Apparently that was Mr. Essig’s idea of running in to tell Ethel.
“Hey, little fella, where’d you come from?” Mr. Essig had caught sight of Tootie, who had been hiding behind me and Joss. Tootie is shy with new people.
“This is my friend Tootie Simms,” Joss said. She gave him a little push, and he said, “Hi,” to Mr. Essig.
Mrs. Essig came out on the porch. She had a new hairdo. Not only that, her hair was a brand-new color. When the sun hit the surface of Mrs. Essig’s coiffure, the light was blinding.
“Your hair looks beautiful,” Joss said.
Mrs. Essig patted the swirls and curls and smiled.
“My girl friend Sheila did it for me. She works down at the La Mode beauty salon. She’s very creative. I like to get my hair fixed before I go up to see my folks. Come on in and have a cup of coffee. Haven’t seen you all in ages.”
“Ethel!” Mr. Essig bellowed. “We’ve got a birthday girl here. It’s the little one’s birthday today, and we promised to get Prince over pronto.”
Mrs. Essig’s eye lit upon Tootie. “I didn’t know you had a little brother,” she said. “Isn’t he cute!” She made a move toward him. I think she was going to kiss him. That really would’ve finished Tootie off for the day. Not only was she a stranger but a lady stranger about to put the moves on him. He hid behind me and hung on to my belt.
“He’s just a friend,” I explained. “He came with us to arrange about vanning Prince over.”
I guess she got the message because she said, “All of you come and sit down. I’ve got a fresh pot on the stove.”
Joss was inside and sitting down in a flash.
“Pot of what?” Tootie said in a hoarse voice.
“Coffee,” I said, dragging him in with me. “Your kitchen is very homey,” I told Mrs. Essig. It was sunny and clean and smelled good.
“You think he’s too young?” Mrs. Essig asked, the pot poised in front of Tootie, who remained speechless.
I don’t think he’d probably ever had coffee. Certainly not the kind Mrs. Essig brewed.
“He can have a little of mine,” I said.
“Which birthday is this?” Mrs. Essig said, putting the carton of milk on the table. She hardly ever sat down, I noticed. Mostly she circled the table, making sure everyone had what they wanted. She was a good hostess.
“I’m eleven,” Joss said.
“Eleven,” she said. “I remember clear as day when I was eleven. My brother Mike and his girl friend took me to Sherwood Island for the day. We had soda and cooked hot dogs and played soft ball. Afterwards they took me to the movies. Mike bought two bags of popcorn, one for them and one just for me.” She smiled, remembering. “Wait a sec,” she said and went into her bedroom. We heard her opening drawers. Tootie took a sip of my coffee which had plenty of milk and sugar in it. He made a face. I could tell he wanted to spit the coffee out, but I wouldn’t let him. “Swallow it!” I hissed, and he did, although he looked a bit shaky.
“Just a little something for you,” Mrs. Essig said. She handed Joss a box wrapped in silver paper.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Joss said, her face getting pink.
“I wanted to,” Mrs. Essig said.
“It’s beautiful,” Joss said, opening the package. Mrs. Essig had given her a round pin with a horse inside. “I love it.” She pinned it on her front. “Thank you,” she said and kissed Mrs. Essig on the cheek.
“It’s nothing.” Mrs. Essig beamed. “I just happened to have it laying around, and I thought you might like it. Some more?” She lifted the coffeepot.
“We’ve got to go,” I said, giving Joss a warning look. I could tell she was settling in for a long visit. She also is the type of person who finds it difficult to get up and say good-bye. I myself think there’s nothing more tiresome than people who say they have to go and then stay around for another half hour. “We’ve got stuff to do at home.”
We said good-bye and thank you and went out to see when Mr. Essig would bring Prince over.
“I can’t promise right away,” he said. “All’s I can say is it’ll be before nighttime.”
“If you’d only given him half the money and told him you’d give him the other half when he got to our house, I bet he would’ve brought Prince over in a flash,” I told Joss as we rode home.
