The Snow Pony

by Anne Eliot Crompton

  “Now to get up.” Mr. Flower struggles. I reach a hand to him. He slaps it away. My hand doesn’t hurt, but my feelings do. I stand and watch him fight his way up.

  He rests a hand on Pearl’s rump and moves behind him. There he pauses and says, “Janet, when you go behind Pearl, touch him. Let him know you’re there. If you startle him, he’ll kick.”

  In the shed window, Posy yawns. A bearded, horned head pushes out beside him. Rosy, the old white goat, watches us with narrow yellow eyes.

  Mr. Flower crouches beside me, trimmers ready. Pearl jerks his head restlessly. “Hold his foot up, Janet. Like that. Now he can’t move, see.”

  Pearl can’t move because he’s off-balance, and so am I. “We’ll be through in a minute now.” I hope so!

  Slow, steady crunch. Out comes the knife. Scrape, scrape.

  Mr. Flower says, “When the apple tree blooms, Arthur will come.”

  Off-balance and bowed over, I peer up at the apple tree. Falling snow mounds up on its bare, twisted buds. I suppose they will bloom in the spring, but that’s hard to imagine right now.

  Mr. Flower says, “Pearl will be different by then. Arthur will rejoice to see him! He’ll have his summer coat, short and shiny. And he’ll be tame.” That’s even harder to imagine.

  Mr. Flower clambers up, claps a hand to his back. “Oof!”

  I let go of Pearl. He shakes his head and backs as far as the crossties will stretch. He and Mr. Flower look at each other. Pearl looks angry, Mr. Flower looks thoughtful. Snow falls like cotton balls on Pearl’s mane and Mr. Flower’s beard.

  “Well,” Mr. Flower says, “that’s a job done. We’ve commenced.” And he unclips Pearl’s crossties.

  Pearl bares his teeth at us. Then he whirls and trots away to the fence. From there he watches us suspiciously.

  “We’ve got a way to go, Janet, before the apple tree blooms!”

  I’ll say!

  6

  I wake early in the cold dark. A dream sticks to me.

  After a quick trip down to the bathroom I huddle back under my quilt and draw the dream.

  A dog, a German shepherd, stands on two legs. Ears perk, tongue lolls, eyes gleam. (Erase, draw, erase.) She leans far forward, almost off-balance, looking down at something. Oh, she’s got teeth. Sharp teeth. She wears a coat, pants, boots.

  Next to him, a cat stands on two legs. A kittenish cat. Pink bow behind the ears, pink dress, high heels. Higher heels. Aha. She smiles, and she’s got teeth. And whiskers. She leans way over like the dog, looking down. Studying something.

  Facing them, a bunny on two legs. She leans forward and studies like the others. One ear flops up, the other down. Gum balloons out of her grin. Her huge tent of a coat touches her boot tops.

  And here in the middle, what they all study and gawk at … a hand, palm down, fingers spread, shows off the Ring.

  It covers the whole middle finger and reaches up half the hand. Red, red, red. Yellow rays and blue rays shoot off from it to touch the three quivering, eager noses.

  This is one crazy drawing. The gleam in Dog’s eye is good, and so is Cat’s smile. I like Bunny’s lifelike ears, and I’m very proud of the hand. I guess I’ll save it for those good bits. But the whole picture—Dog, Cat, Bunny, and Ring—is nuts. What can you expect if you draw a dream?

  7

  Mr. Flower says, “Commence at the top. Work the currycomb back and down.”

  He starts on Pearl’s neck. “Not his face, see. Nor his lower legs. Currycomb’s too harsh.” Mr. Flower combs in circles. Dust and dirt fly, drift, and fall out of Pearl’s ragged coat.

  Crosstied to the shed wall, Pearl paws the snow. His left eye gleams at me, bright with wicked thoughts. He would love to bite!

  In the shed window, Posy Cat grooms himself.

  Rosy Goat bounds about the yard. I never saw Rosy when I used to walk by, because she stayed in the shed. She hates wet and mess. But now in springlike sunshine she leaps up and down on her rock pile. I never noticed the rock pile either. Thought it was just drifted snow. But Mr. Flower built it for Rosy to hop on, sharpen her hoofs, play Queen of the Castle.

  He also hung the tire in the apple tree for Rosy. Now she attacks it. She dances around on her hind legs and butts it.

