By half-past noon Grandpa and Paul and Maureen were waving good-bye to Grandma and were on their way to Pocomoke City. To their amazement, the causeway to the mainland was jammed with a long procession of cars coming from Maryland, Delaware, and even Washington, D.C.
“Why in tarnation they coming to Chincoteague today?” Paul asked, opening up the lunch box.
“I’ll tune ye if I catch ye sayin’ ‘tarnation’ again,” Grandpa scolded. Then he cackled in laughter. “’Tain’t fittin’ except fer an old feller like me.”
“But why are they?” Maureen wanted to know.
“Folks is funny,” Grandpa mused. “Some jes’ nacherly likes to waller in woe like pigs in a pen. Sure as shootin’ they’re comin’ to gawp at the wreckage and to take pitchers o’ the boats in the streets, and the soggy beddin’ and things dryin’ in the sun. Curiosity folks, I calls ’em.”
A station wagon with a Maryland license flagged them down. Brakes screeched for a mile as cars behind honked in a mad chorus. A young man with a shock of red hair called out, “How do we get to the Beebe Ranch? We want to see Misty’s colt.”
Grandpa stopped the truck and guffawed. “News out already?” he asked in amazement.
“Yes, sir! Network had it on the radio, and my kids gave me no peace—”
“Wal, what do ye know! Sorry, young feller, but you passed plumb by her. She’s over to Pocomoke City, to Doc Finney’s house.” Grandpa drove on, chuckling.
“See!” Maureen said. “Not everybody comes to look at trouble.”
“Ye’re right, honey. Lucky thing yer Grandma stayed to home. She would’ve flew into the air, hearin’ me talk like that.”
• • •
When they reached Dr. Finney’s place, the doctor, who had been watching from the house, came to meet them. With a welcoming smile he unlocked the gate and motioned Grandpa to drive in and park alongside the corral. Then without a word he led the way. In absolute silence the three Beebes walked one after the other Indian file behind him. They moved across the paddock as if it were hallowed ground. Still in silence they eased up to the barn. And then, after almost a year of waiting, the moment had come!
Unconsciously Grandpa took off his hat and tucked it under his arm. Paul and Maureen stood on tiptoe, peering in without breathing. They were utterly still, not wanting the scene to change. There, at the far end of the stall, stood Misty. She eyed them dispassionately as if they belonged to another world and another time. Like a bird brooding a chick she was hovering over a wise little, fuzzy little, scraggly little foal. For a moment the tiny thing took fright and leaned quivering against her mother, who made soft whuffing sounds. Then, comforted, she nosed her way to Misty’s teats and began nursing.
“Wa-al, I never!” Grandpa sighed in deep contentment. “Them sucky-smacky sounds is purtier ’n a hull flock o’ meadow larks!”
Maureen brushed away a tear. How could a creature be so young and breakable-looking, and yet so spunky? “Why, I feel like I’m its grandma!” she whispered shyly. “And hasn’t it got the longest eye-winkers and the curliest tail you most ever saw?”
Paul whispered too. “Look at the strange marking on her forehead—it’s in the shape of a new sickle moon! I know!” he exulted. “That’s ’cause she was born in the time of the new moon.”
Grandpa stared. “She’s the onliest colt I ever see with a markin’ like that.”
“Yes,” Dr. Finney said. “There’s nothing like her on the Eastern Shore.”
“Likely not in all the world,” Paul said.
After the colt had drunk her fill, Misty came to the door and nickered happily, sniffing Paul and Maureen by turns.
“She’s inviting us in,” Paul said.
Slowly, quietly, not to startle the little one, the Beebes went into the stall, and the gentlest of hands lifted her forelock that was only beginning to be a forelock. “Here’s a girl’s got a head on her,” Grandpa approved. “There’s enough Arabian into her to make that purty head. And ain’t she marked up nice? Not a reg’lar map on her shoulders like her mommy, but she’s got her four white stockings.”
“And her color is sorrel, like Wings,” Maureen said.
Dr. Finney looked at his watch, thinking of the calls still to be made.
Grandpa followed his glance. “If’n ye’ll excuse us,” he said, “we got to hyper along now. Any last-minute advice, Doc?”
“For now,” Dr. Finney said, “avoid bulky food for Misty. Nothing rich or hard to digest.”
