The Georges and the Jewels

by Jane Smiley

  “On what?”

  “That’s what I don’t know.”

  “Your family is so weird, Abby.”

  “Well, yeah,” is what I said.

  “Anyway, if you come, you have to wear something nice” is what she said. She made her voice sound like she was telling me a friendly secret, but I knew she was being mean.

  After lunch, when we were at our lockers, Kyle came up to me and said, “You got any glue or Scotch tape or anything like that in your locker?”

  I had some Elmer’s. I handed it to Kyle. He said, “Some of those trees you made fell over. I’m going to make little stands on the bottom of them. I already colored them brown, but I want to glue them, not just slot them in.”

  “Okay. But what about your next class?”

  “It’s gym. I hate gym.”

  “Don’t they care if you’re late?”

  “Not if you’re working on your mission.” He took the glue and turned away.

  I went to science. We studied barometric pressure. After science, I went back to my locker, thinking solely of showing Jack to Jem Jarrow and finding out how to make him perfect starting right now. I was rummaging around in the bottom of my locker for my colored pencils, and someone bumped me from behind and made me hit my head on the back of the locker. I stood up. Kyle said, “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to run into you. Here’s your glue.” He held it out to me, then he said, “I worked on those trees until they were practically growing, waiting for her to go away. She walked all over the place and looked at every mission about six times. I reset the bells. I did everything I could think of.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m thinking she was going to spill her root beer all over it.”

  “Who?”

  “Your friend Stella. She kept walking around with it and taking tiny little sips and looking over at me, but I didn’t look at her, I just kept doing stuff.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, the bell rang, and then she stood around for a while, and then she left.”

  We looked at each other. I’m not sure that Kyle and I had ever looked at each other for more than half a second, but now we were both thinking about the same thing, so we looked at each other. Then he said, “But the evidence is only circumstantial.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we could report her only if she really spilled her root beer.”

  I got that feeling in my stomach again. I said, “What about Gloria? Was she around?”

  “No.” Then he shrugged. “I did reset the bells. They ring good now.”

  Jem Jarrow was already there as soon as I got off the bus, and the first thing he said to me was, “Mind if we have a look at the colt?”

  Of course not. Jem already had his rope halter out, and he followed me to the pen.

  Jack had his head up and his ears pricked, looking right at me. He always did when I came down the road from the school bus. Most of the time, he whinnied or squealed, too. What I did first when I saw him was to pet him on the head and neck, both sides. No treats. Almost every adult in the world that I knew said that treats make a horse nippy, though Daddy would give a trained horse a bit of something once in a while. Sometimes, I picked a handful of grass and let Jack take that between his lips, especially if it was green and moist.

  Jem said, “Show me what you do with him.”

  I went and got the halter and the chamois. Jack stood nicely for putting on the halter. Once he had it on, I started leading him around, and he was okay for the first while, but then he got balky and distracted. I turned him and led him a little bit more. He stopped, threw his head up, and started backing up. Then he came with me again, but when we got back to the gate, I was disappointed and thought that he could have behaved himself better, but then I thought the other thing I always thought, which was that he was just a baby and he would get better as he got older. I held the lead rope with one hand and rubbed the chamois over him with the other, first one side, then the next. He stood quietly for that.

  Jem said, “How old is he now?”

  “Almost three months.”

  “He’s a big colt.”

  “He might be a Thoroughbred.”

  “Looks like it. Why don’t you let him go for a minute.” This was not a question. When I let him go, he trotted off, his neck arched and his ears pricked. All of a sudden, he reared up a little and pawed, as if he had an imaginary enemy to scare away. He leapt into the air and ran a few strides, then he kicked out. A lot of his foal coat was gone now, and the dark, shiny coat underneath looked sparkly in the sun.

  Jem said, “It’s going to be a big job, raising this colt.”

  “That’s what everybody says.”

  “His dam would normally be doing a lot of the work for you.”

  “I know.”