  Mr. Flower says, “You do his shoulder,” and hands me the currycomb.

  I stand back out of reach of Pearl’s eager teeth and take a deep breath. What with all this dirt flying, I won’t want to breathe again for a while. I begin to comb.

  Pearl sighs and shifts his weight. Suddenly, he relaxes. “Look at that!” says Mr. Flower. “He likes what you do for him. Pretty soon he’ll like you, too.”

  That will take a while. But I feel myself almost liking Pearl. I like helping him look and feel better. His new trustful relaxation warms my heart.

  The snow under us is turning brown.

  Mr. Flower says, “Your mom stops in to say hi now and then.”

  “She does!”

  “Doesn’t seem my idea of a schoolteacher.”

  “Well, she teaches shop.”

  “I never went in much for school, or teachers. See, it was like this.…”

  Pearl’s ears perk back and forth. He thinks Mr. Flower is talking to him.

  “I was bright enough. I could read and write and reckon. But to graduate, you had to recite a poem, Decoration Day.

  “They hung daisy chains all over the room, and put flowers around on desks, and asked the folks in. The school was just the one room then.”

  “One room?”

  “Correct. You know the town office building next to the post office?”

  I nod. It’s a one-room affair. Jackie and I went there to look up papers when we bought our house.

  “That was the school. No plumbing, neither.”

  “Holy trout, what did you have?”

  “Two outhouses, behind lilac bushes. So anyhow, we had to recite, in front of everybody. A poem, or the Gettysburg Address, or ‘When in the course of human events.’ So. There you have it. I’ll take over.”

  Mr. Flower begins to comb on Pearl’s right side.

  I think I’ve missed something. “What do you mean, Mr. Flower?”

  “Well. How would you like to recite a poem to a room full of everybody’s folks?”

  I prickle and blush at the thought! “What did you recite?”

  “Didn’t. I knew the poem. I know it to this day. It commenced,

  “‘I wandered lonely as a cloud

  That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

  When all at once I saw a crowd,

  A host of golden daffodils.’

  “You know the one.”

  “Sounds pretty.” But I don’t know it.

  “It’s Wordsworth. English poet.” Mr. Flower stops combing. He looks at me over Pearl’s shoulder, through a dust cloud.

  “Could you stand under an American flag and a daisy chain all by yourself and recite that to the minister’s wife, and your great-aunt Mildred who thinks you’re lacking”—he touches his forehead—“and Mrs. Winterfield in a silk dress, and all your neighbors, and your mom’s clenching her fists in her lap, she’s so scared you’ll forget? Could you recite, Janet Stone?”

  I blush and prickle. “I don’t know. What did you do?”

  “Walked out.”

  “Walking out would scare me more than reciting!”

  “I was scared. But I couldn’t recite.”

  “But then you didn’t graduate!”

  “Correct. Never did. I walked out of that school and went fishing. Sometimes I think I’ve been fishing ever since.”

  8

  Friday at recess, Marigold says, “Cliff says SHE works for Mr. Flower!”

  The Court groans. “Mr. Flower?” “Mr. Hermit?” “Mr. Weirdo?” And they all draw away from me as if I smell.

  Marigold pokes her snub nose at the sky and says, “Cliff says SHE helps him with that fleabag sway-backed old pony he got at the auction.” The Court murm
urs and shakes its head.

  I don’t know how Marigold’s Cliff knows anything about me, and right now I don’t care. I won’t have old Pearl insulted like this! I say right out, “He’s not so bad. He just needs some cleaning up and feeding.”

  Marigold stares at me. “Who?” she asks. “Who needs cleaning and feeding—Mr. Flower or his pony?” The Court explodes laughing.

  Tough Jessie barks, “Why didn’t he hire you, Marigold? At least you know something about horses!”

  Marigold twirls her Friendship Ring on her finger. It sparkles in winter sunlight. “Probably knew I had better things doing,” she says.

  Tunie pops gum. She jerks her head at me. “She know anything about horses?”

  Marigold shrugs.

  I button my mouth and stare at Tunie. There’s no point trying to talk to these Winterfield kids.

  “Anyway,” Cute Irene purrs, “where did you and Cliff go this time?”

  Marigold starts a new story about Cliff at a bowling alley. I don’t even pretend to listen. I wander off kicking slush, missing Maria.