“How about ground oats and bran and linseed?” Paul asked hopefully.
“Couldn’t be better! And no need to remind you children that daily mucking-out is a MUST.”
Grandpa nodded vigorously, an “I-told-you-so” twinkle in his eye.
“Right now their stall is the cleanest in the whole wide world,” Maureen said proudly.
With quiet confidence she and Paul tied Misty’s blanket in place for the trip back. Grandpa took the soft baby blanket and laid it on the little one. Then he crouched down and lifted her up in his arms and carried her out, with Paul leading Misty alongside.
As she approached the truck, Misty planted her feet and balked. Plain as day she bellered: “I’m not getting into that thing without my baby!” But when she found out that her foal was safely stowed in the cab in front, she hurried up the ramp, poked her head through the window, and nickered in relief.
Dr. Finney started to wave good-bye, then had a last-minute request. “Mind driving by David’s window?” he asked. “I had to put him to bed this morning with a case of old-fashioned measles. Poor lad hasn’t seen the colt. He’s heartbroken.”
Paul felt a prick of shame. “I’m sorry, Dr. Finney, I didn’t even miss him.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a tiny wooden gull. “I made it to sell to the tourist folk,” he explained, “but I want to give it to David instead. And some day,” he added, warming to his own generosity, “I might make a carving of Misty and her foal. Just for him.”
Grandpa drove home very carefully, avoiding ruts and bumps. He didn’t want to jar the little filly, who lay asleep across Paul’s and Maureen’s laps, her soft woolen blanket rising and falling with her breathing.
Going over the causeway, they slowed to a crawl. One driver spotted Misty and put on the brakes so suddenly that his two children almost flew through the windshield. “There she is!” he shouted. “Hey, Mister, wait!”
Grandpa came to a stop, grinning. He felt good toward the whole world. “Want a picture?” he asked.
“Do we!” And now other cars were stopping and out popped dozens of children and dozens of cameras. Traffic stalled while shutters clicked on all sides.
After a few moments Misty began stomping and whinnying. There was a curious urging in her mind, a tremendous pull for home.
“Let’s go,” Paul said. “Misty’s getting nervous.”
Grandpa stopped the picture-taking and drove on. And at long last they were going down Beebe Road into Pony Ranch. Once the tailgate was lowered Misty slow-footed down the ramp like a queen returning to her kingdom. Skipper, the official greeter, welcomed her in ten-foot bounds, jumping, rolling, yelping in pure joy. And out on the marsh, Wings added his voice in a great cry of triumph.
Grandma rushed out of the house, calling, “Where’s Misty’s baby? Where?”
For answer Paul and Grandpa lifted her out of the truck and carefully set her down beside her mother. She tried a little caper, lost her balance and fell in a heap. Bravely she scrabbled up again, then staggered to her mother and began drinking thirstily. Satisfied, she blew bubbles, sending little beads of milk running down her whiskers.
Misty whickered in contentment. “Home at last,” she seemed to say. And she gave the little rump at her side a nip, ever so gentle and motherly.
Chapter 21
A GRAVE DECISION
THAT NIGHT, when Pony Ranch had simmered down into a semblance of peace, Maureen brought out the birth announcements and piled them on the
kitchen table. She and Paul were alone. Grandpa had gone to an emergency meeting of the Pony Penning Committee, and Grandma was attending the evening church service.
“You put the date on,” Paul said to Maureen. “You write better than me. Besides, I got some important thinking to do.”
“Oh?”
Paul flicked open his pocketknife and began working on a block of wood. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Maureen dip her pen in the ink bottle and wait with it poised in the air.
“I declare, Paul Beebe, you can be downright mean! What are you thinking?”
“And you can be such a girl!” Paul said in disdain. “Always poking and prying.”
“All right, I won’t ask. ’Cause I already know. So there!”
“What do you know?”
“You’re trying to think of the right name for Misty’s baby.”
“Okay then. I reckon you got what Grandpa calls ‘woman’s tuition.’ Now you know what’s occupying my mind, whyn’t you keep quiet and do your work?”
Sunday, March 11, 6 a.m. Maureen wrote again and again until her fingers were tired.
At last Paul was ready to talk. “There’s three ways to do it. One is by her markings . . . ”
“Like New Moon or White Stockings, Paul?”
