Melancholy Pony

Maud Poole

  “Poor kid, she has no one to play with,” I heard Mrs. Powers say of me whenever she had an audience to tell of the girl who wanders the mountain with a carved-handle staff. This only neighbor, with the first name Dot, a gregarious, hoot-laughing, thigh-slapping woman, lived less than half-a-mile up the dirt road in a house that had been built as a tavern in the 18th century when our road bear-ambled over the mountain from Ashland to Bristol. But that through-road, which skirted our house had been closed for a century. Exploring its grown-over remnant netted a seven stone family graveyard with a rusted iron fence, a collapsed chimney in a once-was pasture we called Old Smiths. But for all practical purposes, like getting around this mountain, our family summered at the end of Dead-End Road.

  Our simple farmhouse couldn’t boast the fine-boned, four-square architecture of Mrs. Power’s tavern; we have pictures of our idiosyncratic design under construction, twin gabled ends with a center setback box seemingly pushing the ends apart to make space for itself. I like quirky architecture. I like the sound of dead end, too; final and remote. I inherited this desire for distance from my parents. It was written by the self-appointed town historian that my family was like the deer that emerge from the edge of the woods, pause, observe the territory, then disappear. With the hectic life we lived in Boston ten months of the year, our isolated retreat provided, in my father’s words physical and spiritual refreshment. Both were solitary endeavors involving introspection, work in tune with the mountain and unmeasured quantities of prayer. I was an isolationist by training. 

  Frankly, I found most kids tedious. They talked too much of things—Little League, Brownies, Ideal’s dolls, Sparkle Plenty or Miss Curity, setting up Lemonade Stands—barely passing of interest. My mother would say, about whatever silly companion she had imposed on me that day, “Be nice to her,” or “Treat her like a sister.” Sometimes I just could not offer companionship. Not that I was mean; well, maybe a little. I ignored this would-be pal, read my book, or remained preoccupied with one of the true tales assembled by a forest ranger. I didn’t have many friends. Acquaintances, of course. But friends? Not unless you count Eloise, The Little Prince, Rapunzel and especially Mowgli—all of whom were more alive than the girl with doll carriage who presses our doorbell while I hide behind the drapes.

  So, the mountains suited me. Lonely? Never. Not with the forest surrounding me.  I talked to trees as though they were human: the tall pine inviting to be climbed, the hunchback maple who sighed when I swung from its lower branches, the family of birches gossiping and swaying in the grove behind the barn. The insects, alive and dead, on my room’s window seat, birds nesting in the porch rafters (we closed the kitchen door with quiet care so as not to waken the sleeping baby robins), raccoons gobbling kitchen scraps on the mulch pile and our resident fox. (Reynard, as we christened him, seemed to stalk our place in waiting for the day we would have another flock of chickens in residence.)

  However, I had one craving that became an obsession over a couple of summers.  They say all girls my age (I’m eleven) pass through this phase; perhaps they are right. But, in my defense, as I have no desire to be one of them, my desire was for exploration. I did not care a hoot about blue ribbons or competitions or vanning these poor slaves to rings where they are forced to prance in circles or soar over jumps. Is there not something primal about riding the back of a beast? To communicate with a creature beneath you, move as one, feel as one, even think as one? I had the itch. Since I could not own a dolphin or a camel, I set my sights on a pony.

  “A pony?” Daddy said, after a pause while he took it in. 

  Daddy never spoke hastily. He thought things over before responding; I learned that technique from him. I did not even broach the subject until I was sure my arguments were in place.

  “I don’t object to the concept,” Daddy continued, “but the cost. I don’t think we can afford a pony. Where would you keep it in the winter?”

  He had a point, of course, as we wintered in suburbia on a typical, square corner lot. No room for a pony there. No shelter, no paddock. I’d already followed these debatable paths.

  “Suppose I could borrow one for the summer?” 

  “Borrow?” Silence. “That could work. But from whom?” 

