But Henry VIII was not one to appreciate the fine symmetry of these ponies. Hence his decree which almost wiped out the Welsh Mountain Pony.
It is a long road, however, that has no turning. Today the ponies still live high up on the tablelands, but when winter overstays, they are not afraid to nimble-foot down the mountains. The hand of man is friendly now. Even when it captures some of the fillies and colts for breeding purposes. The curious truth is that these creatures thrive in captivity; yet, no matter where they go, they cling to their wild pony characteristics. They jump a brush hurdle as high and clean as if a sheep dog were snapping at their heels, and at the walk or trot they pick up their feet and place them carefully as though testing the earth for loose pieces of shale. Even in America they have this “heather step.”
Perhaps the ponies of Wales are like the Welsh people who, in a changing world, cling steadfastly to their ancient language and customs. They are like them in another respect, too. On the Welsh coat of arms a motto describes the people. The words of the motto are Ich Dien, “I serve.” Every Welshman who understands pony character insists that Ich Dien describes the mountain pony, too, for he serves his master well.
No wonder he is a champion! And when the blue ribbon comes his way, he wears it in his headstall as if to the manner born.
The Chincoteague Pony
FIVE MILES OUT IN THE Atlantic Ocean, off the eastern shore of Virginia, lie two tiny wind-rippled islands. They are as rich in horse lore as a mince pie is rich in raisins. Chincoteague (pronounced Shin-ko-teeg) is the smaller island, seven miles long and just twenty-one inches above the sea. Assateague is the bold outrider, protecting little Chincoteague from high winds and high seas.
Oystermen, clam diggers, and boat builders live on Chincoteague, but the outer island is left to the wild things, the wild ponies and the birds.
How the ponies came there is legend, but Grandpa Beebe, one of the natives, says, “Legends be the only stories as is true; facts are fine, far as they go, but they’re water bugs skittering atop the water. Legends, now, they go deep down and bring up the heart of a story.”
And so legend says that, way back in the yesterdays, a Spanish galleon was bowling along the deep when a great storm came up and blew the ship off its course. In her hold she carried live cargo—Spanish moor ponies headed for the mines of Peru. The ponies smelled the storm and plunged against their rough-built stalls, trying to escape. But it was the sea that finally set them free. It drove the ship onto a reef, cracking her hull open and spewing the ponies out of their dark prisons. In spite of the waves and the wreckage they thrashed their way to the nearest shore, and the first land they touched was the beach of Assateague.
Not a solitary soul lived on the whole island. And there were no fences anywhere. Only wide stretches of sand, and marshland with salt-flavored grass, and piney woods. Land and sea and sky were theirs, to be shared only with the black skimmer birds and the blue herons and clacking geese.
Always before, the ponies had been accustomed to man’s care. Now they had to rustle their own living. In winter they huddled in the woods, stripping the bark of pine trees, eating bark and needles, too, and they ate the myrtle leaves that stayed green. For drinking water they broke little mirrors of ice with their hoofs and drank the brackish water beneath. And they grew rough winter coats which took the place of man-made shelter. Snow sometimes sifted onto their backs and made a white fleece without melting, so heavy were their coats. Who minded winter? Not the ponies.
The Gingoteague Indians who used to hunt on the island now stayed far away. From their canoes they could see the ponies running wild along the shore, and the sight filled them with a nameless fear.
The white men, however, were unafraid. A few poled over to Assateague and built houses there, but by that time the ponies had grown to such numbers that they overran the island, trampling cleared plots and eating corn blades as fast as they pushed through the ground. In dismay the people gathered their belongings and sculled back across the channel to live on Chincoteague.