“Uh-huh. And the second way is by using her family’s names—like Misty Wings or Pied Phantom.”
“And what’s the third way, Paul?”
Just then Grandpa’s truck roared into the yard, brakes screeching. Grandpa himself banged into the house like a Fourth of July firecracker. He threw his hat on the peg, then with both hands began rubbing the bristles in his ears.
“I say there’s got to be a Pony Pennin’ this year like allus,” he stormed. “Why, it’s the oldest roundup in America! We jes’ can’t let folks down ’cause of a little flood. Why, come July and roundup time, folks are goin’ to pack their night things and set out for Chincoteague hopin’ to give their kids a real hollerday. And they’re goin’ to drive fer miles an’ miles, and when they get here—NO hollerday! No Pony Penning!” He snorted in disgust. “I won’t hear to it! I jes’—”
“Grandpa!” Paul interrupted. “Who says there won’t be a Pony Penning?”
“Why, the Mayor’s committee and the firemen, they say ain’t enough wild ponies left over to Assateague to make it excitin’, and no money in the treasury to buy new ones.
“What’s more,” he bellowed, “they’re right! But I ain’t told ’em so! ’Cause without ponies this-here island is dead. Do ye think folks comes here to see oysters and clams and biddies?”
“No, Grandpa.”
“Ye’re dead right they don’t! They come to see wild ponies swimmin’ across the channel, and feudin’ and fratchin’ in the pens. Pony Penning Day! That’s what they come fer. Can’t see it nowhere else in the world.”
Paul and Maureen were aghast. July without Pony Penning was unthinkable. “All year I been answering letters about Misty,” Maureen said. “And in every one I invited people to come to Pony Penning, people from all over the United States. Even one to Alaska.”
Paul broke in. “And this year folks’ll come special on purpose to see Misty’s baby.”
Grandpa began pacing, thinking out loud. “If only we had the ponies! If only the Town Council could buy back some of the colts that was auctioned off last year and the year afore that.”
He quickened his pace. “Why, we could load ’em onto a big old barge, and chug ’em acrost the channel to Assateague, and they’d go wild again jes’ like they’d never left.” Now he spoke out with great conviction. “Why, then we could put up one o’ the greatest Pony Pennings in Chincoteague history.”
Grandpa ran out of breath. He gulped for more. “But all that’d take a heap o’ money,” he sighed.
“Maybe,” Maureen said excitedly, “maybe Paul and me could earn a lot of money like we did to buy Misty’s mother. We could rake clams or help people clean up their houses.”
Paul looked pityingly at his sister. “When you going to grow up, Maureen? Why, it took us three whole months to earn enough to buy just one mare and her colt. Besides, folks here lost most everything in the flood. They can’t afford to hire us.”
“Paul’s right, honey.”
“But, Grandpa,” Paul asked, “even if we had the money, would people sell back their ponies?”
“Likely some’d be right anxious to help,” Grandpa replied, “and some’d sell fer other reasons. A lucky thing me and the Fire Company got a record o’ each sale, and if only half them people say yes, that’d give us the start we need.”
Grandpa suddenly remembered that his feet hurt. He collapsed into the nearest chair and began unlacing his Sunday shoes. “Can’t abide ’em!” he grumbled. “I jes’ stormed outen that meetin’ afore it was done—half ’cause my hackles was up, but half ’cause my shoes squinched me.”
The phone rang insistently. “You answer, Paul. There’s another thing I can’t abide. Phone-talkin’. A contraption o’ the devil.”
“It’s for you, Grandpa. It’s the Mayor and he sounds real important.”
Grandpa thudded to the phone. “Hall—oo—oa!” he bellowed.
“Grandpa doesn’t need a phone,” Paul snickered. “He could just open a window.”
“Sh!” Maureen put up a finger, listening.
“Who called you?” Grandpa questioned.
There was a pause.
“What in tunket he want?”
Another pause.
“He did!”
Paul and Maureen looked inquiringly at each other.
“Wa-al, Great Jumpin’ Jehoshephat! Now ain’t that nice? . . . What’s that ye say?”
A long pause.
