“Why is it?”
“Because,” Paul replied, gripping the rib bone in his hand, “because I’m old enough to go with the roundup men this year. That’s why. And if there is such a filly, I’m going to get her, and on Pony Penning Day she’ll be in the corral with the others.”
“For sale?”
“No, I’ll tie a rope around her neck to show she’s already sold. To me. To us,” he added hastily, thinking of the cost of her. “She’ll sell for around a hundred dollars, maybe.”
“Oh, Paul! Let me help.”
“All right, I will. How much money can you earn between now and Pony Penning Day?”
Maureen drew a quick breath. “I can earn as much as any boy. I can rake clams and gather oysters, and I can catch soft-shell crabs, and if Grandma doesn’t need me, I suppose I could clean out people’s chicken houses. I won’t mind the work if ever we could keep a pony for our very own.”
A little silence fell between them as they lay on their stomachs in the sand, their eyes fastened on the herd.
“I reckon we’d better keep our plans to ourselves,” Paul spoke at last. “Then, if we don’t get her—”
“Then nobody can poke fingers at us and laugh,” finished Maureen. “Paul . . .”
“Hmm?”
“Why does everyone in school think we’re lucky to live on Grandpa’s pony ranch? Why is it?”
Paul was busy with thoughts of the Phantom.
“Do you reckon,” Maureen went on, remembering to keep her voice low, “do you reckon it’s because their families are watermen instead of horsemen?”
“Maybe.”
“Or is it because Papa and Mama are in China and they think grandparents aren’t as strict as parents?”
Paul was in a dream. He was capturing the mysterious wild mare. He was listening to Maureen with only half his mind.
“I reckon it’s the ponies,” he said at last. “But what fun is it to gentle a wild colt and just when he learns that you’re his friend, Grandpa sells him and you never see him again?”
“I can’t abide it either,” said Maureen; “but there’s something hurts worse.”
“What?”
“It’s when the colts are sold, right out from under their mothers. I get sick inside watching it.”
“That’s because you’re a girl.”
Suddenly Paul leaped to his feet. “Look!” he cried as a red streak broke from the herd and went crashing into the woods. “It’s the Phantom! I saw the white map on her withers. I did. I did!”
For a full minute the pony was lost among the pines. Then out she came heading toward the White Hills. Behind her whipped the Pied Piper, and his ringing cry was a command.
“Run, Maureen! Run! He’s a killer.”
The boy and his sister flew down the hill, stumbling over dried brush and blackberry vines. As they reached the beach, they turned back and watched, breathless. Pied Piper was overtaking the Phantom. He was running alongside her. Now he was twisting into the air, lacing her with his forefeet. They could hear the dull pounding of his hooves against her body. Then they saw the Phantom turn. They saw the droop of her tail as she gave up her dash for freedom and meekly followed the stallion into the woods.
Long seconds after they were gone, the air seemed to quiver with the Pied Piper’s bugle.
“I hate him!” cried Maureen, bursting into tears. “I hate him! I hate him!”
“Quit acting like a girl, Maureen! Pied Piper knows she’s better off with the band. Even the Phantom knows it. Grandpa says horses got to stick together for protection. Same as people.”
Chapter 4
SACRED BONES
HALL-OO-OO!” came a voice down the beach. The boy and the girl turned to see Grandpa Beebe swinging toward them, his gnarled arms upraised like a wind-twisted tree.
“Paul!” he boomed. “Put down that bone. Put it down, I tell ye!”
Paul had forgotten all about the curved piece of wood. Now he noticed that he was clenching it so tightly it left a white streak in the palm of his hand. He dropped it quickly as Grandpa came up.
“How often do I got to tell you that bones is sacred? Even ship’s bones.”
“Is it true, Grandpa?” asked Paul.
“Be what true?” Grandpa repeated, pulling off his battered felt hat and letting the wind toss his hair.
“About the Spanish galleon being wrecked . . .”
“And the ponies swimming ashore?” added Maureen.
Grandpa Beebe squinted at the sun. “It’s nigh onto noontide,” he said, “and your Grandma is having sixteen head to dinner tomorrow. We got to get back home to Chincoteague right smart quick! I promised to kill some turkeys for her.” He sighed heavily. “Seems as if the devil is allus sittin’ crosslegged of me.”