  I had the go ahead. I test dialogue in my head, play the parts, and, when I am ready, I start casually, watching the scenario play itself out. I knew Daddy thought this conversation was over. The “cost and the from whom?” two insurmountable hurdles. I was exactly where I positioned myself to be in the strategy. It was still early May.

  Our mountain sat between a triangle of towns of varying sizes. Certain supplies could only be found in one or another business: a general store, hardware emporium, lumber yard, farm stand, library. All had bulletin boards for exchange of goods. I wrote an invitation that I thought would attract attention amongst the second-hand John Deere sales and blueberry picker pleas:

Opportunity!
Wanted:
Pony for this summer.
Big pasture,
new paddock,
private stall,
plenty of food.
Expert care and companionship.

  I left our party line number. No one listens to others’ conversations, at least not openly. I tacked up fourteen identical notices. Two weeks passed. Not one answer. Not one. Generally, I am not one to give up on a solid idea. Mama frequently said, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Or “Never stuck!”

  Over breakfast one morning—by this time it was early July—Daddy asked me to stay at the table when devotions were over to “discuss a matter.” What transgression had I committed? Devotions, conducted once a day either after breakfast or dinner, consisted of reading the Bible through over months, a chapter or two at each session. We read around the table (those of us who could read). Little sister was pretty good for six-and-and-a half years old. Little brother chewed on the pages of his board-book of verses that small children should memorize as soon as they can speak. Then we dropped down on our knees in front of our chairs, brother tightly held between Daddy’s knees. We prayed around the world: for missionaries, hungry children, ill-treated animals, needy parishioners, vigor of our tomato plants, the health and spiritual zeal of our own family. This took a good 45 minutes with the sun from the picture window beating in on us in the morning or the White Mountains fading to a silky purple at twilight. 

  The family departed. Daddy and I were alone at the table. He at the head, I, facing the sun and squinting. “Something surprising has come up,” he said. “Dr. Kepler (one of Daddy’s trustees and close colleagues) has an invitation to go to Heidelberg in Germany for a month to lecture on astrophysics at the University. He wants to take his family. They plan to leave next week. He and I were talking. You know that his daughters own a pony?” 

  I guess I knew. I had never seen their pony. The Keplers lived in a big house in one of those horsy towns where trails were maintained through backyards and riding clubs. I did not encourage friendship with those girls. They wore party dresses to Sunday School. One a little older than I, the other younger. They walked around arm-in-arm, whispering. They were known to be at the heads of their classes, very smart. Made sense, their father was a professor at MIT. What was coming next? I held my breath.

  “Dr. Kepler asked if we would like to board the pony for those four weeks.”

  Daddy was quiet then. He knew when to wait, let an announcement settle in. Then he continued. “Dr. Kepler would pay you 50 cents a day to take care of the pony. Exercise him. Keep him company, as he is used to the attention of Virginia and Miriam. The pony is called Prince. What you also need to know, is that pony care is an additional chore. Your daily tasks would continue as usual.”

  I said not a word. Eyes tearing into the sun. Sweat on my upper lip. “I think I could manage that,” I said, “I need to earn some money this summer.” Pause. “I would like a pony here.”

  “It’s settled. Dr. Kepler said he would hire Nan Nilsson to transport the pony in her horse-trailer. One week from today.” Nan was the one girl I did admire. She wore dungarees, plaid shirts. Her curly hair clipped tight to almost a whiffle, she wore baseball caps. Her boots were way broken in. She lived on a fancy, but working, farm called Meadowlark. Her widowed mother was a painter who sold very well in a gallery on Newbury Street. The three daughters excelled at everything they set their minds to: gardening, prize chickens, rabbits, goats, acting, pantomime, music. All played the piano. On stages in small concert halls. Nan, the oldest, about twenty, started a choir of medieval music. She would bring the Kepler pony from his luxurious stable to us to us here in our rough-edged fixer-upper? I was working to process all this information.

