The Long Pasture
“Here, Rev. Here, Good Boy! Oats—_smell ’em_!”
Pemrose, wild with the welcome of the mountains and the triumph of that
late long-distance talk with her father—to say nothing of a step, at any
rate, towards a secret code for Camp Fire Girls—was dancing all over the
Long Pasture.
Temptingly in her hand was the flat tin, half full of oats, which she
had taken from a bin in the gray shed at a western corner of the
mile-long pasture. An outpost of the farm buildings, paddocks and
horse-boxes, more than a mile below, was that weather beaten shed; in it
tools were kept and farm implements used in the grain raising for
horses, the bean and corn growing, upon the lower sidehill, the
outskirts of the well-stocked horse-farm in the rich, green
bottom-lands!
“Oats! Oats! Smell them—Boy! Maybe there’s a lump of sugar somewhere,
too! Two lumps—if you’re very good!”
She patted the breast pocket of her linen riding habit, holding the pan
of grain aslant.
Revelation approached warily, step by step, his beautiful bay neck
outstretched, his long face eager—dark eyelids blinking.
Within a dozen feet of the temptress he halted, suspicious of the hand
behind her back, pushed his nose out, the neck quite level, his breath
coming in a white, investigating cloud.
Suddenly he tossed his head with the bright, chestnut mane, those long,
silky eyelashes winking mischievously, wheeled and darted off, with a
teasing snort which plainly said:
“Not this morning—thank you! I’d rather race automobiles along by the
fence.”
“He senses that I have a halter with me,” murmured the radiant girl,
keeping the right hand still out of sight and renewing honeyed
negotiations with her left, displaying the oats, golden in the flash of
mountain sunlight, spilling a little of it into her shoes, while the
horse circled round her in wide rings, took a notion to walk slowly
towards her—then, at ten feet, again, darted away.
“You’re a rogue, Revelation. But you’re not an outlaw—like Cartoon. But
I suppose he isn’t really a bad horse—or he wouldn’t be mingling with
human beings, up here in the Long Pasture—only Roman-nosed and
stubborn.”
Pem’s glance roved now to a distant tall horse, a dark bay, with a long
neck sawing restlessly in the sunlight, a sharp sickle face, almost a
hatchet face, slanted sidelong, who hovered nervously upon the outskirts
of the parleying group of girls and horses. With gay satisfaction, her
eye came back to Revelation.
A Morgan bay, fifteen hands high, with a foxy coat of satin, in every
lithe movement the thoroughbred, shy, sensitive, fast,—but kindly,
good-natured, too.
She wheedled with the amber oats again, spattering it from the tilted
tin upon the laughing air, while her horse, in ever narrowing circles,
sampled the scent, nose away out, velvet nostrils quivering into
mischievous smiles—at the slightest movement to catch him, he was off
again, heels flinging.
“You’re as naughty as can be, this morning, Boy. You’ve raced autos too
much—while we were handling the ‘crutch.’” The girl’s eyes danced, blue
as the sky-ways above her. “Can’t you take a lesson from your mother,
Revel? But I suppose you’re just a Revelation of what’s hidden in
her—only motherhood, mincing motherhood, keeps it down,” she laughed to
herself, turning to glance over the mountain pasture—a third of a mile
in width.
Everywhere the same catch-as-can game was going on, with oats and
halter, everywhere challenge and parley, at the sunny end of the range
that is, at which the horses had congregated!
Harmony, Fox, Galatea, old King, full of pasture play and human
curiosity, running along by the fence, in turn, to ogle a tempting girl,
with, somewhere, a halter concealed about her, then archly taking the
“fling-strings”, putting fifty or a hundred yards between them and a
morning ride, kicking blissfully, as they ran!
And the colts, the enchanting colts, from the fluffy infant, with hair
inches long, running beside or under its mother, to the shaggy gawk,
with big, watery blue eyes, who thought he could kick the sky.
