“Grandpa says it’s all right!” Paul told Maureen. “Phantom doesn’t ever need to know a metal bit.”
“Not ever?” asked Maureen.
“Not ever!” repeated Grandpa as he wielded the razor in an expert manner. “I reckon she’ll be happier without ever knowing.”
Chapter 15
THE FIRE CHIEF PAYS A CALL
THERE WAS no question about Misty’s happiness. She pranced around the ponies that came and went as if she knew that they were temporary guests, while she, Misty, was one of the family. This was her home.
When she playfully nipped the older ponies, they would lay back their ears until they saw who it was. Then they would whinny as much as to say, “It was only Misty.”
She could be wild as a hare or gentle as a lamb. When the days grew brisk she would gallumph across the hard marsh, then suddenly she would stop stock-still, letting a gull light on her back while her nostrils quivered with excitement.
“Do you reckon Phantom is happy, too?” Maureen asked one day when the winter wind blew raw and cold.
“’Course she’s happy,” replied Paul. “Did you see me ride her down to the point before breakfast? She was neighing for joy. Her hooves hardly touched the earth.”
“Oh, I know she’s happy then, but . . .”
“But what?”
“Well, sometimes I see her leaning out over the fence—not yearning for the grass on the other side of it, but just looking away toward the White Hills and the sea.”
“And is there something . . .?” Paul asked after a little thought. “Is there something far away about her?”
“That’s what I mean, Paul.”
“I’ve noticed it, too,” Paul admitted. “Sometimes when you can see the wild ponies frisking along Assateague Beach, she seems to be watching them. And it’s kind of sad—like the time you wanted the doll with real hair at the carnival and you won the pencil box instead.”
Maureen blushed. “Now that I’m grown up, I’ve almost forgotten about the doll. And Phantom’ll forget her young days, too.”
“Sure she will. We’ll race her every day. She’s happy then.”
There was no doubt about it. The Phantom was wild with happiness when she raced. She showed it in the arching of her neck, in the upward pluming of her tail, in the flaring of her nostrils. Paul or Maureen had only to close their legs in on her sides to make her surge forward. Then she would skim the earth like the gulls she knew so well.
With the passing days the island folk began to notice her speed.
“Reckon Black Comet’s going to have a little competition next Pony Penning,” some said, wagging their heads wisely.
Others sneezed at the idea. “Phantom’s got too much wildness in her,” they said. “She’s just as liable to jump the fence as run around the track. You can’t depend on them wild ones.”
Over in Pocomoke there was talk of the Phantom, too. In the schoolyards, across dinner tables, in the barber shops—everywhere the Phantom’s name could be heard.
“She’s built for speed,” one mainlander admitted, “but I still favor Black Comet. He’s used to the crowds. He knows how to snug along the fence. He knows how to save his power for the home stretch.”
Spring came early to the little sea island. By the first week in April, myrtle bushes were covered over with a yellow fuzz and pine trees wore light-green finger tips to show another year’s growth.
Phantom seemed to grow more restless as the season advanced. When Paul and Maureen came home from school they sometimes found her pacing around and around the corral, her head lowered. Other times she stood leaning far out over the fence, and there was a wild, sad look about her.
“Maybe she’s looking for us,” Maureen would say hopefully.
“Maybe!” nodded Paul.
One late afternoon toward the end of April the fire chief paid a surprise call.
“We ’spected you was coming!” exclaimed Grandma, her round face beaming. “See? Maureen’s got a place all laid for ye.”
The fire chief smiled. “One—two—three—four—five,” he counted the blue-and-white plates around the kitchen table. Then he sniffed the ham baking, and he saw the heaping mound of oysters rolled in eggs and cracker meal and fried a golden brown. He moistened his lips.
“I’m staying!” he said.
There was not much talk while Grandma cut slivers of pink ham, dished up the oysters, and ladled hot gravy over the dumplings. And there was even less while everyone ate his fill.
