Tib suggested Sugar because she knew ponies like sugar.
“They like carrots, too. But Carrots would be a funny name.”
“Hay would be a funny name.”
“Oats would be a very funny name!” Tacy shouted.
They were all laughing now. Tacy’s face was red from laughter, and her blue eyes were streaming.
“You could name him Buffalo Bill,” shrieked Tib, “because he kissed you one time!”
Winona pushed her into the leaves. Betsy and Tacy pounced upon Winona, and they all rolled over and over, screaming. Toodles barked and raced about.
It was a very humorous game.
When Mrs. Root called Winona in to practice her music lesson, Winona’s face was shining with delight. It was dirty, though, and her mother sent her to wash it.
While she was washing, Winona thought and thought about how she could get a pony.
She went into her mother’s bedroom, across the hall from the library. This was a beautiful room, with a canopy bed. The bed was white iron with a gleaming brass rail and pale green decorations, and the canopy stretched above like an awning. It had ruffles of white silk and pale green chiffon. The dressing table and bureau were white; so were the chairs; and all of them were decorated in pale green. At the foot of the bed was a large white bearskin rug.
Mrs. Root sat by a window, mending.
“Mother,” said Winona, holding out her hands so her mother could see how clean they were, “if I got a pony I wouldn’t ride him bareback. I’d hitch him up to a little cart. I could act very dignified in a little pony cart.”
Her mother finished sewing on a button. She snapped off some thread.
“Now be sure to practice half an hour,” she said.
Winona went into the parlor because that was where the piano stood. The parlor wasn’t so cozy as the library. Everything here was upholstered in rose pink. It had to be kept clean.
The upright piano had a rose pink scarf across the top. It had a stool to sit on. Winona had to whirl the stool to make it the proper height. Sometimes she whirled it and whirled it just to use up time when she was supposed to be practicing.
Today she didn’t whirl a minute longer than she had to. As soon as the stool was high enough, she sat down and began to practice.
There was a clock beside the piano and Winona was supposed to practice half an hour. Sometimes if she got very tired or was very anxious to get outdoors and play, Winona would push the minute hand just a little bit ahead. After a little while, she would push it again.
“This clock is always gaining time,” Winona often heard her mother say. Mr. Root took it to the jewelry store one time. He told the jeweler that he wanted it fixed, but the jeweler couldn’t find anything wrong.
Today Winona didn’t push the clock ahead. She practiced and practiced.
“Did you hear me playing those scales?” she asked, when she got back to her mother’s bedroom after she had finished. “Didn’t they sound exciting? If Father knew how good I played, maybe he’d get me a pony.”
Mrs. Root was mending a ripped seam. She said they were going to have peach cobbler for supper.
Winona stood swinging back and forth on the tips of her toes.
“I can peel potatoes,” she remarked. “I peeled one one time. Would Selma like to have me help her peel potatoes, do you s’pose?”
She knew it wasn’t likely. Selma knew how to peel potatoes and peel them fast. She didn’t need any help from little girls.
Mrs. Root looked at Winona gravely. “Why do you want to help Selma?” she asked.
Winona glanced away, embarrassed. “Oh, I just thought…Father likes me to learn…”
Mrs. Root laid down her mending. She put her arm around Winona.
“Winona,” she said, “I don’t want you to keep asking your father for a pony. I don’t want you to have a pony. I don’t think it’s best for you.”
Winona pulled away. She put her fists in her eyes.
Her mother got up and walked across the room. She felt bad, too.
“Winona,” she said. “You’ve outgrown your party dress. Miss Flanders is making you a new one. I was planning to surprise you, but I’m going to tell you now. It’s red.”
“Red!” Winona leaped to her mother’s arms.
“Bright red,” Mrs. Root said. “And it has a red sash, and you’ll wear a red hair ribbon to match.”
“Oh, goody, goody!” Winona cried. “Is it done yet? Can I see it?”
She danced around the beautiful white and green room.