Today the outer island of Assateague is still a wildlife refuge, except for Pony Penning Day. On that day, late in July, the watermen on Chincoteague turn cowboy. Still wearing their fishermen’s caps and boots, they ferry their own riding horses over to Assateague to round up the wild ponies. It is the oldest roundup in America! Through bog and brier and bullrushes they ride, spooking the ponies out of little hidden places, driving them down to Tom’s Cove. At exactly low tide a signal is given and the wild herds, colts and all, are driven into the sea for the swim across to Chincoteague. The channel boils with ponies—stallions neighing to their mares, mares whinnying to their colts, colts squealing in panic. And all across the channel, oyster boats ride herd on the ponies, keeping them swimming toward Chincoteague.
At last, wet and blown, the wild things scramble out of the water, and a cheer goes up from the throng of visitors who have come to see the biggest Wild West Show of the east. In their mind’s eye they are selecting their own colt to buy at tomorrow’s sale, for Chincoteague ponies, captured early, make good, friendly mounts. The mares and stallions, of course, are too wild. After a day of being penned up in big corrals, they are driven back again to Assateague for another year of freedom.
Why are some of the ponies big and some small? Some solid color and some daubed with white? The reason is that at one time a Shetland stallion was turned loose on Assateague to run with the wild ponies. His influence is seen in the smallness of stature and the two-toned coloring of many.
The pony, Misty of Chincoteague, was one of these. She was startlingly marked—over her withers a white spot spread out like a map of the United States, and on her side there is a marking in the shape of a plow.
As a foal she seemed more mist than real. Her coat was a soft fusion of silver and gold, and her eyelashes were gold and wonderfully long. In contrast to her shaggy sire and dam she appeared like something from a cloud. During the sale no one dared touch her, for her wild sire glowered at people through the ambush of his forelock. And as Misty lay sleeping, her mother made fenceposts of her legs, keeping her foal safe inside them.
But after Misty’s sire was driven back to Assateague, Grandpa Beebe and his two grandchildren kept Misty for a very special purpose. She was to be the heroine of a book! They cared for her and gentled her and, true to their promise, when fall came they crated Misty and shipped her to her new owner. On a chilly rain-soaked night she arrived at her destination near Chicago, and when the crate was opened, there stood a miserable little object. Head down, tail tucked in, eyes and nose running, and so stiff-legged that even with the crate opened she only stood, snuffling and cold and afraid.
The author was torn by conflicting emotions. Where was the map on Misty’s withers? Where was the plow on her side? There were no markings at all! From head to tail she was the color of sooty snow, and woolly as a bear. That Grandpa Beebe! Had he shipped the wrong pony? And suddenly the author did not care. Here was a creature that needed help—a hot mash to eat and a warm bed and companionship. And so the little book character and her storyteller spent that stormy night in the stall together, and the little thing slept with her head cradled in human hands.
Winter passed. Spring came, and Misty rolled and rolled in the grass until her winter coat came off in great swatches for the birds to carry away. And, wonder of wonders, there was the gold coat; and there were the white markings, one in the shape of a map and the other a plow. Grandpa Beebe had sent the right pony after all!
• • •
As a grown-up mare Misty continued to change color with the seasons. She forgot her wild ancestors and adopted people completely. She actually seemed to be one of them, traveling as gaily as a person, acting on television, attending a meeting with librarians, going up in elevators with them, visiting a suite in one of the fine hotels. She even refreshed herself in the wash basin, lipping the pure water so different from the brackish pools of Assateague. The librarians asked: “Can th
is be the same creature whose ancestors ran wild and free?”
The question caused a wondering. Was Misty unhappy? Did she long for her freedom? But, back home again, the storyteller had only to look out of her window to see Misty running to the fence to meet a group of children. As she shook hands with each one, it was plain that Misty had found her own kind of happiness—with people.
No one has ever told her she is not one of them. She wouldn’t believe it anyway.