At last the fire chief pushed his plate aside and lighted his pipe. “I’ve really come to see the owners of the Phantom,” he said between puffs. “Wonder if they’d be interested in . . .”
At exactly that moment the fire chief’s pipe went out and he had to stop in the middle of what he had to say. Slowly he found a match and relit it.
Paul’s and Maureen’s eyes were fixed on the chief’s. They leaned forward on the very edge of their chairs.
“Wonder if they’d be interested in . . .” he stopped to puff and puff.
“Yes?” questioned Paul quickly.
“In racing the Phantom against Black Comet.”
Paul’s eyes caught Maureen’s. Then their faces broke into a grin.
“Ho-ho-ho,” chortled Grandpa. “I don’t know who the joke’s on. But these two been expectin’ to race Phantom ever since last Pony Pennin’.”
“Even before that,” Maureen said gleefully. “Why, that morning over on Assateague when we first saw the Phantom, we talked about it even then.”
Paul blushed. “Guess we just took it for granted you’d ask us.”
The fire chief laughed heartily. “Well, now it’s settled for sure,” he said as he stood up to go. “Lucy Lee can’t run this year. She’ll be having a new colt along about then, And Patches has been sold to a dealer. So it’ll be the Phantom against Black Comet and Delbert’s chestnut filly, Firefly.”
“And may the best hoss win!” prayed Grandpa as he nervously fingered the bristles of his ear.
Chapter 16
THE PULLY BONE
THE NEXT three months were filled with excitement for Phantom and her owners. Paul and Maureen were conditioning her for the big race. They fed her more liberally on grain. They rode her three miles each day, starting off at a slow jog, then trotting her, then asking for a burst of speed midway of the ride, then slowly jogging her back home again.
It was the early morning when the world was all red and gold with the rising sun that Paul and Maureen chose for Phantom’s training period. They would take turns riding her—across the tundra-like beach, hard packed after a rain; up and down Main Street, where her hooves sounded like sea shells pinging against the pavement; over trails carpeted with pine needles, where she made no sound at all.
They rode her out to the pony penning grounds, getting her used to the feel of the track and the sight of the white fence.
Before long the Phantom came to be a familiar and glorious sight. Her fame grew and spread. Now, on pleasant Sundays, visitors from the mainland began coming to see her.
Misty grew jealous of the attentions her mother was getting. She would nose in, trying to nip the buttons from the men’s coats or the flowers on the ladies’ hats. One time she lifted a hat all covered over with roses and dropped it in the water barrel.
This brought Grandpa Beebe running with a handful of gunnysacks. He pretended to be angry as he rescued the dripping hat and tried to dry it off with the sacks. “Paul and Maureen!” he would shout in his thunderous voice. “Hain’t you never going to drive any sense into that Misty’s head? She’ll grow up thinkin’ she’s a baby all her days. Never seed a critter so mettlesome!”
• • •
As July came in and Pony Penning Day drew near, something, came between Paul and Maureen. If Paul worked around the barnyard, Maureen made some excuse to go off down to the oyster boats to see if the men had brought up any sea stars in their oyster tongs. And if Maureen worked at home for
Grandpa or Grandma, Paul went off treading clams for Kim Horsepepper or catching sea horses.
“What’s the matter ’twixt Paul and Maureen?” Grandma asked Grandpa one night after the house was still.
“I don’t know fer sure, mind ye, but I suspicion it’s about the race,” Grandpa replied.
“Why, I thought ’twas all settled. Hain’t the Phantom goin’ to run?”
“A-course. But the catch is—who’s to ride her?”
“They both hankering to ride?” questioned Grandma.
“That’s my guess,” Grandpa nodded.
Finally, on the Monday morning before Pony Penning, Grandma asked the question right out. She and Maureen were hanging up clothes at the time, while Paul, perched on top of a chicken coop, was silently whittling a pole into a clothes prop.
“Which of ye,” Grandma said, as she removed a clothespin from her mouth, “which of ye will ride Phantom in the big race?”
A long silence was the only answer.