But he made no move to go. Instead, he squatted down on the beach, muttering, “Don’t see why she’s got to parboil ’em today.” Then he took off his boots and socks and dug his toes in the sand, like fiddler crabs scuttling for home.
“Feels good, don’t it?” he said, with a grin. He looked from Paul to Maureen and back again. “Yer know,” he went on, and he began to rub the bristles of his ear, as he always did when he was happy. “Yer know, the best thing about havin’ fourteen head of children is ye’re bound to get one or two good grandchildren outen the lot.”
“Grandpa!” reminded Paul. “Is it true about the Spanish galleon and the ponies? Or is it a legend like the folks over on the mainland say?”
“’Course it’s true!” replied Grandpa, with a little show of irritation. “All the wild herds on Assateague be descendants of a bunch of Spanish hosses. They wasn’t wild to begin with, mind ye. They just went wild with their freedom.”
Maureen did a quick little leap, like a colt bucking.
“Then it’s not a legend?” she rejoiced. “It’s not a legend!”
“Who said ’twasn’t a legend?” Grandpa exclaimed. “’Course it’s a legend. But legends be the only stories as is true!”
He stopped to find the right words. “Facts are fine, fer as they go,” he said, “but they’re like water bugs skittering atop the water. Legends, now—they go deep down and bring up the heart of a story.” Here Grandpa shoved his hand into the pocket of his overalls and produced a long stick of licorice and a plug of tobacco. With a pair of wire clippers he divided the licorice in half and gave a piece to Maureen and one to Paul. Then he cut himself a quid of tobacco.
There was a little silence while the old man and the boy and the girl thought about the shipwrecked ponies.
Then, almost in the same breath, Paul and Maureen blurted out together: “Who discovered ’em?”
Grandpa spat out to sea. “Why, I heard tell ’twas the Indians chanced on ’em first. They comes over to hunt on Assateague, and ’twasn’t only deer and otter and beaver they finds. They finds these wild ponies pawin’ the air and snortin’ through their noses, and they ain’t never seed no critters like that, blowin’ steam and screamin’ and their tails and manes a-flyin’. And the Indians was so affrighted they run for their canoes.”
Grandpa Beebe began rubbing both ears in his excitement.
“Then what, Grandpa?”
“Why, the ponies was left to run wilder and wilder. Nobody lived here to hinder ’em none, nobody at all. White men come to live on our Chincoteague Island, but Assateague was left to the critters.”
Grandpa reached for one of his socks, then broke out in sudden laughter. “Ho! Ho! Ho!” he bellowed.
Paul and Maureen looked all around them. “What’s so funny, Grandpa?” they asked.
Grandpa was slapping his thigh, rocking back and forth. “I jes’ now thought of somethin’ right smart cute,” he chuckled, when he could get his breath. “Y’see, lots of folks like to call theirselves descendants of the First Families of Virginia. They kinda makes a high-falutin’ club outen it and labels it F.F.V. But you know what?” Here Grandpa’s eyes twinkled like the sea with the sun blazing on it.
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“What?” chorused Paul and Maureen.
“The real first families of Virginia was the ponies! Ho-ho-ho! That’s what my history book says!”
“Whee! Grandpa!” exclaimed Paul. “I like the way you talk about history.”
Grandpa winked in agreement. “Nothin’ so exciting as tag ends pulled right outen the core of the past.”
“Did the first white men tame the ponies?” asked Maureen.
“No indeedy. Them first white men had no use fer the wild, thrashin’ ponies. A slow-going pair o’ oxen could do all the plowin’ for bread corn and sech. Guess mebbe it was Bob Watson’s boy of Chincoteague who fust tried to put a wild pony to plow. She was a dead ringer for the Phantom, too. But that was a long time agone.”
Paul’s heart turned a somersault.
“What happened to her, Grandpa? Did she gentle?”
“Did she gentle! Why, she jes’ broke the singletree as if ’twas a matchstick, cleared the fence, and blew to her island home with the reins a-stringin’ out behind her.”
“Oh!”