  “We need to get to work,” Daddy interrupted my jumbled thoughts. “Build a small paddock. Just outside the barn. Dr. Kepler said 20 x 20 feet should be enough space since you would be taking Prince out for exercise every day. We will go to the lumberyard at 11:00 this morning to buy supplies. Go, take measurements out at the barn. We will use half of it for pony shelter. Start the list.”

  He left the table. I sat a minute, jumped up, gathered the cereal bowls, juice glasses, took them to the sink, washed, dried the dishes. It was already 8:30 and I had tasks to do. I could hear the old Whirlpool thumping away below me in the basement. It was my job to put the sheets, towels, diapers through the ringer and hang them on the line. The porch floor had to be mopped, the hearth in the living room swept and the fire re-laid for tonight.

  11:00. Daddy in the Buick with the motor running. Prompt to the minute. “Read me the list,” he said.

  “Dr. Kepler said 20 x 20, which is 400 square feet. If we use the barn’s width—28 feet—as the third side and butt the paddock up to the barn, then we need enough fence for another 28 feet, the front side, and two times 14 feet. Approximately. This is just under 400 square feet. I think. We need 56 running feet of fence, minus the gate. I ran up to Mrs. Powers. Her fence posts are six feet apart.” Whew! Would Daddy buy my math?

  I had made a drawing, which I stuck under his nose, as we were already bumping along on the dirt road. We need ten posts. If we are using wire, running three strands, we need 156 feet. We should buy 200, the extra to wind around the posts. As to the gate, I haven’t had time to think that through.”

  “Good,” he said. We’ll figure out the gate—and hardware—at the lumber yard.”

  I was on a project with Daddy! We did not speak the remainder of the half-hour to the lumberyard, where we gathered and paid for supplies. The posts sticking out of the trunk required a red flag at their end. Mr. Webster, the man who advised us on our purchases, gave us the flag and lent us a post-hole digger. The bright red triangle I later attached to the gate like a prayer flag.

  Fence building is hard work! Those holes—18 inches deep. Daddy and I took turns with the digger, though, I admit, he was more adept. The project took four days, from measurement to completion. Daddy and I worked well together, I thought. He is stronger than he looks in his preaching clothes. The hinged gate was inspired. We tossed around several design ideas, making sketches, before we agreed on the Double-X design.

  Nan arrived at two p.m. on the appointed warm, sunny afternoon. It was a Monday. I had been sitting out at the end of the stonewall waiting with a bag of carrots on my lap for more than an hour. Bump-bump-bump-bump up the narrow dirt road the pick-up and horse trailer announced itself. Nan expertly turned in a circle, so the back of the trailer faced our little barn. She had been here before, for her uncle lived near-by; she knew her way around with authority. She called, “Hello, all. Your Prince has come!”

  My parents, little sister, toddler brother, ran out of the house to join us. Much excitement. Brother jumping like a frog. Nan unclamped the metal door of the trailer, swung it out, dropped the ramp. There was the rump and tail of our visiting pony! Nan squeezed by—this was a small trailer even for a pony—to free the pony’s head, and back him out. Walked him in a circle so he faced us. Medium brown, he had a small white tuft on his forehead. He shook a few times, seeming grateful for release. Nan tied his harness to the flagpole in the middle of the drive-around circle. She went to the righthand door of the truck, removed the saddle and a mysterious web of leather straps and brass rings. She set the gear on the rock wall.

  “Okay, kid,” she said to me, “let’s see what kind of home you’ve made for this sporty little fellow.” Prince remained tied to the flagpole, now standing statue-still. I had not yet offered him his welcoming carrot. I felt a tinge of shyness in his presence. I led the way, Nan and family following, to the new paddock. “Very, very nice,” she said, looking at Daddy.” She opened the gate, swung it back and forth a few times, walked in. This time only Daddy and I followed. We crossed the paddock entered the barn. We had halved it with hay bales and plywood partition, leaving the back part for the mowers and tools. The barn had a small high window at the gable end through which the afternoon sun tossed a long triangle of light on the floor. 