  I pretend she’s slushing alongside me in her brother’s old boots. If I pretend hard enough I can almost feel her friendly warmth.

  “Girl!” she says. “That Marigold kid is wild! I’d like to, you know, straighten her hair for her.”

  “Oh, Maria, I wish you could! I wish I could see you, or write you a letter.”

  “So write.”

  “I sent you a card last Christmas. It came back. You never got it.”

  “Oh, right! We moved.”

  I stop kicking slush. I stand still by the fence and look down at the slush and think: Maria will never write and tell me where she is. Maria doesn’t write letters, or draw pictures, or fuss anyhow with paper. I’m the one who does that.

  I think: I’ve really lost Maria for good.

  9

  “Janet Stone! Don’t you never, ever wrap that lead around your wrist!”

  I’m trying to lead Pearl around the yard through lazy snow showers. He keeps stopping to snatch at tufts of dead grass, or to nuzzle his side, or toss his head. I’m supposed to persuade him along, without ever letting on that he’s stronger than I am.

  Keeping to his left, I hold the lead close up to his chin with my right hand. I should hold the slack in my left hand, but it’s easier to wrap it around my wrist.

  Mr. Flower limps over to us on the run. He catches us as we turn at the fenced-in raspberry patch, and snatches the slack off my wrist. “That’s how I lost my fingers,” he says.

  “What!”

  “I’ve told you before, this here Pearl is a strong little fellow. If he took off sudden he could drag you to kingdom come before you got that lead off your wrist.”

  “Your fingers?”

  Mr. Flower yanks off his left mitten and shows me his hand. It’s a hard, skinny old hand, gnarled like the apple tree. The second and third fingers are stumps. Mr. Flower pulls his patched mitten back on.

  “Lead him around the fence. Away from you. Always push, never pull. You want your toes squashed?” Pearl’s small hoofs are heavy.

  I nudge Pearl’s chin, say, “Tl tl,” and we’re off. Mr. Flower trudges along with us, around the raspberries and behind the shed. He says, “That was neatly done.”

  “Seems like it’s getting easier.”

  “You and Pearl are getting accustomed.”

  Well, that’s true. We’re not exactly friends yet, but we’re not enemies either. Pearl no longer glares at me suspiciously. I don’t worry so much about him biting. Now I wonder if Mr. Flower will bite if I ask him what I’m dying to ask.

  “Mr. Flower,” I ask softly, cautiously, “what happened with your fingers?”

  “Accident.”

  I didn’t think he did it on purpose! But Mr. Flower and I are getting accustomed. Sometimes, like Pearl, he needs to be persuaded along.

  “An accident with a horse?”

  “Ox.”

  “Ox!”

  “Back then, see, the farmers mostly worked horses or oxen. No tractors. Roly LeDuc had a beautiful matched Jersey ox team, Bill and Bob. How that pair stepped out together! Didn’t need gas like a tractor, or oil neither. Bill and Bob won blue ribbons every Cummington Fair.”

  “But Mr. Flower, your hand!”

  “Let a man tell a story, Janet. Well, I worked for LeDuc. You know the LeDuc farm?”

  I shake my head.

  “Corner of Indian Hill and Southampton Road. Now it’s all houses. Back then it was pasture, mowings, sugar brush.

  “I worked there twenty years. Drove the vegetables down to Northampton, sold ’em door to door. Stop him here.”

  Mr. Flower stops. I pull back on Pearl’s lead and holy trout, he stops, dead in his tracks! Mr. Flower pats his neck.

  “Mr. Flower, you were saying…”

  “I cut firewood all winter. And come sugar time, I sugared. Sugared all day, all night, while the sap flowed. Drove Bill and Bob from tree to tree up and down that hill, lifting sap pails.”

  It doesn’t matter that I don’t know what he’s talking about. On with the story!

  “Well, you get tired like that. You get so you don’t know what you’re up to. That’s why I wrapped the reins around my fingers.

  “It was dawn, snow dusting down like now. I did the last tree and we started downhill to the sugarhouse. I was hungry. I thought about the sandwich in my pocket. I wrapped the reins around those two fingers and reached for the sandwich, and Bill stumbled.

  “He hit a hole or rock, something under the snow. He stumbled and went down, and Bob lunged ahead. And the reins ripped my fingers out. That’s what happened.”

