The fire chief was right, she thought. They’re learning to be grownups.
She felt good toward the whole wide world as she walked toward the big corral. She watched two stallions fighting—dancing on their hind legs, lashing out with their forelegs. A news photographer was getting a picture of them. Finally she climbed the fence and jumped inside the corral.
The wild ponies were refreshed by the rain. They thundered past and around her. They paid her no more attention than if she had been a small tree. She was nothing but an obstacle to avoid. She stood listening to the wild music of their hooves. She liked to feel the little gusts of wind made by their flying bodies. She liked the sight of their manes and tails frisking with the wind.
The Pied Piper’s band was on the far side of the corral. He was policing his family, keeping his mares in a bunch. Maureen saw Misty stretched out at her mother’s feet.
Her heart warmed at sight of them. She walked over to them, slowly, slowly. If she could slip the sold rope over Misty’s head, it would save all the struggle later. The firemen had no time to “ease up” to the ponies. With a hundred or more colts to sell, they had to work fast. Often two men had to pick up a pony by its tail and its head in order to fasten a sold rope about its neck. Meanwhile, the pony screamed and fought and struggled to get away.
Probably it doesn’t hurt, thought Maureen, but I’d like to save Misty all that scared feeling.
Suddenly her eyes flew wide with horror. The Phantom was tugging at a rope tied around Misty’s neck. A sold rope! “No! No! No!” Maureen shrieked. “Phantom!” she cried hysterically, “you’re the only one who can un-sell her. Try harder! Harder! Harder!”
Phantom was doing her best. With her big yellow teeth she was trying to sever the rope, but Misty would pull away, thinking her mother was playing. She opened her little colt’s mouth, biting back, neighing fiercely.
Maureen looked around helplessly. Just then she spied the fire chief coming toward the corral with Tom at his heels. She ran to them. “Misty’s wearing a sold rope!” she cried. “Misty’s been sold!” Then her voice failed her.
“Who’s been sold?” asked the chief, puzzled.
“Who?” echoed Tom.
“Misty!” she choked, trying to swallow her tears.
The fire chief knotted his brows. “Now suppose you tell me who Misty is,” he said kindly.
“Why, she’s the Phantom’s colt, and Paul and I—we’ve been saving for months to buy the Phantom, and now we want both her and her colt. And we have a hundred and two dollars,” she added breathlessly as she patted the money around her neck, “right here in Grandpa’s tobacco pouch. And in four months more we can save up another hundred. I can go clamming, and I can catch soft-shell crabs, and Paul can shuck oysters, and Uncle Ralph will give us his night catch of fat-backs, and Paul and I can go up and down the streets calling ‘Fat-backs for sale, nice fresh fat-backs for sale!’”
“Well, why in thunder didn’t you kids tell me!” exploded the fire chief. Then his voice quieted. “I’m sorry, Maureen. I didn’t know. Why, less than an hour ago a man by the name of Foster came through on his way to Norfolk. Had business there, he said, and couldn’t get back until after the sale. I asked Tom here to show him around and he took a fancy to the filly’s markings.”
“He bought Misty?”
“Paid fifty dollars down,” nodded the chief. “Insisted on buying the Phantom, too, just so the colt’ll get a good start in life.” He took a deep breath. “Tom and I,” he added, “tied the sold rope around the colt’s neck, but it’s going to take a lot more than two of us to handle that Phantom.”
Maureen watched the sun slide out from behind a low cloud and make diamonds of the raindrops on the grass. She turned her back on it. How could the sun shine when things went wrong?
The fire chief clasped and unclasped his cane. “I had no idea,” he spoke quietly. “If you had only said something about it yesterday.”
Maureen was about to leave, but Tom called her back. “How’s about taking my last chances on the sorrel?” he suggested. “There’s a gentle critter. And ye’d still have a hundred dollars to spend on candy and things.”
Maureen raised her eyes to Tom’s. Then she smiled at him through her tears. She felt sorry for Tom. Guess he’s never really wanted anything, she thought, as she slowly walked over to untie Watch Eyes.