  “Prince is going to like it here,” she said, this time looking at me. I was proud of our work, our new pony-home. “Let’s get him acquainted with his summer camp,” Nan joked. We all headed back to the pony at the flagpole. “Okay,” she said, “Time for lessons in horsemanship. We want to make him comfortable. Let’s walk him around the place, familiarize him.” She loosened the harness from the flagpole, began to circle the driveway, down into the pasture, along stonewalls. I walked by her side. After about a half-hour of touring, she put the harness in my hand and changed places with me. Prince resisted. He was strong. Stood firm. I pulled a little harder. Patted his shoulder. Pulled again.

  “If he’s going to be your friend, he has to know you are boss. That’s how it works. He’s used to being instructed.” She took the reins, began to walk, he followed immediately. No opposition. Nan was patient, especially to the pony to whom she carried on a running monologue. Often making clucking encouraging sounds. He seemed to like those especially, ears perked up, nostrils sniffing. Back and forth, the harness from her hand to mine. After a while, I got him going. I walked fast and he was right with me. “You’re catching on but know that this smart pony will sense your every mood. Stay confident and strong,” Nan said, adding, “Animals intuit their master’s self-esteem and respond to it.” Most of her talk was directed at Prince. She never raised her voice.

  We were back at the paddock. “Hold on to him,” she ordered, and she walked back over to the stone wall to scoop up the pile of leather and straps. She beckoned to me and started to sort the leather, setting it out display-fashion on the wall. There wasn’t so much after all. A Western saddle, halter, bridle. I brought the pony to her. He was looking at her, not me, and followed obediently. 

  Nan saddled Prince, tightened the cinch strap all the while naming the parts of the saddle. Gullet, horn, pommel cantle, skirt. I repeated each word two times. She showed me how to mount, holding onto the horn. My sneakers had no heel to catch on the stirrup. She frowned at that, then shrugged her shoulders. She handed me the bridle and we walked around the pasture.”

  Not too tight on his mouth,” she ordered. “But taut enough to know you are in charge. He will feel the smallest tug to the right or left, and he will obey.” I felt prickles of trepidation. Nan’s instructions, given in a calm voice became like a song in another language. I was getting the feel of this animal’s movements, had a sense of where he placed his hoof each step. I began to roll with his haunches. After our third circle, we stopped where my father, leaning against the flagpole, waited. 

  “Prince is all yours, Doctor,” she said, “yours and your cowgirl’s here,” she added, correcting herself. “I, myself, must be on the road. Three-hour drive ahead. Choral practice at six. Been a pleasure, sir. See you in four weeks.” Nan helped me down. I thought I did a nice leg-swing dismount. Solid ground felt good, safe. Nan removed Prince’s saddle, handed it to me, exchanged bridle for harness, led Prince the few feet to the paddock, opened the gate, shooed him in, closed the gate, lifted the trailer ramp-plank, snapped it shut, closed the doors, climbed into the truck, gave us a thumbs up and off she went. Puffy clouds of road dust in her wake.

  I shivered, though the late afternoon was warm, sun strewing long shadows across the driveway. Prince stood still just inside the paddock gate where Nan had left him. He stood like that for a long time. I walked over to the fence, leaned on the post, looking him right in the eye. I left the gate closed. “Don’t you want a drink, Prince?” I invited, pointing to a tin watering tank we had placed for his comfort in the shade of a triangle of leaf-fluttering poplars. There he would also find his grain and hay bin—hopefully to his palate’s liking. (Dr. Kepler had been specific on Prince’s diet.)

