Paul’s laugh of wonderment broke the spell. “Say! He’s somethin’! A fiery little horse colt!”
At sound of Paul’s voice, the foal took fright and shied so sharply that all four of his feet were off the earth at once. Then he high-tailed it up the beach.
“He’s sassy for one so little,” Maureen laughed. “How long do you reckon he’s been alone?”
“Not long. His mamma ’pears too old to stand the running yesterday. She’s got an F branded on her hip—belongs to the fire company.”
“What’ll we do, Paul?”
“Don’t know. I’m a-thinkin’.”
“Let’s take him back and bottle-feed him.”
“ ’Course we’ll take him back! But how do we rope him without a rope? How do we round him up without a horse? And even should we catch him, how do we hold him in the boat? He’ll be lively as a jumpin’ bean.”
Maureen was fumbling in her mind for an idea.
“We got to gentle him quick,” Paul said.
“Grandpa says nothing takes the wildness out of a creature like sea water.”
“That’s it, Maureen! That’s it! We’ll drive him into the channel. Then we’ll swim out and tow him in.”
Their eyes fastened on the colt, Paul and Maureen worked off their boots. “You stay on this side of him,” Paul whispered excitedly. “I’ll circle wide around on the other side. Then we’ll close in and drive him into the sea.”
The foal’s gaze followed Paul as the boy went around him in a wide arc. Now the three creatures were forming the three points of a triangle, the colt at the tip and Paul and Maureen back at equal distances on either side.
Paul stopped, took a deep breath. Then like any roundup man, he gave the signal. His wild screeching whoop tore jagged holes in the morning. Quicker than an echo came Maureen’s cry. They both charged the foal, arms waving and voices shouting at the top of their lungs.
The wild creature stood frozen an instant. Then he became a whirling dervish, spinning around and around in an ever-smalling circle. The roaring humans were coming at him from both sides, closer and closer. With a gallopy little gait he headed out into the water.
Splashing after him, yelling at him, Paul and Maureen drove him out beyond his depth.
“He can swim!” gasped Maureen. “Look at him go!”
For a few brief seconds the baby colt headed out into the deep. Paul and Maureen watched his tiny pricked ears and the ripple he stirred, making a little V in the water. Suddenly the ears drooped.
“Oh, Paul! He’s done in!”
With long strokes the boy and the girl were swimming toward the foal. He was no longer a wild thing, skittering away from them, no longer a brave little horse colt pointing his nose to the sky. He was a frightened baby, struggling to keep from being sucked under. He wanted to be rescued. Exhausted with thrashing and kicking, he let the human creatures swim near. The girl’s hand touched him, held his nose out of water. The boy took a firm hold of his forelock. It was thus that the three of them came swimming back to shore.
“Maureen!” Paul spoke jerkily to get his breath. “I’ll hold Lonesome. You get our boots.”
Still holding the tiny forelock, he shook the water out of his own ears. The foal shook his head too, fiercely, as if he could match anything Paul did. Paul laughed at him, and strangely enough the colt let out a funny little laugh too, until Tom’s Cove was a jubilant echo of human and horse laughs.
Now Paul placed his arms under the foal’s belly and lifted him into the boat.
Maureen stood dripping wet, watching. “Don’t call him Lonesome,” she said. “That’s too sad of a name. Let’s call him Sea Star.”
Paul seemed to be talking to himself as he took Maureen’s rubber boots and pillowed the colt’s head on them. “Why, that name’s exactly right,” he said. He burst out laughing again. “An hour ago we didn’t want to look at a pony. Now this orphan has wound himself around us just the way sea stars wind themselves around oysters.”
“Oysters!” clucked Maureen. “We plumb forgot them.”
“Grandma won’t mind,” Paul said. “Or will she?”
“ ’Course not. She’ll say a new-borned colt without any mamma is a heap more important. But the ladies of the Auxiliary will mind; they’re counting on Grandma’s oysters.”
Paul found an old gunny sack in the boat and began drying off the foal. “Tell you what, Maureen. We’ll take turns watching Sea Star. You can watch him first, while I fill my basket. Then it’ll be my turn to watch. Besides, the tide’s slacking. Soon the oyster rocks’ll ebb bare. Oysters’ll be thick as pebbles. In no time we can fill our baskets.”
