meantime, she said to me, “You know your grandfather and his brother Eben didn’t speak for thirteen years because once Eben got drunk and drove home in the wagon, forgetting your grandfather in town. I don’t think the family ever stopped arguing about what that meant. When you argue about what things mean, they just get bigger and bigger.”
The good thing, other than the weather, was that we got a call from a lady who had horses at the biggest riding stable on the coast. A girl wanted a pony. The girl was nine, an “advanced beginner” but small. The lady, who had seen Daddy’s ad in the newspaper, wanted to come out, but Daddy insisted that it would be his pleasure to trailer the pony to the coast, and then we spent three days getting ready, which meant not only cleaning up the pony and me getting out my nicest English-style riding clothes, it also meant Daddy washing the truck and the trailer.
“Now, Abby,” he said as he did, “this is something you should know, a business practice. If this lady were to come out here, she would see our place and she would think that we really couldn’t possibly have a pony that would be good enough for her client. If we drive there, though, and we are all cleaned up and shined a bit, then she’ll look at our old truck and trailer and say to herself that she’s getting a deal on the pony, but the fact that everything is spic and span will tell her that we are economical rather than poor. She’ll be sure she’s getting a good deal on the right pony.” He suggested that Gloria come along, and that was fine with me. I knew her mom would dress her up so that she would look good at the fancy stable.
I’d been polishing the pony with the sweater every day, and even though a gray doesn’t shine up as brightly as a chestnut, he looked good and felt good—his coat was as slick as a piece of silk. Daddy could hardly contain himself. He even made Mom iron his jeans on the Friday night before we left.
The stable was about an hour away. I had heard of it but never been there. It wasn’t on the way to anywhere, but rather off by itself under a big stand of pines. You had to go through a gate and down a special road to get there. Daddy would have had to pay a dollar just to drive down that road, except that he told the guard he was taking a pony to the stable and the guard waved him past. We drove for a while on the road through a forest—with the windows open, you could smell the pines—but it wasn’t cheerful. Fog wafted here and there, and all of the houses were behind big walls and gates. There were, needless to say, no kids playing in the streets. It was like the country but not country. Walls, houses, lawns, and gardens but no animals or fields. Even so, Gloria and I picked out houses—or, rather, mansions—that we thought were pretty.
The lady, who introduced herself as Miss Slater, was waiting for us at the gate to the stable. She was small, not much taller than I, but a little on the wide side. She was wearing copper-colored English-style riding breeches that were wide on top, brown tall boots, and a brown wool jacket. Even though it wasn’t that cold, she had gloves on. Daddy stopped the truck and she came to the window with a big smile, which made her look prettier than I thought she had been, and she told us where to park and unload the pony. She gave Gloria and me a nice smile and said to me, “So! You must be Abby! You’re going to show us what this pony can do!”
I said, “Yes, ma’am,” the way I was supposed to. Daddy opened the back of the trailer and went in. A moment later, he brought out the pony. Miss Slater said, “What’s his name?”
Daddy said, “George,” with a perfectly straight face.
“Hello, George,” said the lady. She put her hands on her hips and stared at the pony while Daddy stood him up. The pony’s ears were pricked, and I might have said he was nervous, but he did stand quietly while she walked all around him, then went up to him and picked up his feet and opened his mouth. In the meantime, Gloria and I pretended to be perfectly well-mannered girls and that we were just standing there doing what we’d been told to do, but really we were edging closer and closer toward the gateway to the inner court of the stable so we could get a look.
The whole stable was painted white, and all of the stall doors and windows were painted with dark green trim. Horses’ heads looked out over every door, and the courtyard was full of people—some of them were girls or women dressed like Miss Slater, and others were men in overalls who were cleaning stalls. Miss Slater said, “Not bad.” I looked at Daddy, who had his poker face on. “Let’s see the little fellow go.”
I held the pony while Daddy got out the English tack, and Gloria helped him saddle up. When I went to get on, though, the lady said, “Abby, did you bring your hard hat?”
“No, ma’am.”
“We’ll lend you one. Why don’t you lead the pony through here.”
We followed her into the courtyard. Everyone there stopped what they were doing and stared at us. The first hard hat she handed me came down over my eyes; the second one sat on my head like a mushroom cap. Gloria started to laugh, but I poked her a good one. Finally, Miss Slater found one—nice black velvet—that fit me. I was relieved. We walked the pony to the mounting block and I got on. Then we went out of the courtyard and over to the arena.
There were five or six horses and riders in the arena—no ponies—and all of them looked at us as I rode George in. Of course, some of the girls said, “Oh, isn’t he cute! Look at him!” but I pretended not to hear them. I walked across
the arena and then turned left and walked along the rail. The pony flicked his ears here and there, but he minded his manners. After two circuits, we made a little U-turn and went back the other way. Miss Slater called out, “Abby! Please pick up a trot.” And so we did. Some horses get into a ring full of other horses and they don’t like it because the other horses come too close. Others think that if the ring is full of quiet horses, then everything must be okay—no mountain lions anywhere nearby. That was how the pony was. He liked other horses and liked feeling that he didn’t have to keep his eye out.
After we had shown off the walk, trot, canter, halt, rein back, and a few turns in either direction, she motioned me into the center, and we trotted over a few poles. Daddy was standing by the rail, chewing on a piece of straw and talking to one of the ladies. I was sure he was putting on his Oklahoma accent so that everyone would think he was the biggest hick in town. We jumped a few low jumps, and then I pulled him up in front of her and said, “Ma’am. Just so you know, he’ll jump about anything. Daddy had him jumping over two chairs draped with a tablecloth the other day. He didn’t look right or left.”
“Hmm,” said the lady.
I could tell that she was trying to look undecided, but she seemed happy underneath that, so I knew she liked the pony.
Now she took the rein and led us to the fence, where a girl in fancy riding clothes was sitting. The lady said, “Abby, this is Melinda. She’s the girl who’s looking for a pony.”