  My fingers hurt.

  “OK, Janet. Take him over to the apple tree.”

  I lead Pearl toward the tree. Mr. Flower keeps pace with us.

  “You know, it’s near sugar time now. I’ll commence when the crows call, maybe next week. You can help.”

  “Me? I don’t know how.” In fact, I don’t know what we’re talking about.

  “To hear you talk, you don’t know much! Come on, Janet. You don’t want me to hire that smart Marigold Stass next door!”

  Holy trout, no! “I’ll do it, Mr. Flower.”

  10

  Saturday morning, sunshine streams in our kitchen windows. I’m drawing at the table, pretending I don’t hear Jackie bustling about in the broom closet.

  I draw a boy sitting on a bank. His back is turned. He holds a fishing pole, a … sapling, with little branches. A line leads from its tip down to the water, which we don’t see. (Water is hard to draw.)

  The boy’s head is bent. Beside him I draw a straw hat. Long ago, boys wore hats like this. I’ve seen them in books.

  Jackie rattles in, a pail in each hand. She glances at my picture. Without comment, she fills the pails at the sink.

  A leafy apple tree leans over the boy. Beside him I draw a … cat. He sits with his back to me, ears alert, tail twitching. He’s a white cat, but I smudge him with penciled shadows. I smudge the boy, too, and the tree trunk. This is OK.

  Jackie pulls two chairs up to the wall and sets the full pails between them. She goes back to the broom closet.

  Quickly, tongue in my teeth, I draw a white goat. She rears up to nibble the tree. I give her horns, a flowing beard, and a full-to-bursting milk bag, I mean udder. I smudge her with shadows. This is OK.

  Jackie looks over my shoulder again. “Good,” she says. “Old-fashioned.”

  “That’s because of the straw hat.”

  “Right. Takes us back fifty years! Here’s your sponge, Jannie.”

  Jackie takes the long-handled mop. We climb on our chairs and attack the dirty wall. It does not clean easily.

  Jackie asks, “Why the straw hat? Why fifty years ago?”

  “I guess because … it’s Mr. Flower.”

  “Aha! The hermit’s been telling you his childhood?”

  “Yes, he has. Did you know, Jackie, he never finished sch
ool?”

  I tell her about “I wandered lonely as a cloud” and young Russ Flower fishing.

  “Aha,” she says, more softly. She lays her swinging braid back over her shoulder. “Hm. Never graduated. Never could get a good job. Maybe that’s why he’s got a hot-poker temper.”

  “Hot-poker temper? Mr. Flower?” I’m surprised.

  “Kids talk about him in shop. They call him the Mad Hermit of Winterfield. But Jannie, you know how kids talk! Probably not a word of truth in it.”

  Mop and sponge swish together. Water and detergent drip. Jackie says, “Catch your drips, Jannie, or we’ll be looking at streaks till fall cleaning.” She means, “Or we’ll have to do this job over again.” Jackie would never, ever leave streaks on the wall till fall cleaning!

  Thoughtfully she adds, “You just stay outdoors at Mr. Flower’s so you can take off fast.”

  “If he turns into a werewolf?”

  “Or the Mad Hermit of Winterfield.”

  11

  Mr. Flower says, “Pearl’s ready to ride.”

  I stop just inside the gate. “I don’t know if I’m ready to ride!”

  “Look at him! Tame as Posy!”

  Pearl ambles up to let me pat his neck and blow in his nose. Purring Posy twines about our feet. Rosy comes bounding and pushes her head into Mr. Flower’s hands. He rubs her ears.

  Pearl doesn’t bite now. He looks almost pretty. His thinning coat has a silver sheen. His mane and tail lift softly on the almost-spring breeze. He mumbles to me as though he likes me.

  But I like my boots planted firmly in snow, not dangling in air! I say, “I’m not sure I’m ready to ride yet, Mr. Flower.”

  “Three fifty an hour, Janet.” That’s the deal. Mr. Flower pays, I ride.

  A very old bridle swings from the apple tree. Mr. Flower hands it to me. “I cut this down from one my dad used. See, it’s all greased and soft. Take off your gloves and warm the bit in your hands. Pearl don’t want cold steel in his mouth.”

  I clasp the cold bit in my hands. “How long since he’s been ridden?” Has he forgotten what he’s supposed to do?