“Yes, Willie! Thanks ever so!” Mary cried. “C’mon, Jode, time’s a’wastin’! Last one to the top of the hayloft is a rotten egg!”
Once at the top of the loft, the girls’ brave resolve began to fade as they looked down at the barn floor twenty feet below them, but neither would admit it to the other.
“You go first, Mare,” Jody said, patting Mary on the back encouragingly. “This looks really fun!”
“Me, go first? Why me? I went first the other day in the circus act. And come to think of it, you never did go after me!”
“That’s because I was too busy laughing at you landing in the cow plop. And I was the one who just climbed up to try and reach the rope!”
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Mary said, “what are we worried about? We used to swing on the rope all the time!”
“That’s when we were young and not afraid of anything,” Jody replied. Suddenly realizing the silliness of Jody’s comment, the girls looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“All right, enough of this nonsense,” Mary exclaimed. “I will go first in remembrance of days past when we were little and fearless.” And without another word, she grabbed the rough rope just above the knot and pushed off.
“YEEEHHHAAAA!” Mary squealed as she sailed through the air and across the empty space of the barn to the opposite side, where she landed atop the high stack of straw.
“Mare! Are you OK?” Jody yelled from her side of the loft.
“OK? I’m great! That was awesome! Look out, here I come!” And she pushed off again and swung back to where Jody sat with her heart in her throat.
“Jode! That was the best! I forgot how fun it was! You’ve got to go next!”
“I don’t know, Mare. It looks scary! I can’t believe we used to do this! What if I lose my grip?” Jody asked nervously, peering down at the floor below.
“You’re not going to lose your grip, there’s a big old knot to hold onto. And look, the floor is covered with loose hay—even if you did fall, it would be a nice cushy landing,” Mary insisted. “And besides, you’re not going to fall! Come on, milking will be over soon, and we’ve got to go watch Star with the cows. Just do it once, that’s all.”
Jody tentatively took the knot in her hands and stood shakily on the edge of the hay. “Oooohhh,” she whimpered just once but then closed her eyes tight and stepped off into thin air. The problem was, Jody didn’t push off the bale, she stepped off the bale, so she didn’t get enough momentum to really swing across the barn. Instead she sort of glided across the barn, and with her eyes shut tight, she couldn’t see the bales coming up on the other side, so she didn’t put her feet out in front of her for a good landing on top of the stack. So she ended up smacking face first into the side of the stack instead!
The instant Jody hit the wall of straw, her hands flew off the rope and clutched for something to hold onto. Her fingers found a grip on the strings of the top bale on the stack, and one foot stuck into the space between two bales below her.
Mary watched all this with her hand clamped over her mouth, but she recovered in time to shout instructions to Jody. “Hold on, Jode. You’re OK! I’m coming over! I’m climbing down right now! I’ll help you get down! Don’t be scared! Just hold onto that bale and stick your other foot into that crack between the bales! Then you can’t fall!” Mary had read in a book once that you should keep talking to someone in trouble, and she chattered all the way down her side of the loft and all the way up the other side where Jody hung motionless. By the time she scrambled up the stack of straw to Jody’s side, she was out of breath.
“Now, Jode, it’s easy to get down from here,” she wheezed.
“Mary, I’m afraid to let go,” Jody whispered, her eyes still squeezed shut.
“Ok, now first, let me get the rope out from under you,” Mary said, gently pulling up on the rope to extract it from between Jody’s body and the straw. She let go of the rope, and it swung away into the open air. “Now, you have to open your eyes,” Mary said firmly, “but don’t look down!”
Mary squealed as she sailed through the air and across the empty space of the barn to the opposite side.
Jody slowly opened one eye and focused it on Mary’s face, then opened the other.
“Now, just look at me, and loosen up your grip a little on the straw. You have to use your hands and feet to climb down. Come on, Jode, we do this all the time! Take a deep breath. You’re not that far from the floor.”