“Some of ’em you jest can’t gentle. Not after they’ve lived wild. Only the youngsters is worth botherin’ about, so far as the gentlin’ goes. Recommember that!”
Paul and Maureen looked at each other. They were thinking of their secret plan to own the Phantom.
Grandpa Beebe began putting on his socks and shoes. “Likely the game warden is done checkin’ up on the wild birds. I promised to meet him at Tom’s Cove afore the tide ebbs bare. But,” he added, as he pulled on his boots, “I know my tides, and I’ll give ye time for one more question.”
Maureen looked to Paul. “You ask, Paul.”
Paul jumped to his feet. How could he ask just one question when dozens popped into his mind? He began picking up fiddler crabs furiously, as if that would help him think. Finally he turned to Grandpa.
“It’s about Pony Penning Day,” he blurted out. “How did it start?”
It was plain to see that Grandpa Beebe liked the question. He began rubbing the bristles of one ear and then the other. “’Twas this-a-way,” he said. “In the yesterdays, when their corn was laid by, folks on Chincoteague got to yearnin’ fer a big hollerday. So they sails over to Assateague and rounds up all the wild ponies. ’Twas big sport.”
“Like hunting buffalo or deer?” asked Paul.
“’Zactly like that! Only they didn’t kill the ponies; just rounded ’em up for the fun of the chase. Then they cut out a few of the younglings to gentle, tried some ropin’ and rough ridin’ of the wild ones, et a big dinner of out-door pot pie, and comes on back home to Chincoteague. By-’n-by, they adds somethin’ to the fun. They swum the ponies acrost the channel to Chincoteague and put on a big show. ’Twas so excitin’, folks come from as far as New York to see it. And afore we knowed it, we was sellin’ off some of the colts to the mainlanders.”
“Why did they sell the wild things?” asked Maureen.
“Why!” echoed Grandpa. “Why, ponies was overrunnin’ Assateague. They was gettin’ thick as raisins in a pie!”
“That thick, Grandpa?” asked Maureen, her eyes rounded.
“Wal, maybe not that thick,” grinned Grandpa.
“Don’t keep interrupting Grandpa!” exclaimed Paul.
“Today it’s jest the same,” Grandpa said slowly. “Along toward the tail end of July, when the ponies is done with fightin’ and foalin’ and the watermen is tired of plantin’ oysters, then we all get to hankerin’ for a celebration. So the menfolk round up the ponies, the womenfolk bake meat pot pie, and there ye are! Only now, outside a few hossmen like me, the fire department owns most of the wild ponies. And a good thing it is for Chincoteague.”
“Why is it?”
“’Cause all the money they make from sellin’ ’em goes into our fire-fightin’ apparatus.”
Grandpa Beebe rose stiffly. “Come on, you two, I hain’t got time to school ye. That’s what me and Grandma pays taxes for. Besides, we been a-settin’ here so long the sand is liable to drift up over us and make another white clift outen us. It’s time we was gettin’ back home to Chincoteague, and Grandma’s turkeys.”
Chapter 5
A PIECE OF WIND AND SKY
APRIL, May, June, July! Only four months until Pony Penning Day. Only four months to plan and work for the Phantom.
Suddenly Time was important.
“We got to lay a course and hold it,” said Paul, as he whisked over the fence that same afternoon and began studying the ponies in Grandpa Beebe’s corral.
Maureen slipped between the rails and caught up with him. “Quit talking like a waterman, Paul. Talk like a horseman so I can understand you.”
“All right, I will. Grandpa’s got eleven mares here. Six of ’em have a colt apiece, and the black and the chestnut each have a yearling and a suckling. Between now and July, how many colts do you reckon Grandpa will sell?”
“Probably all of ’em—except the sucklings, of course.”
“That’s what I figure! Now if we could halter-break the colts and teach ’em some manners, folks’d pay more for them, wouldn’t they?”
“I reckon.”
“All right!” exclaimed Paul as he sailed back over the fence. “Maybe Grandpa will pay us the difference.”
• • •
That night at the supper table Paul looked up over his plate of roast oysters and caught Grandma’s eye.
“Grandma,” he questioned, “do you like a mannerly colt?’