The Burro or Donkey
LIKE THE HUGE EARS OF the burro, history casts long, long shadows. When gold seekers rushed to California more than a century ago, they needed a sure-footed little animal as much as they needed their picks and pans. They went prospecting deep into gulches and up and down mountainsides to find precious particles of gold. The trails were steep and tortuous, and only a burro could keep his footing and balance a topheavy load besides. At night, free of saddle and pack, the small mouse-colored beast would stand naked and alone, snuffing the wind, trying to gather in the scent of green things. Then, braying as if laughing at his foolish hopes, he would lower his white muzzle to munch the scrawny shrub at his feet.
The prospector, too, chewed his sour-dough biscuits while visions of plump turkeys danced in his head. Supper over and the campfire in embers, the grizzled old master would talk to his silent partner. Dreams of great wealth were poured into the long ears, which swung back and forth like semaphores wagging sympathy.
Today, a whole century later, the self-same comradeship between burro and prospector goes on. Today’s prospector, however, seeks uranium, not gold. And instead of packing a panning tray, he wears a Geiger counter slung over his shoulder. Like some doctor with his stethoscope he goes along listening to the crust of the earth. Instead of heartbeats he listens for a rapid burst of short sharp clicks which may mean the presence of uranium. Once again the burro has found his place in the sun, carrying the most incredible loads for his master—cooking utensils and blankets and boxes, and sometimes a pet rooster for an alarm clock. “He needs no winding,” the prospector says. “Never has to be set for four o’clock, and always crows off on time.”
It takes a million pounds of ore to produce a thimbleful of uranium, and the distance traveled to discover a rich vein is often long and discouraging. Today, too, the burro is not only pack animal; he is also confidant and friend.
Ever since Bible times the patient plodding burro has been man’s wistful companion. He carried on his small back Abraham, the patriarch, who journeyed from place to place as a wandering pilgrim. And he carried Jacob six hundred miles into Mesopotamia. And he pulled plows for the children of Israel, and he carried packs so enormous that, as the Bible says, he crouched down between his two burdens.
In the Old World he was known as the ass, but when the Spaniards introduced him into the New World, they used the Spanish name, burro. The change in name, however, did not change his status. Hour for hour he did more work than any other animal, four-legged or two. He transported live, flapping fish from the seacoast to Mexico City, where the pompous rulers waited impatiently for their dinners. And he carried great cargoes of gold and silver from the mines to the seaports. His life was all work, with only short recesses for nibbling the bitter leaves of the mesquite bush.
But in spite of it all he never appeared gaunt or downtrodden, and his fame as a sure-footed fellow traveled down the centuries. Today, there are well over a million burros going about their business in Mexico as if planes and trains and jeeps and tractors didn’t exist. They carry charcoal down from the hills and freight to the railroads, and when their work is done, they carry their masters to little straw-hut villages.
There is much talk about the burro’s stupidity, but he’s a smart one at hide-and-seek. He plants himself quietly in the shade of a dusty bush, knowing he and the bush are all of one color. So still he stands that his irate master often passes right by. Who, then, is the stupid one? When the game has gone on long enough, the burro often ends it with a great raucous heehaw.
The heart of a burro, they say, is expressed in his ecstatic braying. There is no other sound quite like it. The beast seems to be wrenching his soul to produce it. He raises his head to the heavens, throws wide his jaws, swells out his nostrils, and then begins such a wheezing and rasping and snuffling as if forty steam whistles were trying to escape into two little syllables, a hee and a haw. And all the while, he closes his dreamy, doelike eyes as if this were the supreme moment of his life. Because of his “melodic” voice he is humorously called the mountain canary and his fillies and foals are called chicks.
One little mountain canary had a bray as welcome as bird song in spring. He wintered in the warm Grand Canyon near Bright Angel Creek, where he became known as Brighty. Along toward flytime he would lope up the creek to a cool plateau and let himself be captured. Usually he appeared at one of the summer camps and went to work as water boy, carrying spring water down from the mountains. Between trips he would let children ride on his back, but he seemed allergic to grownups, always tossing them skyward. He was such a good worker, however, that the campers hung a bell on his neck to keep track of him and they tied him at night. But when, in fall, Brighty decided to go home, he gnawed his rope in two. Then he walked away with just the right swaying motion to keep the little clapper in the bell from tinkling. Once out of hearing, he scampered down the slopes to his winter resort in the chasm. Nobody was going to tell Brighty when to work, and no one ever did.