“It won’t be finished until the day before the party. But you can see it. You can go and try it on,” Mrs. Root said.
She was smiling tremulously. It made her glad to see Winona happy.
Winona was very happy about having a red dress. She talked about it all through supper. She didn’t mention her pony and she tried not to think about him. That was hard, though.
In spite of herself Winona kept wondering whether to name him Dumpling, or Sparkle, or Buster, or Buffalo Bill.
5
Getting Ready for the Party
WINONA SAW her new red party dress the next day. She went with her mother to try it on at Miss Flanders’ house. Miss Flanders’ house was little, but on the outside it looked as dignified as though it were big. It had a tower on top, and curliques up in the gable, and blood-red glass framing the front door.
Inside, it didn’t look dignified at all. The sewing machine was open. Chairs were heaped with half-made dresses. And the floor was strewn with pins and buttons and hooks and eyes and snips and scraps of cloth.
Miss Flanders didn’t look dignified either.
“Sewing is such messy work,” she always apologized as you came in. Wisps of grayish-brown hair fell down from her pompadour, and her shirt waists were continually pulling out of her skirts.
She was a good dressmaker, though.
Winona’s dress was even more beautiful than she had imagined it would be. It had short, puffed sleeves, and the skirt was accordion-pleated below a wide sash. It was a lovely vivid red.
“Oh, Mother!” Winona exclaimed, parading up and down in front of Miss Flanders’ mirror, which swung in a frame and was long enough so you could see yourself from top to toe. “Oh, Mother! It’s lovely! I look just like a gypsy!”
Mrs. Root looked at Miss Flanders and sighed. “Well, if you and your father are happy, I am!” she said.
“I’m sure,” Miss Flanders put in brightly, “it’s going to be a wonderful party!”
“Oh, it is! It is!” Winona whirled. The accordion-pleated skirt swelled out like a balloon. “Joyce can come,” she added.
Joyce lived a long way away on the other side of town. She went to a different school, and Winona didn’t see her very often.
Joyce had telephoned to say that she could come. It had made Winona feel very important to get a telephone call. Not many people in Deep Valley had telephones in their homes; these inventions were too new. But Mr. Root had one at home, as well as in his office, because he was editor of the Deep Valley Sun. And Joyce’s father had one in his store. So Joyce had gone to his store to telephone Winona.
The other fourteen children who had received the printed cards wrote notes to Winona, or their mothers did. Everyone was pleased to accept her kind invitation.
Betsy, Tacy, and Tib could come. They had told Winona so at school. Their mothers had been a little surprised, Betsy said, that they hadn’t received regular invitations.
“What did you tell them?” Winona asked.
“Oh,” answered Betsy, “we explained that you were just asking people. I told my mother that Tacy and Tib were invited and they didn’t have any invitations.”
“And I told my mother that Betsy and Tib were invited and they didn’t have any invitations,” Tacy said.
“And I told my mother that Betsy and Tacy were invited and they didn’t have any invitations,” said Tib.
“That made everything perfectly all right, Wi
nona,” Tacy assured her kindly.
Dennie wanted to know what games they were going to play. He wanted to know whether they were going to have prizes. Winona asked her mother, and she said that they were.
Every day after school when the Syrian children came toiling up the hill, they stopped to talk about the party. They didn’t go to many American parties.
“My little brother Faddoul says ‘party, party, party’ all day long,” Marium chattered. She pronounced it ‘par-r-rty,’ for the Syrians always rolled their r’s. It made the word sound very exciting.
“See you Thursday if we live,” Marium and Scundar called gaily as they departed. They didn’t expect to die; that was just a Syrian saying.
Lottie and Lettie came up to Winona’s house although they didn’t have a basket to deliver or one to collect. They didn’t even do tricks. They just sat on the lawn and talked about the party.
“Mamma is washing and ironing our party dresses and putting on new ribbons,” Lottie sang.
“Hers are pink and mine are blue,” sang Lettie.