  Prince stared at me. I stared back. Mama called. I had regular supper chores to do. “Prince, you are just part of our family now, and we all have our tasks to do. Take a little walk around your kingdom. You’ll like it. See you in a while.” Mama called again. I have to say, her voice was like a soloist in the church choir. She made orders sound like verses of a hymn. I went to our modest vegetable patch to gather lettuces, cucumbers, beans—and a few of the encroaching wildflowers for the table. As I reached down to clip an orange Indian paintbrush, I watched my hand quiver. 

  I hardly tasted the meatloaf, gravy or blueberries. Daddy was the dishwasher. He stood before the soapstone sink. He looked at me in the mirror and winked. We finished quickly, I, drying and putting dishes away into the pantry. Then I ran to the paddock. Prince had moved. He had eaten some grain, consumed some water, but he was back almost in the position I had left him. Staring at the gate. At me as I opened it and stepped inside. “Good fellow, Prince,” I said. He stood stone-still as though I was not there. I had brought him the carrots, reached out and placed them before his nose. He considered. Finally, he opened his mouth; I gently pressed a carrot onto his tongue. For a few seconds, he didn’t even close his mouth. Then he chomped it down. I gave him two more. He stared at me, finished the carrots. I patted his neck, still no response. “Well, we got this far, Prince.” I left him, closed the gate, crossed the driveway, sat on the old maple’s swing, idly twirling my toe in the patch of dirt. 

  This is going to be a challenge, I thought. Not the quick answer to my dream of bonding with an animal, heading into the woods for adventure. I went inside. My parents were sitting in front of the fire reading, Daddy his summer indulgence of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, a postcard from Panama tucked into his glasses’ temples to shield his pale blue eyes from too much lamp light. Mama sat at a card table with a heavy catalogue of Cezanne’s landscape and still life masterpieces open before her. “Everything alright?” Mama asked.

  “Sure. Just a slow start.”

  I went to my room. Exhausted, I undressed, folded my clothes on the window seat, placed my green sneakers side by side beneath it, switched off the lamp, climbed into bed. Moonlight entered on three sides making overlapping geometric designs on the floor. I must remember those to draw in my notebook in the morning, I thought. I stared at the ceiling, counting the points of the roofing nails protruding into the room. Prince is confused, I thought. I will entertain him, distract him. I will braid a garland of hay to hang above his lintel. Décor will help transform a strange barn into a home. He’s used to wide open yards, showy trees set far apart, an ornamental stable built just for him. He is comfortable in suburbia. He has never seen a forest, much less a paddock surrounded by dense vegetation. I tried to imagine the strangeness he was experiencing. He must have been disoriented with riding three hours in a trailer, landing here on this mountain. How to make him become pleased with us?

  I woke to the eastern sky brightening over the mountains, washed my face in my room’s tiny sink, hastily dressed, tiptoed down the stairs, across the scruffy lawn to the paddock. “Good morning, Prince!” I said in pep-talk tone. “Let’s enjoy the day!” He stood by the gate, as he had the night before, a vein in his neck pulsing, like a hint of potential mutiny in his aloof mien. Okay, let the entertainment program begin!

  I did a cartwheel, glanced at him, executed three more perfect circles, landed on my feet and bowed. He stood looking straight through me. What does he see? Then, I noticed blood on his withers (I had studied, memorized the parts of a horse), a long, deep scratch. I ran to the house, grabbed a clean diaper, a cup of warm water, some iodine and ran back. I wiped the lesion, applied the yellow iodine generously. All the while Prince stood still. How had he done this to himself. I looked around, could not see any sharp object. Could the edge of the fence post cause that kind of gash? Only if it were deliberate.

  A trail of flattened grasses skirted the fence; he had been walking in the dark. Did he mean to injure himself? Was his distress gnawing him to the point of self-harm? I wondered if he’d slept at all. I replenished his food bin, ran to the well, pulled up a bucket of icy, filled his water trough. Then a stark revelation: Prince is homesick. He may not understand the word abandonment, but in animal sensitivity, he is experiencing separation. No amount of my reassurance could explain that his two mistresses were away for only one month; I had been assigned Caretaker. “Come on Prince, let’s make the best of this; let’s be friends. I will do everything I can to make you happy.” He stood. I did a little dance, a two-step around him. No reaction. I gave his tail a playful tug. He let it just hang there.