Maybe Brighty was a throwback to his ancestor, the wild ass, who ran free in Africa long, long ago. This wild ancestor, however, was more fierce than Brighty. He fought with hoof and tooth, protecting his young against lions and leopards. He fought, too, to be monarch of his herd. Each stallion, or jack, headed a harem of mares, or jennies who, with their colts, made up a big family of thirty or more. The jack herded his family from one lush grazing ground to another, guarding the members jealously from leaders of other bands. But once domesticated the jack lost his fiery ways and became the patient plodding creature he is today.
As the “poor relation” of the horse, the burro knows no currycomb and no brush. His coarse coat grows as it pleases, and the wisp of his tail looks more and more like a worn-out hearth broom with each mile of travel. His mane is scrubby and erect like a crew haircut. Altogether he is a creature that needs no grooming nor does he want any. Trees make fine scratching posts, and for him baths in hot shimmering sand are good and cleansing.
While tractors have often taken the place of horses, no machine has been found to equal the burro as the beast of burden of the Southwest. He has replaced the Indian runners, but no man nor man-made thing has ever replaced him.
In our great city squares one never sees a marble statue, or even a bronze one, dedicated to the burro; yet honor and glory have not passed him by. People of humble ways have chosen him! The Mexican peon feels a kinship for his burritito, as he affectionately calls him, because they are both meek and lowly servitors.
And the man, Jesus, rejected the horse and chose the little long-eared beast to carry him into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday. A very great multitude, the Scriptures say, spread their garments in the way and strewed the path with palm branches, but the sure-footed little beast picked his way through and over them and entered triumphantly into the city.
There are those who say Jesus rewarded his patient burden-bearer with an emblem. Ever since, from mane to tail, he has worn a dark stripe, and at the withers a horizontal one—for all the world like the symbol of the cross.
The Mule
WHEN APRIL COMES IN, DOWN in Columbia, Tennessee, the people feel like saying thank you to the mule for all he has done for them. And so they invite mules from far and wide—the little cotton mules, the large farm mules, the still larger sugar mules, and the mammoth draft mules—to a big parade and celebration in their honor.
Of course, the owners are invited, too, and for weeks ahead of time they get ready. They begin giving their mules a daily grooming
so their coats will shine, and they get out the old surrey and wash the fringe on top, and they polish harness until it winks in the sun.
Meanwhile a committee of judges scours the countryside for just the right mule to represent all mules, to be King-for-a-Day. He must have large feet, a strong back, and abundant muscle. And of course his coat should be nice and sleek, and his ears long, wonderfully long, with a pert little knob at each tip. Must he be free of blemish or flaw? No, if the hair of his neck and mane is worn by the harness, the judges like him even better. In muledom proof of work is a badge of honor.
While one committee seeks a fine mule to be King, another combs the county for a pretty girl to crown him. And still a third committee is checking on the crown, seeing that none of the rhinestone jewels is missing.
First Monday of April comes. It is the biggest “mulesta” in American history. No work today! Down out of the hills and up from the valleys come hundreds of mules, in clown costumes, in flower costumes, in no costumes at all. They march in singles, they march in spans, they march in fours and sixes. Some are ridden by boys and girls, some are driven to old-timey gigs, and the little mule colts are shown in hand.
As for the King Mule, he rides in an elegant mule-drawn float, and he looks as pleased as a child on a merry-go-round. His eyes and ears are taking in the swirls of pink cotton candy, the flags waving, the rollicking music, and the shower of serpentine. When his float reaches the courthouse, the entire procession comes to a halt while the pretty girl places the jeweled crown between his ears.
Album of Horses Page 9