“Race you up the hill,” she said. I turned around to check on Tootie. He was huffing and puffing. “Race yourself, you eleven-year-old,” I said. “I’ll wait for you-know-who.” But Joss was already halfway up Comstock Hill, her skinny legs pumping like mad, her hair flying. It was her day.
“When is he coming?” Joss asked for the thousandth time. She’d been pacing the entire afternoon. When she wasn’t pacing, she was rushing to see what time it was.
“Call him up,” I said. “Maybe he’s forgotten.”
“He wouldn’t,” Joss said, looking tragic.
She came away from the phone, beaming. “Mrs. Essig says he’s on his way. She said he left about fifteen minutes ago. He should be here any time now.”
We went out to wait. A bunch of kids were collected down the street, waiting. They knew Prince was being delivered today. The older ones made fun.
“Oh, it’s a big deal all right,” they said in their special tone of voice, which said they had better things to do than wait around for a rented horse to show up. “Joss is renting a horse. I don’t know, I think she said thirty dollars a week. Imagine spending that much money just so’s you have a horse in your back yard!”
The little ones did cartwheels and stood on their heads when they weren’t darting back and forth, shouting, “I think he’s coming!”
I saw Alice Mayberry and Tess Tipler on the fringe of the crowd. They were a year older than I was and had just graduated from the eighth grade. They bought identical white shoes to wear to the prom. I understand they wanted to wear identical dresses too, but Mrs. Mayberry put her foot down. Tess was stout. She was going to be an opera star. At the drop of a hat, she’d fold her hands across her stomach and belt out “Oh, Star of Evening.” Alice sang Madame Butterfly and did gymnastic dancing at the same time. They were a couple of stars.
After a lot of false alarms, Mr. Essig’s van came into sight. Joss stood at the top of our driveway directing Mr. Essig on exactly how he should back down. We could see Prince’s head peering out.
“He knows he’s in a strange place,” Joss said. “It’ll take him a while to get used to it.”
“Can I have a ride, Joss? Can I? Please, Joss, let me have a ride. Will he bite? Let me feed him. Nice old Prince, nice horsie.”
The voices rose and fell like moths in the twilight. When Prince was installed in our nice neat garage, Mr. Essig drove off.
“I’ll be back for him next Saturday,” he said before he went. “Don’t forget to water him every day. And don’t work him too hard. He ain’t as young as he used to be.”
Prince no sooner took a look around to get his bearings than he lifted his tail and went to the bathroom on our clean floor. Naturally that brought down the house.
I could hear Jim Schneider’s guffaw above everybody else’s. He had the kind of laugh that always sounded as if he’d heard a dirty joke. The Jim Schneiders of this world give me a royal pain.
Alice and Tess went on whispering behind their hands. They are that kind of girl. I think if their hands were tied behind their backs, they wouldn’t be able to talk at all, they’d be so inhibited.
Tootie got quite bold. After all, he was used to horses. He went right up to Prince, proffering a lump of sugar on his outstretched palm.
Tootie’s older brother Harry shouted in a gruff voice, “Back off, baby, he might attack.” But Tootie stood his ground. He reached up and casually patted Prince’s nose. I was delighted. Harry was the main Tootie tormenter in the family. For once, Tootie was the top man. He knew exactly what he was doing.
“He won’t bite me,” Tootie kept saying in a hearty voice. “You won’t bite me
, will you, old boy?” I knew he was scared, but he didn’t back off. Harry kept saying, “What a gas!” over and over, trying to pretend that he hadn’t noticed that for once Tootie had the upper hand.
It got to be suppertime. The crowd started to disperse. Either their stomachs or their mothers and fathers called them. Sam was going to a concert with his brothers. He said he’d check in in the morning. Pretty soon we were alone—Joss, me, Harry and Tootie.
“You better come home with me or you’ll catch it from Dad,” Harry said.
“Oh, it’s all right for him to stay,” Joss said loftily. “My mother called up your mother and asked if Tootie could stay for dinner. It’s my birthday and I want him there. Your mother said it was all right if we brought him home. You can just run along, Harry.”
I could’ve kissed her. The look on Tootie’s face practically lit up the air around him.
