Bell's Star

by Alison Hart

  In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law was enacted by the United States government. This law stated that no citizen in any state could help runaway slaves. People who protected runaways risked punishment. Slave hunters and bounty hunters roamed Vermont and other Northern states searching for runaways.

  Despite the law, whites and free blacks continued to help slaves find their way to Canada. Vermont borders Canada, so the state was one route to freedom. St. Albans, Vermont, is about thirteen miles from the border.

  Many runaway slaves like Eliza and her parents settled in Canada. They worked hard to build homes and outbuildings, clear ground for farming, and obtain cows, pigs, and horses. By 1850, the town of Dawn, Ontario, home to five hundred black settlers, had a sawmill, a rope factory, and a brickyard.

  Independence, Missouri,

  Early Spring, 1846

  On that quiet spring morning, there was nothing but green grass and sun and the smell of my mama. I nuzzled her and she moved closer, so I could have more of her warm, sweet milk. There was so much I didn't know yet, so much that she promised to show me. But I had already found out scores of things on my own. I was just three days old, but I bet I knew more than lots of older horses. I knew that the small white fur-balls on the hillside that Mama called sheep didn't care at all about playing. They didn't care even if I pranced up to them and said, Come on, let's play. And they sure didn't want to race. There were other things on that hillside that looked kind of like sheep. But they didn't move at all, and that's how I learned they were rocks.

  Rocks just sit in one place all day long, year after year, my mama said, just soaking up sun and snow, which comes later.

  But rocks didn't move at all, even when I nudged one with my nose. I was awful glad that I wasn't born a rock.

  My mama told me, and then told me again, that I was much too curious. She told me I had to watch out and not get too bold. But she was gentle when she said these things. I knew she liked my spirit, and I told her that I liked my spirit, too. My mama whinnied when I told her that. Then she told me to lie down and rest because we had a long day ahead. We were heading back to the herd, she said. She'd gone off alone for a time, away from the herd, once she knew that I was about to be born. She wanted me all to herself for a while, and I understood that. Like I told my mama, I was learning a whole lot of things already.

  Still, why rest when the sun was up and shining, and the wind was blowing like anything? So just for fun, I went zooming around the hillside, my mane flying in the wind. I felt the sun, warm on my back. My legs had been all wobbly for the first day or so, but not now. Now, they felt like they were attached to me real good. They moved me along so fast I was even leaping around at times. And then I saw something new.

  It was small, sort of round, with prickly things on it. And it wasn't moving. Well, how could anything not move on a day like this?

  I nosed up to it.

  No, it wasn't a rock. Then why hold so still? It had pointing kinds of things sticking out all over its body. It seemed to be looking at me. Even now, young as I was, I knew that rocks didn't look at you. I placed my nose down close.

  And then, like the wind itself had roared up to my side, suddenly my mama was there. Her body seemed to swell, filling the air beside me. I could feel the heat of her nearness. Her eyes were wild, her ears laid back.

  Foolish colt! she said. Come away! Now.

  She shoved her shoulder into me, almost making me fall to the ground. I backed away.

  Follow me. Come! she said.

  And she turned tail, flying back up the hillside toward the trees where we had been. I liked this race, and I ran on ahead. But my mama caught up and passed me. She stopped short, so short that I couldn't stop. I bumped her big side. Then I tumbled back a bit. I stumbled over a rock, and then I was lying on the ground. I looked up at her, surprised. I got my long legs back under me and untangled myself and stood up. But one leg ached. When I looked down, I saw a thin stream of blood running down my flank.

  Was this some kind of game? I didn't like it.

  No, it wasn't a game. I had not seen my mama like this before, but I knew what it was. She was very angry.

  She lowered her head and looked in my eyes. That was a porcupine. It could prick those quills right into your face. They would hurt worse than that fall you just took.

  Oh.

  My pride was wounded, so I looked away. It doesn't hurt much, I said.

  Never mind hurt! my mama said, still angry-like. Those quills get in your face and you would swell all up. You wouldn't be able to eat. To nurse. You'd starve to death.