“And we’re going to wear white shoes. Mamma bought us some!”
Everyone was in a joyful dither.
The party came nearer and nearer all the time. And the trees grew more golden, and the vines grew redder.
“All getting ready for Winona’s birthday!” her father kept on saying.
“And my dress will fit right in!” Winona cried. She was thrilled about the new red dress. She had told everyone at school about it. How red it was! How it flew out when she whirled!
But she still talked about the pony.
She didn’t mention him to her father any more. And, of course, she didn’t mention him to her mother. She didn’t even mention him to Bessie and Myra. But to everybody else she did.
She and Betsy and Tacy and Tib tried to decide whether Winona should ride astride or sidesaddle, or whether she should have a pony cart.
“With a pony cart you could take more people riding,” Betsy pointed out.
Dennie said jubilantly that with her pony and Toodles she could give a dog and pony show, like Gentry’s Dog and Pony Show that came to Deep Valley every summer.
“That’s right!” Winona cried. “Of course we could! Lottie and Lettie could do tricks.”
She told the postman that she was going to get a pony. She told the milkman and the baker’s boy. It seemed as though, if she told enough people, she would make it come true.
She told the lamplighter who was a special friend of hers. Every night he came up the hill with his ladder. He set it against the lamp post on the corner and climbed up to light the lamp. His name was Mr. Dollar.
“Mr. Dollar,” Winona said, “I’m going to get a pony.”
“Is that a fact?” he asked.
“Yup!” She crossed her fingers behind her back, because, of course, it wasn’t a fact, exactly.
And yet that pony got realer all the time.
Every spare minute Winona went down to the barn. She had always loved the barn, with its smell of hay and leather and the sounds Bob and Florence made, chewing and stamping in their stalls.
Winona went to the empty stall where her pony would live. It would need some nice clean straw on the floor, she decided.
“What’s all this talk about a pony?” Ole asked. He was a bald, thin little man with blue eyes as faded as his overalls. “You’re not going to get a pony. If you were, I’d be the first to hear of it.”
“If I got one,” Winona said, “he wouldn’t be any work for you, Ole. I’d brush him and curry him and exercise him and bring him nice cold water.”
“Ponies can’t have cold water,” Ole interrupted sourly.
Winona asked why not. And she asked how much hay a pony ought to get, and how much oats.
“Not many oats,” Ole replied. “It makes them too frisky.”
“But I want my pony frisky!” Winona insisted.
By and by Ole grew interested in the pony. He started telling Winona stories about ponies he had known.
Once a pony he was taking care of got into a field of buckwheat. He ate so much buckwheat that it made him blow up. Ole was able to save him from an early grave.
Another pony, named Traveler, knew how to get out of his pasture.
Traveler liked to go to the house next door because the lady there always gave him sugar. He would get out of his pasture, although the gate was closed, and go over and paw on her door. And when he had eaten his sugar he would go back to the pasture. He would get back in the same way he had gotten out.
“But how had he gotten out?” Winona demanded.
Ole put on his you’ll-never-believe-this voice. “He’d crawl under the fence like a dog,” he declared.
That same pony had a kitten for a friend. She would rather sleep in the barn with Traveler than in the house, Ole said. She slept in the straw in a corner of his stall. She liked to eat and drink with him and she never left his pasture in summer.
“Ya,” said Ole, “she used to sit on a fence post with her four little paws as close together as though they were tied. Traveler would lean against the post, and they’d stay like that for half an hour. You’d swear they were talking.”
Winona, who had climbed to the edge of the manger, bounced up and down.
“Oh, maybe my pony and Toodles will be friends like that!” she cried.
But then Ole told her again that she wasn’t going to get a pony, and Winona walked slowly back into the house.
She found Bessie painting place cards for the party.
“Sixteen of them!” she said, laying the last one aside to dry. They were pretty cards with pictures of birthday cakes on them.
But just sixteen! Winona looked at them uneasily.
“Maybe you ought to make a few extra, Bessie,” she suggested. “There might be a few extra children.”