Mary clutched her own straw bale with her left hand and grasped Jody’s arm firmly with her right. Jody tentatively pulled one foot from between the bales and lowered herself slowly to find a second foothold in the straw below, and moved her hands down one at a time, clutching each bale tightly as she went down. Mary moved along with her, encouraging her the whole way.
“That’s it, just a little further, keep going, don’t give up, we’re almost there,” Mary chattered relentlessly as the girls carefully descended the stack of straw. When their feet finally touched down, they collapsed in unison in a relieved heap on the loose hay covering the barn floor. Mary, of course, wasted no time in telling Jody exactly what she did wrong.
“Now, Jody, next time you get ready to swing, you have to push off hard. Then you’ll make it to the other side, no problem,” Mary instructed.
“I don’t think there’s going to be a next time, at least for a while,” Jody said breathlessly. “I think I like it right here on the floor.”
“Listen!” Mary said, holding up her hand for emphasis. “I think I just heard the barnyard door sliding open. Willie’s letting the cows out! Let’s go!” She grabbed Jody’s hand and pulled her up from the barn floor, and the girls took off running out of the barn and down the barn hill toward the pasture field.
The cows were just making their slow plodding way out of the barnyard when the breathless girls reached the gate of the pasture. Star was still grazing peacefully next to Lady, and Gypsy was a little way off, dozing under the old weeping willow tree. The cows continued walking in a deliberate line along the well-worn narrow dirt path leading from the barnyard through the center of the pasture. According to habit, the cows would stay on the path until they were all out of the barnyard, and then they would spread out across the pasture to graze.
“Look, Jody, Star doesn’t even see them yet. He’s still just munching away, happy to be next to Lady again,” Mary observed.
Just at that instant, a green-headed horsefly landed on Star’s right hind leg, and he kicked out to get it off. But horseflies are known to be stubborn, and when that didn’t work, Star lifted his leg and twisted his head around as far as it would go so he could bite the fly off. It was then that he saw the cows. Forgetting about the bothersome fly, he stood completely still with his leg in the air, his body bent almost in half, and stared.
Mary and Jody had to cover their mouths with their hands to keep from laughing out loud. “How long do you think he can stay like that?” Jody whispered, giggling through her fingers.
The answer came quickly as Star threw up his head in surprise and lost his balance, almost falling on his haunches. Mary and Jody giggled uncontrollably as they watched him shake his head and snort, his nostrils flaring red like a wild horse’s. He extended his muzzle toward the ponderous cows as if picking up their scent, stomped his foot, and whinnied low in his throat. Lady and Gypsy, having seen the herd every day, had no reaction to them whatsoever, and the cows, who never really got excited about anything at all, didn’t even notice the curious colt sniffing in their direction as they continued their trek down the dirt path.
But Star wasn’t one to be ignored. As his curiosity got the better of him, he took a few tentative steps toward the last cow on the path. The cow kept walking. Star walked a little faster. The cow ignored him. Star stepped onto the path directly behind the cow and extended the tip of his inquisitive nose until it almost touched her tail. The cow didn’t even give him a glance. He walked a little faster, almost a trot, and reached out and nipped t
he cow on the very top of her tailbone. Still no response from the cow. This was too much for Star. Trotting off the path, he positioned himself close to the cow’s head and did a little buck and whinny, as if to say, “Hey, I’m over here! Look at me!”
The cow stopped. Star stopped. The cow turned her head and looked at Star. Star stared back. Then the cow, opening her mouth wide, shook her head and produced a very loud “MOOOOOO” only inches from Star’s face.
Star did fall back on his haunches this time, in shock from a sound he had never heard before, at least not this close up. Mary and Jody fell on their own haunches laughing as Star recovered from his tumble and took off racing across the pasture, bucking and kicking and snorting like a wild thing while the cow continued on her leisurely trip along the packed dirt path.
“Well, I guess now we know how he’s going to react to the cows,” Jody giggled, picking herself up from the grass and pulling Mary up by the hand. “We’d better catch him and take him back over to the paddock before Mr. McMurray comes out and yells at us.”