“Well! Well!” said Grandma brightly. “If ye won’t state yer rathers, I got a fine idea.”
Still no answer. Maureen shook the creases out of a tablecloth as if her life depended on it. Paul kept on whittling furiously.
Just then Grandpa Beebe came by. He glanced around sharply. “Why’s everyone so hushed?” he asked. “Except fer the flappin’ of the clothes I’d think ’twas Sunday meetin’-time.”
“Why, I just asked who’s to ride Phantom come Pony Penning Day,” replied Grandma, hanging her clothespin bag on the line and looking from one to the other.
“Oh,” and Grandpa strung the little word out until it seemed to have springs in it. He dropped the posthole digger he was carrying and toed it with his boots.
Seconds went by.
“If I wasn’t in my seventy-three,” he shook his finger, “if I wasn’t in my seventy-three going on my seventy-four, I’d settle the hull matter and ride her myself.”
Grandma straightened up from the clothesbasket.
“Clarence!” she said, speaking loud enough so her voice would reach Paul. “Seems like somethin’ told me to save the pully bone from that marsh hen. It’s hangin’ above the almanac in the kitchen.”
Grandpa slapped his thigh. “Nothin’ could be fairer than a pully bone!” he exclaimed. “The one that breaks off the biggest part gits to ride.”
“I’ll fetch it,” Maureen called over her shoulder as she disappeared into the kitchen. She came out holding one end of the wishbone very gingerly, as though it might break off in her hand.
“Now then!” Grandpa cleared his throat nervously.
Grandma picked up the empty clothesbasket, then set it down again in the very same spot.
“Now then,” Grandpa repeated, “stop that gol-durn whittlin’ and step up, Paul.”
Paul’s legs seemed as wobbly as a colt’s. He came forward very slowly, and his hand shook as he grasped the other end of the wishbone with his thumb and forefinger.
“Squinch yer eyes tight,” Grandma directed. “Make yer wish. And when I count three, pull!”
Paul and Maureen each took a long, deep breath as they clutched the tiny wishbone that was to decide their fate.
“One,” Grandma counted slowly. “Two it is—and three!”
With a slight cracking noise, the wishbone broke. The larger half was in Paul’s hand.
He gave a whistle of joy. Then his face sobered as he caught sight of Maureen, who was burying her half of the wishbone in the sandy soil. She looked up, trying to cover her feelings with a little smile.
“You won, Paul,” she said, blinking. “You’ll ride her better anyhow.”
Chapter 17
WINGS ON HER FEET
THE LAST Wednesday in July dawned hot and still. Another Pony Penning Day had come!
By sunup the causeway between the mainland and Chincoteague was choked with traffic—trucks, station wagons, jeeps, cars of every description, bringing visitors to the island. They watched excitedly as the wild ponies swam ashore after the roundup. They lined the streets to see the procession to the pens; they cheered the bronco busters. But even after these events were over, the crowds kept on coming. For this year the big event was the race. Phantom was running! A wild sea horse against the sleek, well-trained Black Comet, winner for three years.
Toward evening a light wind came up, whisking sheep clouds before it. The sun was a huge red balloon hovering over the bay as Paul and Maureen, riding double on Phantom, turned into the pony penning grounds.
Maureen slid to her feet, and before she could whisper a word of encouragement into the Phantom’s ear she was caught like a fly in a web. Her schoolmates, her uncles and aunts—everyone wanted to be with her during the race. They felt sorry for her because she was not riding. They seemed to wrap themselves about her until she could hardly breathe. Oh, how she longed to be by herself! Then she could race with Paul and the Phantom! Only by being alone could she be Paul and Phantom both.
It was the voice over the loud speaker that came to her rescue. “Tonight, ladies and gentlemen!” the voice blared. “Tonight Black Comet from Pocomoke races against Firefly and the Phantom.”
Everyone began running toward the track. Maureen slipped away from her friends and lost herself in the crowds. She wedged her way into a small opening between strangers and soon she was standing at the rails, her stomach against a fence post. She heard strange voices all about her. But now there was no need to listen to them. They were as unimportant as the little insect voices of the night.