  “My suggestion, you turn him out with the geldings.”

  “I’m afraid he’ll get hurt.”

  “He might, with the mares. Less likely with the geldings, but there’s always a risk. First thing, though, he needs to know what they all need to know—how to step over and get out of your space when you ask him to.”

  Jack had by now come back over to us, his neck arched and his ears pricked, just as interested as he could be. Jem let him be close but not too close. If Jack pressed into him, Jem lifted the halter in his hand and waved it a bit. When Jack then backed up a step, Jem stepped toward him and gave him a pat. Two times, he made the colt back up three or more steps, then he gently touched the side of his face and asked him to turn his head. When his head had turned pretty far, Jack unbent by stepping over. Jem gave him a pat. He said, “One good thing is, if a horse is curious, a colt is twice as curious. If a horse wants to play, and horses do, because otherwise why would they do most of the things we ask them to do, a colt wants to play all the time. Your job is to teach him not to play rough. That’s what his dam would do.”

  I said, “I never thought of what horses do as playing.”

  “Sure it is. You seen a horse work a cow? That horse is going to tell that cow what to do, pretty much the same as two kids playing tag. My feeling is, the more the horse likes the game, the less the cow does.” He smiled and waved Jack away more energetically. First, Jack threw his head up, snorting, and pricked his ears, then he spun and galloped across the pen with his tail curled over his back. After that, he arched his neck and trotted around in a circle, snorting even more loudly and staring at Jem and his rope. He lifted his feet high, then halted again and whinnied. He was tremendously cute. Jem said, “Every move that colt makes, he makes because he enjoys it and it expresses something. He wasn’t afraid of the rope when I shook it—he took the shaking of the rope as a reason to move, and then he enjoyed himself moving.”

  “And we enjoyed watching.”

  “Well, there you go. Showing, going in parades, working cattle, racing, you name it, if the horses didn’t enjoy it, they wouldn’t have given humans any ideas about what a horse could do for them.”

  “Plowing?”

  Now Jem really laughed. He said, “Oh, you are something, Miss Abby. You make me laugh. But who says a plow horse doesn’t enjoy pulling the plow? How are you going to make him if he doesn’t want to do it?”

  I was sure that there were ways, and of course, I had read Black Beauty, but I liked the way Jem thought of it, so I didn’t talk back.

  In the meantime, Jack returned to us as if pulled on a rubber band, and this time, Jem put the halter on him while I went and stood outside the gate. Jack acted as if he were a little insulted by the halter and started trotting away, but Jem held on, and Jack came around. Jem waved the end of the rope at him as he got close, and Jack went on past him, pretty soon taking some steps in a circle around Jem but still tossing his head a little. Then, very easily, Jem put some pressure on the rope, and Jack, without even seeming to realize what he was doing, stepped his inside hind leg in front of his outside hind leg and turned smoothly inward. His ears w
ere flicking back and forth. He hesitated. Jem now lifted his left hand, and when Jack moved away from that a little, he found himself going the other way, trotting to the right around Jem’s little circle. I saw right away that with a colt even more than with a horse, your job was to give him a little suggestion more than a strict command. If he was playing a game, then you wanted the game to be fun but to also have rules. Jem did this with him for only five minutes or so, just as if it were a game. When Jack was standing quietly, Jem called me over. I opened the gate and closed it behind me.

  He handed me the rope and said, “Jake seen the colt?”

  “I think he’s coming this week.”

  “Good, because you got to keep a colt’s feet in good trim so his feet and legs will develop right. Let’s pick his feet up.”

  “Sometimes I do that when I’m rubbing him down. I rub the chamois down his legs to his feet and then I pick the foot up.”

  Jem did the same thing, only with his hands—he rubbed from the shoulder downward, down the forearm and then over the knee. When Jack seemed uncomfortable, he stopped his hands moving, but he didn’t move away, and then Jack would relax, and Jem would move his hands downward again. He didn’t get all the way to his feet at first, just a little closer every time, until after a few tries, he reached a foot and asked Jack to pick it up and stand for a moment on three legs. It was a short moment, though. And then he would drop the foot.