Chapter 13
A PONY CHANGES HANDS
PAUL took the news without a word, but all the sunburn suddenly washed out of his face, leaving it pinched and white. The day passed in a kind of dream. Both Paul and Maureen tried to stay away from the grounds, but something drew them there. Yet they no longer belonged to the happy crowds. They were onlookers now, like hungry people on the outside of a restaurant window.
Sick with longing, they watched colts being tugged and pushed and lifted into waiting cars. Some went off in station wagons, some in trailers, some in dealers’ trucks. Many of them squealed and kicked and fought. A few were too frightened to struggle.
They stared fixedly as Grandpa bought a truckload of yearlings. “Soon we’ll be gentling them—for someone else,” Maureen whispered sadly to Paul.
The day that was to be so full of excitement dragged out. Even the merry-go-round with its brightly painted ponies and its brassy music did not help them forget. To Paul, the music kept wheezing, “You found and lost Misty! You found and lost Misty! You found and lost Misty!” To Maureen it was a noisy mockery.
“We’ll have us another hoss family. Just as purty. Mebbe purtier,” promised Grandpa Beebe as they sat at a table in the dining hall at noon. But Grandpa’s words sounded bigger than his voice.
The ladies of the auxiliary hovered over them anxiously, heaping their plates with oysters and clam fritters, and great helpings of Chincoteague pot pie.
“Land sakes!” exclaimed a motherly person to Paul and Maureen. “What’s the matter with you two young’uns? Such puny appetites! Take my Delbert now, he’s on his fourth helping.”
But try as they would, Maureen and Paul could not eat. The food that usually tasted so good lodged in their throats. Even Grandpa Beebe had no appetite. “Ef I didn’t know ’twas plump oysters and rolled-out dumplings with chunks of chicken,” he said, “I’d swear I was eatin’ bran mash!”
In the afternoon there was the bronco busting. It was like any wild west show, except there were no mountains in the distance. Only fishing boats and the sea, and gulls flying, and a soft wind singing in the pines.
The wild ponies, crazed with fright, were let out of chutes. While the crowds gasped and shrieked, the ponies crow-hopped. They bucked. They threw their riders at once, or tolerated them for brief seconds. The people cheered madly when an oyster-tonger wearing a red baseball cap and holding a big unlighted cigar in his mouth stayed on his bronco for a matter of minutes. And just when he was doffing his cap and bowing to the crowds, the pony tossed him and his cigar and red cap high into the air.
An instant’s pause; then such a whooping and laughter went up as he recovered his cigar and pulled his cap over his face, that it was heard by Grandma in the kitchen at Pony Ranch. Paul and Maureen watched, but they were not really a part of the laughing, cheering crowd.
Thursday night, Friday passed. The Pied Piper and all the brood mares except the Phantom were driven into the channel to swim back to Assateague for another year of freedom.
It was Saturday before Paul and Maureen were able to talk about their loss. They were in the dooryard, taking turns grinding clams for Grandma.
“If only I had never gone on the roundup,” Paul said bitterly.
Maureen shook her head. “It was my fault. If only I’d gotten to the grounds at four, ’stead of five!”
“If only I’d told the fire chief the night before.”
“What’ll we do with the hundred and two dollars?” Maureen asked.
A long silence was broken by the squeaking of the crank.
“We could buy Grandma and Gran
dpa one of those electric toasters,” Paul said at last. “And we could save the rest to go to college on the mainland when we get grown.”
“Let’s do it,” Maureen agreed, but without much enthusiasm.
Later that morning, as they were looking at electric toasters in a window on Main Street, they heard a man’s voice call, “Hi, there!”
They turned around to see a station wagon at the curb, with a man and a small boy in the front seat. The man leaned past the boy and poked his head out of the window.
“Can you tell us where the fire chief lives?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” replied Paul. “He lives up the second street, third house from the corner. But I reckon he’s still at the grounds. They’re having the drawing on the sorrel this morning.”