“Hay burner! Dead weight! Eatin’ up my profits, he is!” Mary perfectly imitated Mr. McMurray’s Irish brogue as the girls, holding their sides from laughing, skipped across the pasture to round up the frisky colt.
11
Trapped!
STAR WAS STILL frisking about, tossing his head, and trotting in place as Mary and Jody led him through the doorway of Lucky Foot Stable after his introduction to the cows in the big pasture. He snorted so loudly just inside the little barn that Colonel Sanders squawked and flapped his wings indignantly, prompting Star to shake his head and even strike out with his forefoot in the Colonel’s direction.
“Now, you calm down, boy, and mind your manners,” Jody admonished him with a slight jerk on the lead rope before she released him into his stall. “Your adventures are over for one day.”
“What adventures?” Willie asked, leaning over the bottom half of the Dutch door that led from the paddock into the stable.
“Willie!” yelped Mary. “You scared me! You’re always appearing out of nowhere!”
“Out of nowhere? I just came from the barnyard. That’s somewhere, ain’t it? And what’s this about an adventure?”
“Well, it wasn’t really an adventure, but when you let the cows out after milking, Star met one for the first time, and she mooed at him, and he got so scared that he took off galloping and bucking across the pasture, and it was so funny!” Jody said all in one breath.
“And, Willie, you were right about Lady and Star,” Mary added. “After awhile, they were getting along fine. And when we took Star out of the pasture, he didn’t even make a fuss. And neither did she.”
“Well, I coulda told ya that. And when you let him back out there tomorrow, they’ll be fine again. But the ornery bugger will probably have to fool with the cows a couple more times before he’ll be satisfied. Just don’t let him chase them, or Mr. McMurray might get his shotgun after him,” Willie said ominously.
“Oh, Willie, he wouldn’t do that!” Jody paused. “Would he?”
“Never know. I saw him shoot in the air one time to scare some kids that were in the cornfield stealin’ corn. He might just take better aim if Star chases the cows. It’ll spoil their milk if they start runnin’ around crazy.”
“Oh, we won’t let him chase them, Willie. We’ll stay right out there with him for the next few days and make sure,” Mary promised.
Willie walked over to Star’s stall and reached a gnarly hand over the top board to scratch him between the ears while he ate his grain. “Ornery bugger,” he said once more, “you better not be hollerin’ to your mama and wakin’ me up tonight. I got to get up earlier than usual.”
“I don’t think he will, Willie. She put him in his place pretty good, like you said she would,” Jody said. “Now they just act like any other two horses out in a field together.”
“Why do you have to get up earlier than usual, Willie?” Mary asked curiously.
“Got a load of calves goin’ out before sunup,” Willie said, and without further explanation, he turned and walked out the door of the stable.
“I wonder where the calves are going?” Mary asked, but Jody was too busy combing Star’s unruly black and white mane to think about the calves.
“Mary, do you think we should keep Star in his stall tonight or turn him out in the paddock?” she wondered, tugging on a particularly stubborn tangle with the mane comb.
“Well, if we keep him in, he’ll have a lot more energy to get rid of in the morning when we turn him out with Lady, and he might bother the cows again. It’s going to be a nice night, no rain,” Mary said, surveying the cloudless sky. “I vote to turn him out in the paddock. And besides, then we won’t have to clean his stall tomorrow!”
“That settles it,” Jody giggled.
Jody gave Star’s mane one last pass with the comb and smoothed down his forelock, and with a gentle pat on his neck, she led him out to the paddock, checked to make sure his water bucket was full, and turned him loose to munch on his fluffy pile of hay.
Star was lying asleep in the corner of the little paddock before sunup the next morning, his legs twitching and making running motions as he dreamed of galloping across the pasture and chasing after one of the curious black-and-white creatures he had encountered the previous day.
His tail switched involuntarily as a fly landed on his haunches and began crawling up his side, and he snorted softly to keep another one from entering his nose. A low humming sound entered his restless brain, and his ear swiveled in response. The hum became louder and then louder still, until Star imagined in his dream a whole swarm of green-headed flies landing on him, biting and teeming around his head, trying to enter his sensitive ears. Just when he could stand it no longer, he lifted his head and shook it violently to scare off the swarm.