  Jem stood up straight and looked at me. He said, “Now, you don’t put the foot down. That can be irritating to him. You just let the foot go and he’ll stand up on it.” He worked his way around the colt, doing this with each foot. I think because of what I’d done with the chamois, Jack didn’t mind, really. By the time I did it myself, Jack was standing up like a pro and letting me hold his foot up for maybe thirty seconds. Thirty seconds is a long time when you are holding up a horse’s foot and waiting to drop it.

  After that, we petted Jack and let him go. Jem said to me, “You’ve done a good job with him so far, Abby, because he likes you and he lets you be around him. He’s half doing what you say because you say it and half doing it because it’s interesting to him. That’s not bad. But soon he’s going to be a big fellow, and you’re going to want to rely on him to behave himself—not to get distracted or worked up about things that happen. So you need to work with him every day and give him good habits.”

  I nodded.

  “Let’s put him in with the geldings and see what happens.”

  I must have looked shocked, because he smiled and said, “There’s only three of them. If they seem overbearing, we’ll grab him and take him out. But he needs to understand other horses, or he’ll live a sad life.”

  I could see this all too well. It was rather like seventh grade.

  All we had to do was stand there in order for Jack to come back to us, looking for something, as always. When Jack got to me, I patted him while he snuffled my hands and my hair. Then I slipped the halter on, showing off a little that I could do it smoothly rather than roughly. Then I turned and walked away, and Jack walked along with me toward the gate. Jem said, “Pause, just because you feel like pausing. He should pause, too.” He did. But when we went out of the gate, the colt was all eyes. And when he saw that I was leading him toward the gelding pasture, I felt him fill up, sort of like a balloon, and begin to jog. Jem said, “Turn him. He doesn’t get to do the most interesting thing unless he can contain himself.” As we were passing the hay barn, Jem grabbed a few flakes of hay.

  The three geldings were maybe a hundred feet out into the pasture, nibbling grass, but they looked up as soon as they saw us coming, and Socks George threw up his head and gave a whinny. Jack answered. Luckily, though, they just stood there staring as I brought Jack to the gate, and Jem opened it. Jem said, “Pretend there’s nothing important going on. Just walk him through the gate and out a ways, and then turn him and get him to lower his head so you can take off the halter.” I did.

  Jack stood staring at the big horses, his ears pricked, and then, when they came toward him, he started smacking his lips together, which made a little noise. His ears went from being pricked to simply flopping to the side. He dropped his head a little. Jem said, “See what his lips are doing, the way he’s showing his teeth a little? He’s saying to them, ‘I’m a baby.’”

  “He never seems to think of himself as a baby.”

  “Well, he is, and he knows it. And they know it, too, so they expect him to act like a baby.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Low man on the totem pole.”

  “Oh.”

  Now the geldings came over to him, Black George in the lead and the other two right behind him. Then Black George first, Ornery George, and Socks George sniffed noses with him. They sniffed the rest of him while he stood quietly, occasionally flapping his lips. He didn’t jump or move or kick out. He tried to sniff their noses, too, but carefully, so as not to cause offense. Ornery George gave him a little bite on the neck. I gasped, but the bite didn’t seem mean exactly, more like he was trying it out. Jack flicked his ears backward, but he didn’t pin them, as if he were saying, “Okay, bite me if you have to.”

  Then he made a wrong move, as if he couldn’t contain himself and just didn’t know what he was doing. He leapt up and struck out with his front hoof. Black George squealed and his ears went back. Jack lowered his head immediately. I said, “They’re kind of bossy.”

  Jem said, “Not really. The three of them, it’s more of a club than a dictatorship.” We continued to watch, but Jem made no move to go in or rescue him.