The little colt’s sides were heaving as he lay in the bottom of the boat. Maureen knelt beside him, two wet creatures side by side. “You’re all done in,” she whispered as she combed his mane with her fingers. “Why, your mane’s nothing but ringlets. It’s curly as your tail—even though it’s drenched.” She laid her head alongside his. “I can hear your breathing,” she said. “It sounds like the organ at church before the music comes out. I kind of feel like I’m in church. The blue sky for a dome. White lamb clouds.” She leaned over and traced the star on his forehead. “My, how you’ll miss your mamma!”
As if he understood, the little fellow bleated. He scrambled to his feet. When the boat swayed, he tried to plant his legs far apart like a sailor’s. Then his knees buckled and he was lying on Maureen’s boots once more.
In the distance Maureen could see Paul scrambling over the rocks, picking up oysters, quickly throwing them into his basket. Now he was running back, his basket full.
“It’s my turn to watch Sea Star,” he called out.
Maureen put on Paul’s wet boots. They were too big, but she did not mind. She sloshed along in them, singing at the top of her voice.
“Periwinkle, periwinkle,
Come blow your horn;
I’ll give you a gold ring
For a barrel of corn.”
Paul sat on the edge of the boat, fondling the colt with his eyes. Occasionally he looked out toward Maureen gathering oysters. But he did not really see her. He was busy in his mind, thinking of the firemen’s brand on the mare, thinking of the ten dollars he had won in the bronco-busting contest. He was buying the biggest nursing bottle they had in the store uptown. He was buying milk. He was giving Misty’s stall to Sea Star. He was . . .
“Whee-ee-ee-ee-n-n-n!” Sea Star was drying out. He was hungry. He was crying his hunger to the whole wide world.
Maureen came running back. “My basket’s almost full,” she panted. “Let’s get a-going. Sea Star’s got to eat.”
Chapter 11
THE LITTLE TYKE
WHEN GRANDMA BEEBE looked out the kitchen window, she dropped the egg whisk in her hand and did not bother to pick it up, even though it was making little rivers of egg yolk on her clean swept floor.
She rushed out the door and stood on the stoop. Her mouth made an “O” in her face as she watched the strange threesome turning in at the gate. Paul and Maureen looked to her as if they had been swimming with their clothes on. And wobbling along behind them on a lead rope made of vine was a tiny brown colt.
“We picked your oysters, Grandma,” called Paul.
“And we covered ’em all over with seaweed so they’d stay cool,” Maureen said, waving a piece of the seaweed.
Grandma did not seem interested in the oysters. She was looking right over their heads, clear over to Assateague, up to the place where the pine trees met the sky. “The burden is all rolled away,” she said quite plainly.
Paul and Maureen caught each other’s eye in surprise. They had half expected Grandma to look upon Sea Star as another burden. Instead, she seemed glad to see him! She was coming down the steps now, lightly as a girl.
“You been so long gone, children,” she said, “I been beset by worriments. Now I know.” Her face broadened into a smile. “You found a lone colt. Ain’t he beautiful with that white star shinin
g plumb in the center of his forehead?”
“We had to drive him into the sea afore we could catch him,” Maureen told her.
“Land sakes!” laughed Grandma. “You not only catched him, you gentled him! Here, hand me those baskets. I’ll shuck my oysters while you make the little tyke comfortable.”
She took the baskets and disappeared into the house.
Paul carefully lifted Sea Star and carried him into Misty’s stall.
“He’s so tired,” Maureen said, “he’s not even whiffing around to get acquainted.”
It was so. Sea Star did not poke his nose into the manger nor smell the old dried cob of corn at his feet. He just stood, rocking unsteadily.
Paul was bursting with things to be done. “I’ll get fresh water, Maureen, and some of Grandpa’s Arab feed mixture, and a bundle of marsh grass. You get milk from the ice chest, and see if Grandma’s got a nursing bottle.”
Long legs ran excitedly in opposite directions.
“No,” Grandma pursed her lips thoughtfully in answer to Maureen’s question. “Yours was the last nursing bottle we had need for. I sent it away in the mission barrel.”
Maureen waved her arms in despair.
“But that’s no never mind,” Grandma said quickly. “I got a bottle of bluing here. We’ll just rinse that out good, and we’ll cut a finger off my white kid gloves for a nipple.”