  “Today we’ll go for a stroll. We both need the exercise.” I peered behind the barn down into the North Pasture. As was his morning ritual, Daddy sat on his bench beneath the pine, gazing out into the mountains, his open Bible on his knee. I knew not to interrupt him. I was worried about Prince, about how to let him know this unfamiliar place was temporary—and hospitable. “We have your best interests at heart.” I stroked his nose.

  Later that morning, breakfast and chores finished, Daddy and I walked to the paddock. Prince stood at the gate. We both talked to him calmly, as Nan had done. “Daddy, didn’t you say that Nan had given Virginia and Miriam riding lessons? So, Prince knows Nan, trusts her, right? And she left him here. While Nan was here, Prince was fine, but when she left, he must have been puzzled. He didn’t know what was happening. Could his feelings be hurt?”

  “We’ll win him. Never fear,” Daddy responded. He lowered his voice to a whisper, “We’re lovable.” He picked the saddle, bridal, harness off the rack: we did what we thought we should do with them, but probably not as smoothly as Prince expected. The truth is neither of us had any idea how to take care of a horse. And Prince knew it. He was in command at that moment—and for the remainder of his stay. He stood quietly. “Let’s just walk him today?” Daddy added. I agreed.

  We took the same route Nan had used around our pastures. We did it three times, as Nan had, just in case ponies can count. Sometimes Prince would stop. It took Daddy’s strength to urge him to move again. When Daddy is frustrated, he gives a sharp little whistle. Fissssst. Back in the paddock, Prince stood inside the gate like a stiff guard on military duty. As had already become his habit, his eyes stared straight ahead into nothing.

  Daddy went to the pasture to crowbar the rocks that the earth had spit up over the winter. I began my program of diversion. “Win him, win him,” I said aloud. I climbed the beech next to his paddock and hung from my knees from a high branch. I swung my body a few times in that cradle position, pulled myself up and then fell. On purpose. I have studied the art of falling. I practice it. First, I keep my body relaxed. I exhale the entire fall, starting just before I let go. Like a frog, I want to land with my hands and feet, knees and elbows bent. For just a few seconds I feel a weightless glee. To the observer, like my mother, this is a scary thing to watch. I thought it might get Prince’s attention. I lay on the ground just yards from the gate. Prince paid no attention. He sentried, as usual. No instincts to rescue.

  “Thanks, Prince,” I said and left to make Spam and mustard sandwiches to take to the beach. It was a beautiful day, warm, air as clean as only New Hampshire can offer. We piled in the Buick and headed down the mountain. I waved at Prince standing by his gate.

  “Daddy, let’s take Prince to meet Mrs. Powers. She can bring out the joy in anybody!”

  “Good idea, we’ll do that in the morning.”

  I climbed my favorite reading rock at Newfound Lake’s edge. Suddenly I had an idea. Reading! I would read to Prince. A story would seduce him. That summer I was reading Tess of the D’Urbervilles, but I knew that was not the way to introduce Prince to the pleasure to a story being read aloud. In my mind’s eye, I saw the cover of My Friend Flicka, a boy and his beloved, but untamed filly, whom he nurses, and who, in turn, passes him the strength to heal when he falls ill. That evening after dinner and chores, I brought my worn copy of Flicka to the paddock. I sat with my back against the gate and began to read. “High up on the long hill they called Saddle Back, behind the ranch and the country road, the boy sat his horse, facing east, his eyes dazzled by the rising sun…” 

I read slowly with great expression for a full half hour never turning around to see if Prince listened. Then I stood, saw him over by his food and water troughs looking into the forest. It was as though I was not there, not coaxing camaraderie through voicing a tale of struggle and love between a ten-year old boy and a wild filly. “Good-night, Prince,” I sang as I opened the gate, carried a basket of small, early apples to the barn ramp, built a teepee with them, blew Prince a kiss and left. “Sleep well and sweet.” I went directly to my room.