  As for me, I did want him to fit into the club, but I knew that the club could change—would change, if Daddy had his way, and that the members of the club could get meaner. One thing I loved about Jack, and one of the reasons that I watched him sometimes, was that he didn’t know what the rules were. He ran, he leapt, he snorted, he stared at geckos and ground squirrels, he pawed things and investigated. He whinnied and squealed and came running, or went running. He was willing to try anything out, and he looked beautiful doing it. His neck arched, his feet lifted, his tail went up, his nostrils flared. A breeze might get him going, or a bird taking off from a branch, or the sight of the other horses galloping. He was by himself, so he had to make his own fun, and we all knew that the fun that kids sometimes make for themselves isn’t that good for them. Still, he was the only creature on the place who did what he wanted to when he wanted to do it. I liked watching.

  Jem said, “Well, it’s going pretty well, I think.”

  Black George seemed to lose interest. He walked away. The others followed. Jack stood there, then he followed.

  Jem said, “If he follows, he’s saying that they are the bosses. And that’s what we want him to say. The bosses pretend not to notice the underlings, and the underlings show that they are always aware of the bosses. That’s how horse herds work. So you watch for a bit. You’ll see that now they will all pretend to ignore him, but they’ll test him a little bit to see if he’s paying attention.” And it was true—just a bit after Jem said that, Socks George trotted past Jack, kind of close to him, in fact, without seeming to notice him, and Jack stepped back to let him go by and then turned toward him. Jem said, “The chestnut just showed who was boss, and Jack just showed that he understands that.”

  I said, “What if they gang up on him—”

  “My thought is that these horses aren’t going to do that. They’re pretty consistent, and they have a pretty stable group—”

  “Club.”

  “Yeah. I don’t think they’ll kick him—that’s why I didn’t put him in with the mares. Mares kick more than geldings. He looks like he knows his place. That’s not to say that later he won’t decide that he isn’t a baby anymore. But he knows he’s a baby now, and they will remind him of that fact with a nip here and there, so don’t be surprised if you come out and find a few bites on him.” He turned and looked at me. He said, “The geldings are doing a job that you wou
ld have to do, Abby. It’s a job that has to be done, especially with a bright colt like this fellow.”

  “Like school.”

  “Like school.”

  He said, “Okay, now let’s give everyone some hay. It’s almost feeding time, and at feeding time, horses get a little worried. Once they all have plenty of hay and the colt doesn’t bother them at theirs, then everyone will settle down.”

  We set out five piles. Jack started out at the farthest-away pile, mouthing the hay and eating a little. Then he moved to the next one closest to the other geldings. Ornery George looked at him once and flicked his ears backward, but then they all settled to eating, and I let out that long breath I had been holding.

  Chapter 15

  JEM LEFT SHORTLY AFTER THAT, AND I FELT HIS REASSURANCE ALL through supper and all through my homework (and anyway, I went out to check on the geldings two or three times before I went to bed). After she fed Jack his bran mixture, Mom came in and told me they would be all right, and Daddy said that if I was worried, then I should turn it over to the Lord, because then the best thing would happen. I nodded, but we both knew that the “best thing” could always be a trial of some sort, which I frankly didn’t think I was ready for. But even in the morning everyone was fine. I got up early and watched them before school. I saw that Jack did his romping and playing a little off by himself, but the geldings watched him with pricked ears, like indulgent uncles. He watched them, too. When they got their hay and settled down to eat it, he stood in the line like they did, switching his little tail (I always set the hay piles out in a long line, each pile about ten feet from the others). Perfectly relaxed.

  But I was so tired from waking up in the night and worrying about him that I fell asleep on the school bus, which I would have thought was an impossible thing to do. When we got to school, I woke up, but I was sleepy all through homeroom and first period. And it wasn’t until I went to the girls’ bathroom during the break that I realized what I looked like. My hair was flat on one side and sticking out on the other side and my blouse was wrinkled, too, because I had picked it out of my closet without really looking at it in the dark. What a mess. No wonder Stella wanted to make sure I would wear something nice to her party.