  Well, I knew enough by now to know that I had just been born, and I sure liked it here. And I knew that death wouldn't be what I'd want for a real long time.

  I hung my head, real ashamed-like. I guess I did have a lot to learn.

  Curious is good, my mama said, and now she sounded not as angry. Foolish is not!

  Yes, Mama.

  She seemed to relent some because she whinnied at me, telling me to look up. I did, and looked high in the sky. There were birds flying all about, wild black ones, and one that soared and swooped low. Mama said the soaring one was an eagle. I wondered what it would be like to be born an eagle, to have wings instead of legs and hooves. Then we saw an ugly-faced one that kept swooping down to look at something on the hillside.

  My mama got quiet when that big bird swooped by, and she didn't say anything about it, but I could tell that she didn't like it much. I nudged myself closer, and Mama nudged me back.

  What, Mama? I asked her.

  A buzzard, my mama answered. They're mean old birds. Come only when something is dead or dying.

  And then, because my mama was a little quiet, and I knew I had frightened her with that porcupine, and maybe she was thinking that buzzard would come for me if I was dead, well, I decided maybe she needed me to rest right close by her side for a while.

  I closed my eyes and lay down, my legs stretched out. The sun was warm, and so many things whirled around inside my head. My mama was nearby. She liked my spirit. And soon we would go back and meet the herd. Mama said most of the herd horses were like us, quarter horses. That meant we could run very, very fast, the fastest quarter mile that any horse on earth could run. Well, I knew that. I knew I was the fastest horse already. I flicked my ears a little bit when I slept, just to let Mama know I was still there with her, maybe dreaming some. And then she was nudging me.

  Time to get up, my little colt.

  Well, she didn't have to tell me twice.

  I was up and ready to go, wanting so much to go back to those other horses Mama had told me about. She told me then what the others would call me. I had been given a name already. Koda, it was. She said that it had a special meaning, but she wouldn't tell me what it was. She said I would find out, but not yet.

  About the Author

  Alison Hart has been horse-crazy ever since she can remember. A teacher and author, she has written more than twenty books for children, most of them about horses. She loves to write about the past, when horses like Bell's Star were valuable in everyday life. Her novel Shadow Horse was nominated for an Edgar Award. Today Ms. Hart still rides, because—you guessed it— she's still horse-crazy!

  About the Illustrator

  Ruth Sanderson grew up with a love for horses. She drew them constantly, and her first oil painting at age fourteen was a horse portrait.

  Ruth has illustrated and retold many fairy tales and likes to feature horses in them whenever possible. Her book about a magical horse, The Golden Mare, the Firebird, and the Magic Ring, won the Texas Bluebonnet Award in 2003. She illustrated the first Black Stallion paperback covers and has illustrated a number of chapter book horse stories, most recently Summer Pony and Winter Pony by Jean Slaughter Doty.

  Ruth and her daughter have two horses, an Appaloosa named Thor and a quarter horse named Gabriel. She lives with her family in Massachusetts.

  To find out more about her adventures with horses and the
research she did to create the illustrations in this book, visit her Web site, www.ruthsanderson.com.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2009 by Alison Hart

  Illustrations copyright © 2009 by Ruth Sanderson

  All rights reserved.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hart, Alison.

  Bell's Star / by Alison Hart; illustrated by Ruth Sanderson. — 1st ed.

  p. cm. — (Horse diaries; #2)

  Summary: In the Vermont spring of 1853, Bell's Star, a Morgan horse, and his

  owner Katie rescue a runaway slave and try to outwit the slave catchers in order

  to help her to freedom.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89254-7

  1. Morgan horse—Juvenile fiction. [1. Morgan horse—Fiction. 2. Horses—

  Fiction. 3. Fugitive slaves—Fiction. 4. Slavery—Fiction. 5. Vermont—History—

  19th century—Fiction.] I. Sanderson, Ruth, ill. II. Title.

  PZ10.3.H247Be 2009 [Fic]—dc22 2007049698

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