She drew a deep breath as the names of the three entries were announced again.
“There comes Black Comet!” the cry went up on all sides. “There he is!”
She saw Black Comet amble out on the track, aloof and black as night. He seemed bored with the entire business. Maureen would not have been surprised to see him yawn.
Now Firefly, a tall, rangy mare, pranced nervously to the starting post. Maureen’s eyes passed over her lightly, then lingered on the Phantom who was parading to the post with dignity in her manner. She seemed unaware of the crowds, as if for her they did not exist. Her head was uplifted, her nose testing the winds, her body trembling. She could not understand the delay. She snuffed the wind hungrily. The wind was calling her, yet Paul was holding her back.
At last the signal was given. A roar went up from the crowd.
“They’re off!”
“Black Comet at the rail,” came the clipped voice over the loud speaker, “Phantom on the outside. But it’s Firefly who’s taking the lead!”
From then on no one could hear the announcer for all the yelling. The changeable crowds were calling, “Firefly! Firefly!”
Firefly held the lead the first quarter, then Black Comet shot forward and pulled out in front.
Maureen dug her fingernails into the fence rail. “Phantom!” she prayed. “Oh, Phantom! Get a-going! It’s a race.”
But the Phantom was not running a race. She was enjoying herself. She was a piece of thistledown borne by the wind, moving through space in wild abandon. She was coming up, not to pass Firefly and Black Comet, but for the joy of flying. Her legs went like music. She was sweeping past Firefly now. She was less than a length behind Black Comet.
The people climbed up on the fence rails in a frenzy of excitement.
“Come on, Black Comet!” screamed the crowds from Pocomoke. “Come on!”
“Gee-up, Phantom!” cried the island folk.
Maureen was no longer an onlooker. She was the Phantom winging around the curve, her nostrils fire-red in the dying sun. She was Paul, leaning forward in a kind of wild glory.
She was drawing close to Black Comet. Now she was even. She was sailing ahead. She was over the finish line. She was winner by a length!
The crowds grew hysterical. “It’s Phantom! Phantom! She won!” But there was no stopping the Phantom! She was flying on around the track.
The voice over the loud speaker was laughing. “Only once around,” it was
saying. “Only once around.” Paul pulled back on the wickie and spoke softly in Phantom’s ear. Gradually he brought her to a stop.
Maureen was laughing and crying too. The crowds pushed past her, dived between the rails, flocked around the Phantom. They yelled and thumped one another on the back as the judge handed Paul a purse.
Paul felt of its bulging contents. Then his eyes swept the crowds.
“Here—here I am!” cried Maureen.
Every eye turned to see whom Paul wanted. When they discovered Maureen, standing on the top rail of the fence like a bird on a twig, friends and strangers, too, clapped and cheered. In an instant Paul was riding through the little opening they had made. With the fence as a mounting block, Maureen swung up behind Paul.
The island folk went mad with happiness.
“Hoo-ray for Paul and Maureen!”
“Hoo-ray for the Phantom!” they rejoiced.
But Paul and Maureen found only one face in all that sea of faces and heard only one voice in all that blur of noise. It was Grandpa Beebe’s. “Git home,” he bellowed. “Tell Grandma.”
All the way home Paul talked to the Phantom. “Do you know,” he murmured, “do you know you won twelve whole dollars? And we’re going to spend it all on you?”
“We could buy her red plumes, and ribbons to braid in her mane,” suggested Maureen.
Paul leaned far forward to get as close as he could to Phantom’s ear. “We could buy you shiny brass and leather trappings,” he said. “You could be handsomer than any horse in the king’s guard.”
The Phantom let out a long whinny into the deepening twilight.
Paul laughed and laughed. “Want to know what she said?”
“What’d she say, Paul?”
“She said, ‘Buy that toaster for Grandma and Grandpa. As for me,’ she said, ‘all I want is wings on my feet!’”