Lying facing the ceiling again, I had another revelation. Prince fears the forest. I thought he looked to it for comfort, as I do, but, no, he’s never been in a forest, felt the embrace of great close growing trunks. Rather, they are alien, dark, threatening. He stares into the forest, which surrounds his paddock and rough-hewn barn, the single lane dirt road, even the pastures, to be alert to sudden danger. Our resident fox has probably scurried through Prince’s paddock on his nocturnal hunting jaunts. Prince has only been exposed to domestic animals, dogs, cats. What would he make of a racoon, opossum, even bobcat invading his new domain?

The following morning, enlisting my father again, we saddled Prince, walked him up the dirt road to Mrs. Power’s tavern. Around her house we led the pony, as we knew Mrs. Powers would be working in her garden, a sunken vegetable bonanza planted in the stone foundation of a barn that had caved in decades ago.

“Fannies up,” Mrs. Powers would say about her weeding position. When she heard us arrive, she stood, calling, “Welcome, welcome, come bite into one of these sun-warmed tomatoes!” She laughed. “So, this is Pony-Pal-Prince,” she said and hastened over to stroke Prince’s withers. “Whoa, she said, “What happened here?” She observed his long scrape. Daddy and I shrugged in unison, looked at Prince. “He did it to himself in the night,” I offered.

She lowered her voice and whispered in his ear. No response. “Hmmm,” she said. To me, “Let’s give him some just picked carrots, and pulled two small ones out of her flowered apron pocket. Prince ate them. But he didn’t look at her. The three of us walked Prince around the perimeter of the garden walls. He stopped, we tugged, encouraged him, Mrs. Powers all the while giving him her garden tour spiel. If Mrs. Powers fails to charm Prince, who could, I thought to myself. She kept trying, coaxing, encouraging.

Mrs. Powers looked at us, and said, “He’s kind of a melancholy thing, isn’t he? Too young and small to appear so world-weary.” She started to walk us back to the road, then stopped, turned, “You can’t tear straight across the grain. Think about it before you’re too hard on yourselves. And come back on your way home from the beach to gather vegetables for your dinner.” She knew her garden far outproduced our modest rectangle struggling to survive on a steep a hillside.

Prince seemed docile, just walking as led. “I think I’ll ride him back. He’s used to the saddle being on, and seems somewhat agreeable,” I said. Maybe, his stubborn reserve would begin to open if his routine seemed similar to the one he’s used to: carrying those two girls on his back through the backyards of an up-scale suburban community.

Daddy held him, while I climbed into the saddle, took the reins, settled in, wiggling my rump to make sure he knew I was there. Daddy let go. Prince took a half-dozen slow steps, then a dozen more. I felt good, thought I had the right soft pressure on his mouth. He stopped. “Come on, Prince, let’s take a walk,” I said. Another two or three dozen steps. He stopped. Daddy was beside us. “Nice work,” Daddy said.

Then Prince lunged forward, Daddy tried to reach us, but we were gone. Prince bolted off down the dirt road toward our house, I grasped reins more tightly and horn, terrified. “No, no Prince,” by this time I was yelling. The distance between the two houses a mere half-mile, seemed like a lifetime of terror. I did hang on. I don’t know how. Prince stopped outside the paddock gate—the only place he knew with assurance—with an abrupt halt. I somersaulted out of the saddle to the hard ground. (All my practice at falling for naught.) I lay there. A granite boulder just feet away. The little red flag given us by Mr. Webster hung limply by the gate. 