“Yeah, just run along, Harry,” he said happily. “I get to stay for dinner.”
“Big baby,” Harry muttered.” Stays for dinner with his girl friend.”
My mother called us then, and we ran, leaving Harry and Prince together in the dusk. The mosquitoes were beginning to bite like fury. I hoped a large one would get hold of Harry and hang on until it’d drained him dry.
For dinner we had lasagna, garlic bread, salad, and my father opened a bottle of red wine when we had eaten the cake and ice cream. I had a small glass, and Tootie and Joss had ginger ale in wine glasses.
Joss opened her presents at the table. My mother and father gave her a pair of pale yellow jodhpurs and a riding crop. I gave her a saddle pad so that the saddle she’d borrowed from Anne Tracy, who lives down the street, wouldn’t rub Prince. She put Tootie’s rock by her plate with the other things.
“A toast,” my father said, lifting his glass. “To the birthday girl. May she live to be old and wise and have lots of horses.”
“And may she get a good job so she can afford to feed all those horses,” my mother said.
“And may she not get to look like a horse the way people get to look like their dogs,” I added.
Tootie wanted to toast Joss too. He lifted his glass, which was already empty. “May she be as nice when she gets big,” he said. We all cheered and clapped, and my father got up and came around the table to kiss Joss. We took Tootie home, then went right to bed.
“It was the best birthday,” Joss said sleepily. She’d been out four times to check on Prince. If it hadn’t been for the mosquitoes, she would’ve slept in the garage. “It was perfect. I’ll see you in the morning,” and she was asleep.
“One if by land, two if by sea, guess who’s looking out the window, it’s Miss Pemberthy,” I said the next morning. Not a bad poem just on the spur of the moment, I thought. “She’s got her nose pressed against the window. I’ll bet she’ll be on the telephone in five seconds.”
Joss had saddled up Prince and ridden him around the back yard before anyone was awake. Then, after breakfast, we rode him bareback with me in the rear and took him up in the front yard. It’s a funny thing about a horse. When you’re standing next to him he doesn’t look that big, but, boy, when you’re on his back, it seems a long way to the ground.
I put my arms around her waist and held on.
“You’re strangling me,” Joss protested, so I let up a little. Only a little, though.
We heard the telephone ring inside, and my mother answered. “Oh, yes, of course, how are you, Miss Pemberthy?” she said in a loud voice.
“What’d I tell you?” I said. “She’ll blow her cork. She’ll imagine the whole neighborhood is turning into one huge stable, covered with horse turds.”
“She probably had her binoculars out last night when Mr. Essig came over,” Joss said. Long ago we’d decided Miss Pemberthy spent about twenty-two hours a day at the window with her binoculars trained on our house. At her age she didn’t need much sleep. There wasn’t anything she missed. Once, in the middle of the night, my mother and father had to rush me to the hospital because they thought I was having an appendicitis attack. It turned out to be just a severe stomach-ache, but they’d scarcely gotten back inside the house when the phone rang and it was Miss Pemberthy asking what was wrong.
“Should I?” Joss turned Prince in the direction of the “NO TURNING” sign. “A turd is what I think it is, right?”
“A turd is a piece of excrement,” I told her. I learned that from Ellen Spicer. When she wasn’t combating dry skin, she spent a lot of time learning what she thought were dirty words out of the dictionary. Turd is a very descriptive word. It’s too bad I don’t get a chance to use it more often.
“I’ll be right back,” I said and slipped off Prince. “I want to hear what they’re saying.”
When I picked up the extension in the kitchen, Miss Pemberthy was saying, “I simply could not believe my eyes. I could not believe these old eyes of mine. A horse across the street! In a neighborhood that is certainly not zoned for horses. Oh, my, what a shock!”
“My dear Miss Pemberthy,” my mother said in a special voice she uses for tense occasions, “yesterday was Joss’s birthday. She’s been saving her money for ages. She’s just rented him. For a week.… No, she doesn’t own the horse.”
Between sputters, Miss Pemberthy said, “I cannot permit such desecration of a first-class neighborhood. I will have to report this to the proper authorities.”