Grandma Beebe’s face was round as a holly berry and soft little whiskers grew about her mouth, like the feelers of a very young colt. She pursed her lips now, wondering if there were some catch to Paul’s question.
“Paul means,” explained Maureen, “if you came here to Pony Ranch to buy a colt, would you choose one that was gentled or would you choose a wild one?”
Grandpa clucked. “Can’t you jes’ see yer Grandma crow-hoppin’ along on a wild colt!”
“Thar’s yer answer,” laughed Grandma, as she cut golden squares of cornbread. “I’d take the mannerly colt.”
Paul swallowed a plump oyster, almost choking in his haste. “Would you,” he gulped, “that is, would you be willing to pay out more money for it, Grandma?”
“Wa-al, that depends,” mused Grandma, passing the breadboard around, “that depends on how much more.”
“Would you pay ten dollars more?”
“If he was nice and mannerly, I would. Yes, I would.”
“See there, Grandpa!” The words came out in a rush. “If Maureen and I was to halter-break the colts, could we—” He stopped, and then stammered, “Could we have the ten extra dollars for each colt sold?”
So dead a silence fell over the table that the drip-drip of the kitchen faucet sounded like hammer strokes.
Grandpa slowly buttered his bread and then glanced about the table.
“Pass your Grandpa the goody, Maureen.”
All eyes watched Grandpa spread a layer of wild blackberry jam on top of the butter. Then he added another square of cornbread to make a sandwich. Not until he had tasted and approved did he turn to Paul.
“What fer?” he barked.
Paul and Maureen stared at their plates.
“Must be a secret, Clarence,” Grandma pleaded.
Grandpa swept a few crumbs into his hand and began stacking his own dishes. “I ain’t never pried a secret outa no one,” he said. “And I don’t aim to start pokin’ and pryin’ now. It’s a deal, children, and ye don’t need to tell me whut the money’s fer until ye’re ready to spend it.”
Paul and Maureen flew to Grandpa and hugged him. For a moment they forgot that they were almost grown up.
The days and weeks that followed were not half long enough. Up at dawn, working with the colts, haltering them, teaching them to lead and to stand tied! Going to school regretfully and hurrying home as soon as it was out!
Now when a buyer came to look at the colts, Maureen did not run to her room as sh
e used to do, pressing her face in the feather bed to stifle her sobs. Nor did Paul swing up on one of Grandpa’s ponies and gallop down the hard point of land to keep from crying. Now they actually led the colts out to the buyers to show how gentle they were. They even helped load them onto waiting trucks. All the while they kept thinking that soon they would have a pony of their own, never to be sold. Not for any price.
April and May passed. School closed.
Paul and Maureen worked furiously for the Phantom. They caught and sold crabs. They gathered oysters when the tide went out and laid the oyster rocks bare. And most exciting of all, they “treaded for clams.” In flannel moccasins to protect their feet, and wide-brimmed hats on their heads, they plunged into Chincoteague Bay. Sometimes they would whinny and snort, pretending they were wild ponies escaping the flies. Then suddenly they would feel the thin edge of a clam with their feet and remember that they were clam treaders, trying to earn money for the Phantom.
Paul learned how to burrow under the sand with his toes and lift the clam to the surface on the top of his moccasined foot. But try as she would, Maureen never could do it. She raked the clams instead, with a long wooden rake. Then she dumped them into a home-made basket formed by spreading a piece of canvas inside an old inner tube. She kept it from floating out to sea by tying it to her waist with a rope.
Slowly, week by week, Grandpa’s old tobacco pouch in which they stored their money began to round out, until it held exactly one hundred dollars. It never occurred to Paul and Maureen that the Phantom might escape the roundup men this year, too. They felt as certain of owning her as if someone had sent them a telegram that read,
SHIPPING YOUR PONY ON PONY PENNING DAY=
One early morning, when July was coming in, Paul cornered Grandpa hustling across the barnyard. He stepped right into Grandpa’s path so that he had to stop short.
“Grandpa!” Paul burst out. “Will you rent me one of your empty stalls beginning with Pony Penning Day? I’ll do a man’s work to pay for it.”