Still holding the receiver, Grandpa turned and looked penetratingly at Paul and Maureen. His voice sobered. “Sure I like the ideer, Mayor, but ’tain’t fer me to say. I’ll have to put it to Paul and Maureen and get their yes or no. The colt, nor Misty neither—they ain’t mine, y’know.”
Grandpa hung up the receiver and walked back to the table, collecting his thoughts. Paul and Maureen stared at him, unable to ask the question except with their eyes.
Grandpa hummed and hawed. “Now I ain’t a-goin’ to influence ye,” he said. “It’s yer druthers, an’ no one else’s.”
“But what is it?”
“Y’see, uh, it’s this way. One o’ the big chiefs from the movie company that made Misty’s picture—he jes’ telephoned the Mayor long distance. From his home, mind ye.”
“What did he want?” Maureen asked. “Does he want to make a picture of Misty’s baby?”
“Stop interruptin’,” Paul scolded. “Let Grandpa finish.”
“Wa-al,” Grandpa went on, “seems he’d been readin’ ’bout the storm and how so many ponies had drowned. And he wants to do somethin’ to help. Why, he’s willin’ to let theaters borry the picture of Misty free; that is, if the money tooken in goes to build up the lost herds.”
Paul did a flying leap over his chair. “That’s great, Grandpa. You don’t have to get our okay on that.”
“But I ain’t told ye the kernel yet,” Grandpa explained. “Y’see, the Mayor and the Council wants to start a disaster fund, and call it the Misty Disaster Fund.” Grandpa stroked his chin and a far look crept into his eyes. “They want to cast Misty in the biggest role o’ her life; even bigger’n bein’ a star in a movie.”
The children listened, speechless.
“Even bigger,” Grandpa added, “than birthin’ a colt.”
“What could be bigger?” Maureen asked.
“They want Misty and her young’un to make a personal tour wherever her picture is playing, and go right spang up onto the stage. And part o’ the ticket money’ll be used to tidy up the island, but most of it to buy back the ponies. Mind ye, it’ll all have to start right away. Mebbe in two weeks—that is, if there’s to be a roundup this year.”
Paul turned to his sister. “What do you say, Maureen?”
Maureen’s face clouded and she thought carefully before replying. “If Misty’s baby wasn’t so new and tiny, I’d say yes.”
Paul picked up the block of wood and his knife, and made a few fierce jabs. “Exactly the way I feel.” He looked at Maureen. “’Course, it’d be fun to be excused from school and all.”
“Mostly it’d be on Saturdays,” Grandpa said drily.
“But suppose,” Paul was serious now, “suppose they caught the shippin’ fever, or bad coughs from travelin’ and going in and out of hot theaters. Or even broke a leg.”
All three of them lapsed into silence. No one knew what to say. Maureen screwed the cap onto the ink bottle as if she would never have need of it again. Paul threw his piece of wood into the stove and closed his knife. The silence was a growing power. Grandpa sat down and crossed his arms, using his paunch as a ledge. He looked up at the ceiling and across at the clock. He picked up one of the birth announcements and studied it. The corners of his mouth twisted into a smile of sympathy and understanding. “It’d be chancy,” he admitted. “Mighty chancy.”
“But suppose,” Paul spoke slowly, earnestly, “suppose we let Misty and the colt go to just one theater, and if they come home feeling frisky, they could go again. But if they got sick or were off their feed for just one day, they’d never have to go again.”
Grandpa’s eyes shone like twin meteors. “Sometimes I think you two is the livin’ image o’ me! I’m so proud of ye I could strut like one o’ our peacocks in full sail. I’ll take it up with the Council first thing in the—”
Bong! Bong! . . . The clock struck the hour of ten, and with the last bong the telephone rang shrilly. Grandpa clapped a hand to his forehead, then grabbed for his shoes. “Great balls o’ fire! I plumb forgot to pick up yer Grandma from the meetin’ house. You answer, Maureen. I’m gone!”
Chapter 22
THE NAMING BEE
OVER THE WEEKEND the schoolhouse had been dried out, and on Monday it re-opened with only the high-tide mark showing. Paul and Maureen were present and on time. But it was a hard thing to remember the provinces of Canada, or to stand up and recite: “Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe . . . ” when Misty’s filly had to be named. The Town Council was insistent. They had to have a name at once. And the more Paul and Maureen were pressed to make a decision, the harder it was to decide.
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