The sight that greeted Star’s surprised gaze when he opened his eyes was not a cloud of flies, but a very large and noisy silver and blue truck parked right outside his paddock with the engine running! The sides of the truck were enclosed with wooden slats and there were two wooden doors chained shut on the back. The glare of the headlights through the semi-darkness revealed the figure of Willie hobbling toward the gate. He waved at the man sitting in the truck, unfastened the rusty chain that held the paddock gate shut, and swung it wide. Star blinked in astonishment as the creaky gate swung open and Willie waved for the truck driver to drive through the opening and into the middle of the paddock! Star clambered to his feet and backed up into the narrow space between Lucky Foot Stable and the big white dairy barn. Poking his head around the corner, he watched wide-eyed as the big truck turned in a tight circle and backed up to the loading ramp that extended from the barnyard door of the dairy barn into the far end of the paddock.
“C’mon back, c’mon back,” Willie waved the driver on until the back of the truck was just touching the packed dirt of the loading ramp. The truck driver climbed down from behind the wheel, unfastened the wooden doors at the back of the truck, and swung them open so they met the wooden sides of the ramp, making a chute leading from the barnyard door into the bed of the truck. Willie helped the driver open the little doors on the inside of the truck bed where several stalls lined either side of the enclosure, and then he hobbled down to the barnyard door and opened it.
“Hey up! Hey up!” Willie called, disappearing into the darkness of the barnyard. An instant later, Star backed even further into his corner when a group of about ten little black-and-white calves, kicking up their heels and bawling, trotted up the ramp followed by Willie, who was brandishing a stick. Into the back of the truck they went, where the driver was waiting to shut them into their stalls.
The truck driver fastened the last of the stall doors inside the truck, closed one of the big wooden truck doors, and was about to close the other when Willie spoke.
“Daggonit, I forgot to bring out their identification papers,” he said, pulling on his earlobe. “If you don’t mind f
ollowin’ me into the barn, I’ll get ’em out of the desk.”
Star stood very still and watched as Willie and the driver vanished into the barnyard. Then he immediately extended his muzzle and sniffed curiously in the direction of the calves, who were still mooing and kicking the sides of their little enclosures. He took a hesitant step from his little space and approached the back of the truck tentatively. His ears were pricked up, and he sniffed and snorted all the while. In the dim light of the rising sun, he stepped onto the loading ramp and peered into the back of the truck through the one door that had been left open by the truck driver. An inquisitive calf gazed back at him and mooed softly. Star timidly took a few more steps up the ramp until he was close enough to sniff noses with the confused calf. Upon seeing Star, the other calves began mooing at him as if he were their long lost mother, and he continued up and into the truck, sniffing all of their poor little noses as he went.
Star was so busy comforting all the calves in the row that he didn’t hear Willie and the truck driver.
Star was so busy comforting all the calves in the row that he didn’t hear Willie and the truck driver come out of the barn. The next sound he heard was the wooden door on the back of the truck slamming shut!
“Almost forgot to shut that door,” the truck driver chuckled to Willie. “You know, one time I did forget it, and two heifers jumped out on the road. That’s one reason I built the stalls in there. That way, if I forget to shut the door, they ain’t gonna jump out. And it’s easier on them for the trip, instead of bein’ all jostled up in one group.”
“I know what you mean,” Willie said as the driver climbed in and started the noisy engine. At the sound of Willie’s voice, Star nickered softly, then more loudly as he saw Willie open the gate of the paddock for the truck driver. But the rumble of the engine drowned out the sound. The anxious colt almost lost his footing and fell as the truck lurched forward through the gate and started down the farm lane. Star peered through the slats of the thick wooden doors and saw Willie closing the paddock gate. This time he whinnied frantically, but it was no use. The noisy truck lumbered down the lane and onto the road, leaving Willie and Lucky Foot Stable far behind.
Star of Wonder Page 7