The boy’s head shot out of the car. “The drawing’s over,” he exclaimed. “And guess what!”
“What?” asked Paul and Maureen.
“I won the pony!” he said breathlessly.
“That’s right,” nodded the man, who did not seem to share the boy’s eagerness. “And now we’ve got to see the fire chief. He went off in his car before we could find him. By the way,” the man questioned, “do you two know him?”
Paul and Maureen managed a smile. “Everybody knows him,” they said.
The next moment they spied the chief’s car turning in at a gas station on the opposite corner.
“I’ll get him for you,” Paul said, and he ran across the street.
“Hmm,” mused the chief as he limped back with Paul. “Looks to me like Foster, the man from Norfolk. Only before, he didn’t have a boy with him.”
“Is he the one who bought Misty and Phantom?” Paul asked quickly.
The chief nodded.
By now the man and the boy had gotten out of the station wagon.
“How do,” said the fire chief.
“Good morning,” replied the man. He took off his hat and began twirling it nervously in his hands. He cleared his throat. Then he pulled a clean white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead.
“This is Freddy, my young son, and we . . .” He hesitated a moment, then hurried the words, “and we have a problem. You see, the other morning your man Tom sold us a chance on a pony, and I forgot all about it That is,” he laughed, “until this morning when I stopped off at the grounds to show Freddy the tiny foal I had bought for him.”
“Tell him, Daddy! Tell him!” interrupted Freddy.
“Just as we stepped out of the car,” Mr. Foster continued, “they were raffling off the sorrel colt, and—”
“We won!” shouted Freddy.
“No!” exclaimed the chief, and Paul and Maureen saw the tired look suddenly lift from his face.
“We won! We won!” cried Freddy. “Now tell him the rest, Daddy. Tell him!”
Mr. Foster spoke very quickly now as if the sooner told the better. “You see, sir, Freddy likes the sorrel pony because it is almost the color of my horse. He likes it better than the newborn foal.”
Paul and Maureen could hardly breathe. They were staring at Mr. Foster as if they could not believe what they heard.
“Of course,” Mr. Foster added, “I appreciate that Pony Penning Day is over and you may not have another chance to sell the little foal. In that case,” he said, putting his hat back on his head, “in that case, why—we’ll just have to hold to our bargain. Though what we’ll do with two colts and how we’ll get that wild Phantom home has me worried.”
There was a long moment of stillness. An old man came along wheeling a cart of squash and watermelons. As the man went by, a dog lying in the doorway of the hardware store thumped his tail noisily. Across the street a juke box was spilling out the words, “Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam.”
Still the chief made no answer. Instead, he hooked his cane over Paul’s shoulder. Then he took a notebook out of his pocket and slowly, carefully, began thumbing through it, reading notations on each page. Finally he tore a leaf out of the book and took a fifty-dollar bill out of his wallet.
Handing the money and the page of writing to Mr. Foster, he said, “There was a boy and a girl had their eyes on the mare and her colt. I can’t be sure,” he said with a wink, “but I’ve a mind they still might be interested.”
Maureen gave a little gasp. Then she picked up the astonished Freddy and gave him a sound kiss.
“Don’t mind her,” Paul said to Freddy. “Just girls’ fribble.” Then he grabbed the fire chief’s hand and wrung it until his own ached. He shook hands with Mr. Foster, too, and even with Freddy.
At last he threw back his head like a spirited horse and let out such a loud whinny that it was heard the full length of Chincoteague Island.
Chapter 14
THE WICKIE
USUALLY a colt learns from its mother. It hears her whicker at sound of Man’s voice. It sees her gallop to meet him when he comes down to the corral. It sees her lip Man’s hand. Soon the colt discovers that Man represents the good things of life—delicious surprises in the way of sugar, carrots, apples. And presently it is trying to please Man, too; not only to be rewarded with something to eat, but to enjoy the tingly feeling of his hand or the pleasant sound of his voice.