“I’m sorry you feel this way,” my mother said, her voice sliding from soft to sharp. “As I said, it’s only for a week. Joss has every intention of keeping him inside our property line. She has promised us, and she’s a very trustworthy child.”
There was a silence. I could hear Miss Pemberthy breathing. “Far be it from me,” she said, “to interfere with a child’s pleasure. Far be it from me. I was a child once myself, you know,” and she made a wheezing sound that I guess was laughter. “I do hope the animal doesn’t befoul your grass. Or infest the neighborhood with flies. Horses attract flies in vast multitudes, you know.”
“Oh, dear, I really must run,” my mother said. “Something’s burning on the stove. Do come for a visit some day soon.” And my mother hung up.
“I listened in,” I told her. “You did a good job, Mom.”
“Well, at least I held my temper,” my mother said, proud of herself. We had always been taught to respect old people, but I could tell even my mother and father found Miss Pemberthy tough to take.
Joss came to the back door, leading Prince by his bridle. “Could I have a treat for him, Mom?” she said.
“What’s he done to deserve one?” my mother said. “I’ve got one old apple he can have, and that’s it. And listen, that was Miss Pemberthy on the phone complaining about Prince being here. I told her you would only ride him within our property line. Make sure you do.”
Still holding Prince, Joss stuck out her skinny little butt, put her thumb on it, and waggled her fingers in the air.
“Tough beans on old Miss Pemberthy,” she said.
“Joss!” my mother said, laughing. “Don’t be disrespectful.”
“Why not? She’s disrespectful to me,” Joss said. “I’m a person too, you know.”
“Miss Pemberthy’s mother died when she was thirteen,” I told them. “Did you know that?”
They looked at me, surprised.
“No,” my mother said.
“She told me, that night I took the package over,” I said. “She said her father got married a year later and she felt in the way. She planned on making her father happy, but he got married, and he called his new wife ‘Darling.’”
“Well,” my mother said slowly, “that must’ve been very hard on her. Maybe it helps to explain her somewhat, don’t you think?”
“No,” Joss said stubbornly. “She was thirteen about a thousand years ago, anyway. Just because her mother died doesn’t mean she has to be such a witch.”
“Oh, give her a break, Joss,” I said. “How’d you like it if your mother died and your fath
er got married again right away?”
“Dad wouldn’t do that,” Joss said. “Would he, Mom?”
“He better not,” my mother said lightly. “I’m glad you told me, Kate.”
“Do you think something like that scars you for life?” I asked her.
“It might if you didn’t have much else to think about,” my mother told me. “It’s hard to say what makes scars and what doesn’t.”
Sam came loping around the side of the house.
“Hey,” he said, “I’m here to ride the critter. I brung some grub along just in case the Indians attack the fort and lay siege to the settlers.” He had on a hat with a floppy brim which was too big.
“You are some sad-looking cowboy,” I said. “What’s in the sack?”
“Like I said”—Sam was really getting into the wild West routine—“I brung some grub.”
He had three deviled-ham sandwiches, four bananas, a package of cookies, and one hard-boiled egg.
“The egg’s for Prince,” he said.
“Horses don’t eat eggs, dummy,” Joss said.
“How do you know? Did you ever give him one?” Sam asked.
She held out the egg for Prince. He flared his nostrils and breathed all over it and turned it down. Then he blew down Joss’s neck. “That’s the way he shows affection,” she said. “It tickles.”
She popped the egg in her mouth.
“Joss,” my mother said, “you might get germs.”
We let Sam ride Prince awhile, then we sat under the apple tree and ate Sam’s lunch. Joss told him about Miss Pemberthy’s calling up to complain.
“You’ve got to look at it this way,” Sam said, waving a banana at us, “she’s got nothing else to do but complain. She’s paranoid.”
“O.K.,” I said, “you just learned that. I can tell by the way you tossed it into the conversation that you never heard that word before. What’s it mean?”
Sam grinned. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said. “It means she thinks the world’s out to get her. She has delusions of persecution.”
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