Daddy arrived, running, sweating, seconds after my fall. He knelt by me, pressed his hand to my forehead. “Are you okay?” For a few seconds I could not answer. “Let’s see,” I tried to stand, stumbled, Daddy holding my arm, stumbled again, then stood. I was bruised, but nothing broken. Daddy turned to look at Prince, said in his stern voice, “What the Sam Hill did you think you were doing?” But Prince just gazed across the still closed gate, and the paddock into the forest.

Daddy opened the gate, ushered Prince inside, removed the saddle and bridle quickly, tossed it quickly over the fence, closed the gate, and to me said, “Let’s go eat a slice of watermelon.”  We walked together to the flame red door of our house (my eyes burning), down the hall to the sunny kitchen.

I brought two plates from the pantry, he, the melon from the icebox and a butcher knife from the wooden box. We sat across the table looking out at the mountains, both silent. When we finished our sweet pink slices, spit all the black pits onto the plates, he started to say, “Going out to the field now,” as Mama walked in with a load of sheets from upstairs. “What are you two doing here? Where’s Prince?” Neither Daddy nor I spoke. She looked back and forth between us. “Having trouble with him?” We nodded. Mama is that way. If she senses you don’t want to tell her, she lets it go until you are ready, until you volunteer. “Keep your business close to your chest” was her philosophy.

I hurt all over. Sore and shaken. I held by breath. A powerful feeling gripped me, but I couldn’t articulate it. Gratitude? Fear? Embarrassment? Failure? Anger. All woven together making me very tired. Too tired to even cry. “I think I’ll go clean my room,” I said. “There is sand on the floor from my beach feet.” 

“You do that, My Girl,” Mama said, “I’ll make the sandwiches today, tuna. Go on, now go on.” A fury was rising in me, a fury that made my eyes sting. That pony. I hate that pony. I’m stuck with that no-Prince pony for three more weeks. I climbed the stairs to my garret room, the place I felt safest in the world. I sat on the hard window seat, my bottom hurting. I picked up Tess but was too muddled to read. A bruise bump started to hurt on my right knee. Right elbow and shoulder, too. The tears came hard and fast now. That pony hates me. He and I are in a vice of spite.

It’s all my fault. All of this. I wanted a pony when I had no idea how to care for one. And no one stopped me. Not my father, not Nan. Not Dr. Kemper nor his daughters. I am a stupid, selfish, dumb girl, worthless. Can’t think straight. That pony is in anguish. Uprooted from his familiar, loving, well-appointed home, brought here by someone—Nan—whom he trusted, and then deserted by her. He’s vacillating between fear and fury. He senses I’m the cause of his plight. I’m the focus of what he cannot comprehend. I can keep trying to win him. Maybe I will and maybe I can’t. I must endure, fulfill my commitment through the next weeks, and I will. But I won’t try to ride him again. No, I won’t do that. Probably as much a relief to him as to me. Some expectations, no matter the extent of preparation, need to be reshaped. Sometimes a dream needs to be put down. Now I need to sleep, and I do.

The family had lunch. They did not pack into the car and go to the beach. Nothing was said about the reason for the change in that daily chores-done-afternoon-relax-and-swim plan. When I woke, I could hear Daddy’s voice as he spoke into the Dictaphone, outlining a sermon for September. Out the window I could see Mama painting a watercolor of daylilies and late irises in the stonewall bed; my siblings pummeling one another like puppies at her feet. A quiet afternoon. A single fly in my room buzzed behind the calico curtain I had recently sewn.

I limped into supper. No one questioned me. When I want to talk about my “accident”, for that is what in my mind I called it, I will. In my own time—if ever. Daddy said, “Prince is fed and watered.” We admired Mama’s bright painting, orange and purple blossoms dancing in the breeze. Little brother chatted; he had brought a small red truck to his highchair and was naming its parts: wheel, cab, fender. Sister repeated his newly learned words with each’s correct pronunciation Fen-der. We read in Corinthians—two chapters, 12 and 13— round the table as was the custom in our family devotional hour. Then we knelt to pray.