With Phantom and Misty things happened the other way around. Misty accepted human beings right from the start. Their hands felt good to her. She would brace herself, her forelegs splayed out, while Paul or Maureen gently stroked her neck or traced the white blaze on her face. She would lean toward them, asking in the only way she knew that the attentions never stop. Whenever they brushed her foretop or her mane, she lowered her gold eyelashes as if dreaming the most wonderful dreams.
“I declare,” chuckled Grandpa. “That Misty ’minds me of a girl gettin’ beautified for her first dance!”
Never was a colt more curious! A wickie was something to be investigated. First she nosed it. It tickled her colty whiskers and made her sneeze. Sneezing was fun. And one day, without knowing how it happened, she was wearing the wickie around her neck. It did not hurt! It did not hurt at all. Paul and Maureen were at the other end of it, and they were singing softly,
Come along, little Misty,
Come along.
Misty moved a step toward them, her ears pricked as if to catch the music in her name. And, wonder of wonders, she was rewarded with a lump of sugar as she walked along.
When Phantom saw that Misty was not being hurt, she would come forward, too. Nervously she would take what was offered and then back away, a safe distance behind her colt.
Grandma often came out to watch, with a dish of apples to pare or an armful of clothes to patch.
“This be the topsy-turviest pair I’ve ever seed!” she would laugh softly. “‘ Stead of the colt following its mommy, it’s t’other way around.”
It was days, however, before the Phantom would let anyone touch her. The mere placement of a hand upon her coat acted like an electric shock. She would bolt away, snorting in fright. But as August wore on, the horseflies became so vicious that she turned to Paul and Maureen for help.
“She’s missing the surf,” Paul said as they watched her trying to shudder her coat to drive the flies away. But the flies seemed to stick faster, drawing blood until Phantom was crazy with pain. They watched her sidle up to the other ponies on the ranch to get the benefit of their swishing tails, but the other ponies bunched up and ran away from her. She tried standing head-to-tail with Misty, but Misty’s tail was so short and floppy that it was not much good.
Finally, when she was almost exhausted, she let Paul and Maureen flick the flies for her. She would offer first one leg and then another. And before the fly season was over, she had learned to “shake hands” like any circus pony.
Riding Phantom was quite another matter. Yet it, too, came about so gradually that she was quite unaware how it happened. First Maureen made a wide girth out of an old bedsheet and fitted it around Phantom’s body immediately back of her forelegs. Once Phantom discovered that
she could gallop just as fast with a band around her body, she no longer minded it. Next, Paul fastened a small sack of sand to the girth. Phantom tried in vain to buck it off, but at last she seemed to realize that she could run as fast as ever with a sack on her back. After that she no longer fought it.
“If she’ll carry the sand, she’ll carry us!” Paul concluded.
And so it was. By the time frost came, they were riding her bareback, with nothing but a single “come-along” rope made of wickie.
“Phantom just won’t take a metal bit in her mouth,” Paul explained to Grandpa one evening as he and Maureen stood watching him trim one of his ponies’ hooves.
“Great jumping mullets!” Grandpa exploded. “This pinto’s forefeet has growed out so far I’m going to need my old-timey razor asides my snips. Maureen, you go git my razor. Now what was it you said about Phantom?” Grandpa asked as he waited.
“She just won’t take a metal bit,” Paul repeated. “We’re still using the old wickie for bit and bridle both.”
“Wa-al, ain’t she travelin’ where you want her to?” Grandpa barked, turning around to look at Paul.
“Oh, yes. We just lean the way we want to go and lay the wickie over against her neck.”
“What more do ye want?”
“Nothing, Grandpa. Nothing at all. Maureen and I, we thought you’d be ashamed of us for not doing the job right—on our own pony.”
“Ashamed!” bellowed Grandpa, straightening up and rubbing both his ears. “I’m so dang proud it’s a wonder I ain’t busted my suspender straps. Name me two other kids as has gentled a three-year-old wild mare.”
Maureen came running with the razor.
“Walk!” commanded Grandpa. “How often do ye got to be told that if ye want to live to be a grownup ye should never run with anything as sharp as my old-timey razor?”
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