“Oh, Grandma! Not your beautiful gloves Uncle Ralph sent you on Mother’s Day?”
“The very ones. I don’t wear gloves, anyway, only on a funeral or a wedding. It’s lots more important that orphan colt gets some good warm milk inside him. He’s all tuckered out.”
“He’s spunky,” Maureen said. “He ran away from us quick as scat.”
“You put some milk to heat and stir in a little molasses,” Grandma said. “Between whiles I’ll make as fine a nursing bottle as ever money would buy.”
A truck rattled into the lane and ground to a stop. Grandpa Beebe’s booted feet came clumping up the steps and his voice carried ahead of him:
“Oh, they’re wild and woolly and full of fleas
And never been curried below the knees . . . ”
“Ida!” he bellowed through the screen door, “the ladies is askin’ when ye’re comin’. Ain’t ye ready?”
Suddenly he caught sight of the bottle. “What in tunket ye two doin’? Don’t tell me another grandchild’s been left to our doorstep!”
“Why, that’s exactly what happened,” laughed Maureen. She took Grandpa’s hand and pulled him down the steps. “Come quick, Grandpa! My sakes, you’re harder to lead than a new-borned colt. Quick, Grandpa! Paul and me—we got the wonderfulest surprise for you.”
Grandpa let himself be pulled across the barnyard and into the corral and up to Misty’s stall. Then he stopped dead. For a long time he just stood there staring from under his eyebrows as if he had never seen a newborn colt before.
A rapt smile slowly spread over his face. “I’m a billy noodle!” he said softly. “As purty a horse colt as I ever see.”
“Ain’t he young?” asked Maureen.
Grandpa clapped his hands on his hips and grinned. “That he is! Carries hisself in nice shape, too, fer one so young.”
Paul explained. “He belongs to the fire company. His mare was layin’ on her broadside, right on the beach at Tom’s Cove, Grandpa. Looked to be an old mare, white hairs growing around her eyes. We got ten dollars. Grandpa, and I—we, that is—you reckon the fire company will let the colt go?”
“Dunno, childern,” Grandpa answered. “That’s not what’s important now. What’s fust to my mind is, can anybody keep him? ’Tain’t easy to raise up a baby colt without any mamma. Will he eat fer ye? Here, let me try that grass, Paul.”
Gently Grandpa placed a few wisps in the colt’s mouth. He tried working Sea Star’s muzzle. “Go on, li’l shaver,” he coaxed. “Start a-grindin’ with yer baby teeth. First thisaway, then thataway. ’Tain’t half so dry when ye get to chawin’ on it. And it’s got a delicate salt flavor. Yer ancestors thought it was right smart good. Whyn’t you jes’ keep a-tryin’?”
The kitchen door squeaked open and Grandma’s voice called out, “Maur—een! Your milk’s warm.”
“Coming, Grandma.”
Grandpa stopped Maureen with his hand. His clasp was so firm that the fingers left white bands when he took them away. “Maureen, no!” he ordered. “I oncet raised up a colt on a bottle. ’Twas a horse colt, too, just like this one. And by-’n-by I couldn’t poke my nose outen the door but what he’d come gallopin’ at me, puttin’ his hard little hooves on my shoulders, askin’ fer his bottle.”
“I think that would be cute,” Maureen said.
“It was cute,” Grandpa admitted, “that is, at first it was. I’d laugh at him and play with him, and like as not go back in and warm up some milk fer him and put ’lasses in to make it taste mighty nice.
“But,” Grandpa’s voice grew stern, “when that colt was comin’ on six month, ’twasn’t cute any more. He got too sniptious for anything, and he growed so strong that when he put his hooves up to my chest ’twas like bein’ flayed by a windmill. Why, if I didn’t have something to give him he got ornery. Dreadful ornery. He’d nip and bite and have a reg’lar tantrum.” Grandpa sighed. “Never could do a thing with that colt. Had to sell him up to Mount Airy to a dealer who wished he’d never clapped eyes on him.”
Maureen said wistfully, “It would have been such fun to feed him, and poor Grandma’s cut a finger off her new gloves and fixed up a nice bottle for him.”
“Well, you tell yer Grandma ter just sew that finger right back on! We ain’t goin’ to have no spoiled brat-of-a-colt around here. Our colts got to be nice and good.”