“Why, no!” Bessie answered. “There can’t be. There are only fifteen invited.”
Myra showed her the favors. Sixteen paper hats and sixteen little tin horns.
“Do you have any extra ones?” Winona asked.
“Of course not! Why should we have extra ones?” Myra replied.
Winona was a little worried. Maybe she ought to tell someone about those children she’d invited? Or maybe it would be better not to.
Maybe it would just be borrowing trouble, she thought. She had heard her father say that.
And just then her mother asked her whether she would like to see the prizes.
She was allowed to see them because she couldn’t possibly win one. She was the hostess. And even if she pinned the tail on the donkey on the exact spot where it was supposed to go, she couldn’t win a prize. She’d have to give it to the child who had come next closest. Her mother had explained this to her.
There was a little iron cookstove for the girl’s prize—a real one; you could cook on it. The boy’s prize was a bat and ball. Dennie would like a bat and ball, Winona thought with satisfaction.
“Oh, I can hardly wait for my birthday!” she cried, and her mother and Bessie and Myra smiled at each other.
“Fortunately,” her mother said, “it’s just day after tomorrow.”
The next day, after school, Bessie and Myra gave Toodles a bath. Winona helped, of course. They didn’t bathe him often; they didn’t need to.
“Pug dogs are just naturally clean,” Mrs. Root often said.
They bathed him in the kitchen, in his own round tub. Toodles didn’t like to be bathed. He whined and snorted and tried to get out. Bessie held him while Myra scrubbed and Winona screamed and pranced.
First they put him into suds, and then they rinsed him, and then they dried him. It was easy to dry Toodles; his coat was so short.
After he was dry, they brushed him, and he acted pleased and strolled around with his tail curled tight as though he knew how nice he looked. His coat was like yellow satin; his ears were like black velvet.
“Oh, Toodles, you are beautiful!” Winona exclaimed, and Myra
and Bessie tied ribbons in his collar in honor of the party.
“Look at Toodles, Father!” Winona cried at supper.
Toodles ate beside her chair, from a low brown bowl. Mr. Root served him after he had served the family but before he served himself. Toodles got everything the family did, although Mrs. Root always protested. She thought he was too fat.
“But he does love to eat!” Bessie and Myra and Winona would plead. And Mr. Root kept on giving him tidbits.
Mr. Root regarded him admiringly now.
“Do you remember, Agatha,” he asked his wife, “the night I brought Toodles home? I had asked Dr. Dodds to look up a pedigreed pug; you didn’t know a thing about it. I brought him home in a baby’s shoe box. He was just three weeks old.”
Mother began to smile. “He was so dear!” she said. “He was the tiniest, softest, yellowest, loose-skinned, black-faced, pug-nosed little creature! Tiny as he was, he had those wrinkles. I didn’t want you to have a puppy, Winona. I thought you were too young to take care of one properly. But when I saw him, I gave in.”
“It was a good thing I surprised you,” Mr. Root chuckled. He looked around the table. “Well, tomorrow I have a surprise for Winona!”
Winona put down her spoon in the midst of floating island. “A surprise? For me?”
“Who else is having a birthday?” her father teased. He was a tease like she was.
Winona thought fast. He had just been saying that Toodles was a surprise. Would this surprise be a pony?
She flashed a look toward her mother for if it was, her mother wouldn’t like it. But Mrs. Root was smiling.
“Yes,” she said. “Your father has a very nice idea.”
This was discouraging. But the more Winona thought it over, the more it seemed to her that she must be getting a pony. A printing press wouldn’t be a surprise. A big doll wouldn’t be a surprise. A red silk dress wouldn’t be a surprise. It must be a pony!
She tried to hide her joyful excitement. A surprise ought to be a surprise! She said, “Excuse me?” and burst out of the dining room and played with Toodles, singing loudly, “Won’t you come home, Bill Bailey?” until her mother asked her please to stop singing that vulgar song.