Paul bit his knuckle, trying to keep back the hot words.
“We’re starving him, Grandpa. He’ll die!”
“Shucks, Paul, we ain’t even give him a chance. He’ll be eatin’ gusty-like afore sundown. Now here’s what we’ll do. I’ll make a mash outa our Arab mix and leave it in the stall fer him, and he’s got this nice salty grass, and a good bed to lie on, and the sea wind fluffin’ up his mane.”
Grandpa picked up the bucket with the Arab feed mixture in it. “Come,” he urged, “you jest snuck away and let him be all by hisself fer a little while. Like as not he’ll lay down and have a real refreshin’ sleep, and when he wakes up he’ll begin mouthin’ things and find ’em good! He’ll forget he’s a baby and get all growed up in a hurry. I’ve seed it happen time and time again.”
“Does it always happen that way?” Maureen asked.
Grandpa grew tongue-tied. He stood, absently riffling the Arab mixture between his fingers. “Most always, child,” he said at last. “Now it’s gettin’ on fer dinnertime and I got to take yer Grandma to the Dining Hall. The ladies is a-waitin’.” He turned to go. Then came back. “Hurry and change yer wet duds or folks’ll think I grandsired a couple mush-rats. Then ye can ride over to the dinner on Watch Eyes and Trinket. We’ll leave the little shaver be. By the way, what’s his name?”
“Sea Star,” said both children at once.
As they closed the stall door, Sea Star sent a high little whinny out after them.
“Ain’t that cute?” chuckled Grandpa. “He’s a-whinnerin’ fer ye already. My, but he’ll be glad to see ye when ye come back. Ye’re goin’ to have a high-mettled horse colt there,” he added.
“That is, pervided the fire chief is agreeable to yer deal.”
Chapter 12
RISKY DOIN’S
THE SMELL of good things floated out of the Dining Hall—oysters and clams frying, dumplings simmering in vegetable juices, chickens and sweet potatoes roasting. The steaming vapors ran like wisps of smoke past the noses of the people waiting in line. The line moved slowly, like a snake trying to wriggle into a hole too small for it. Paul and Maureen and Grandpa were part of the line. As it crept forward, Grandpa tried to make talk.
“Paul! Maureen! Stop yer w
orritin’ and snuff up!” his voice rolled out strong. “Get a whiff of what I calls perfume. Don’t it make ye feel like a coon-hound hot on a scent?”
The boy and the girl did not need to answer. People all around them were following Grandpa’s advice—inhaling the teasing odors in quick little sniffs, laughing and agreeing with him.
Grandma’s friend, Mrs. Tilley, stood at the door taking tickets. She greeted the Beebes warmly when they finally reached the entrance. “You three set up to this table right by the door. It’ll be cooler and you can see the visitors come in hungry and go out full as punkins.”
The Dining Hall was a big, low-ceilinged building with an endless number of long tables, covered with the white paper Maureen had tacked on them. But now the white was almost hidden by great serving dishes of golden oyster fritters and clam fritters and crisp chicken and dumpling puffs and bowls of brown bubbling gravy.
Talk seesawed back and forth from one table to another. Home folks from the island and strangers from the mainland were visiting like old friends. They all seemed to be laughing, throwing their heads back, showing strong teeth like colts, or teeth crowned with gold, or toothless gums, but all laughing.
Always, each Pony Penning time, it was the same. People on all sides of them laughing and making fun. But each year for Paul and Maureen there was a colt nagging at their thoughts, stealing their appetites.
A little white-haired man whose cheek pouch was bulging like a chipmunk’s leaned across the table to Paul. “I’ll trouble you to pass me the chicken and dumplings, Bub.” He waggled his head toward the kitchen. “If they’re figuring eight pieces and four people to a hen like they useter do,” he piped in a thin voice, “I’m goin’ to discombobolate their figuring.”
Paul passed the chicken and dumplings.
Grandpa tried to lower his voice. “Childern,” he smiled in understanding, “jest ’cause somebody ter home is off his feed ’tain’t no reason why ye should be off yers. Now let’s us dig right in, and when we’ve slicked our plates clean so’s Grandma and the other ladies kin tell we liked their cooking, then we’ll hunt up the fire chief and ask him right out plain whether he don’t think Sea Star was sent straightaway from heaven to take Misty’s place.”