“They’re all—all full of mischief this morning,” whispered Pemrose
between her teeth. “Una is the only one who has a ‘soft snap.’ Revel
stands still to be caught. And Unie—‘Jack’—scores in another way, too,
she owns her horse. Oh! what would I not give to call you mine,
Revelation—teasing imp though you are.” Pem’s knuckles pressed her lips,
to hold in the longing. “Ah, here comes the farmer—Menzies, who has
charge of the horse-farm—and his little son, Donnie, Menzies to give us
lessons in riding and jumping—Donnie, with a tan puppy under his arm!
What! Revel—Donnie! Curls—what!”
Pemrose’s eyes were wide and round as the colts’ now—limpid, shining.
They were fixed upon a group, thirty yards away, where of all the
girls—with some experience in horseback riding before—who were to learn
this summer to catch and bridle their own mounts, Una was the only one
whose apple fell easily into her mouth. The only one who did not have to
run or pant—or spill oats into her shoes!
Except on rare occasions Revel, beguiled by a lump of sugar, would stand
still, gentle image of motherhood, to have the halter thrown over her
short, fair head by her girl rider.
A beautiful little horse she was, with her coat of cinnamon silk, her
form more chunky than that of her six-year-old son, Revelation—neck
thicker, shoulder heavier.
And now—now, to the group, two figures were added: Menzies, the
horse-breeder, and his tiny son, not yet four, whose flaxen curls, in
this out-of-the way region, were, like the colts’ fluff, still unshorn.
Una had exhausted her bribe of sugar—was waiting for the other girls to
catch their horses. But Revel knew where more was to be found, Donald
had some, generally, in the pocket of his little blouse for her. But
Donnie was, at present, taken up with displaying the pup under his arm.
And Revel found other amusement.
Stealing up behind the child, until her soft mother breath was on his
cheek, gently she nibbled at his curls, taking them one by one into her
“nuzzling” mouth, letting them stray through it—heaven’s hay.
Other horses, Harmony, Fox—Flying Fox—were curious about those flaxen
curls, too, had come near enough to smell of them; Revel alone fondled
them in her mouth.
“What a—picture!” breathed Pemrose. “If Unie has one friend that she
loves more than me, it’s Revel—and on her back she is seldom afraid.
Oh-h! this is a won-der-ful morning. It puts even radio in the
background.”
She was out of breath and she stood still, leaning against a side fence
watching that sunlit group, mother-horse, child, newborn dog—even the
wonder of riding the air with a whisper on the back of a carrier-wave
paling beside a rare moment in earth’s picture gallery.
All the Long Pasture was a picture gallery that morning, dramatic
representations of girlish life and pluck, vivid horseplay.
Presently, while Donnie, resenting the babying, snatched his head away
and fed Revel with a lump of sugar, instead, from his tiny breast
pocket, Pemrose resumed her game of catch.
This time Revelation, being a good horse if gay, allowed himself to be
coaxed. He lessened the ten-foot barrier to five, sniffing at the
dribbing oats. In a trice the girl had him by the forelock. With her
left hand on his long head she was pressing that down until her foot was
on his neck—otherwise her elbow—while with her right hand feeding him
the oats.
When that was gone she slipped the halter over his nose, on to his
obedient neck, buckled it—led him over to the fence, to saddle him.
But just as she had thrown that saddle on, before she could tighten the
girths, her breath began to come thick and fast—very thick and fast.
Donnie having fed Revel with a sweet lump and jerked his curls from her,
with a remonstrating: “You don’t t’ink hair’s hay; do you?” let her
gentle head find his pocket for herself—and extract a second lump of
sugar.
Somebody was watching the trick—Cartoon! Cartoon not destined to be
ridden to-day; though not an outlaw, he was a churl, with his stubborn
Roman nose, flaring nostrils, fiery breath, his sharp triangular
face—almost a hatchet face.
Cartoon was creeping slyly through the pasture grass, with a low snort,
his head not only high, as Revelation carried his, but the chin _in_ a
little, touching his chest—and the greedy meaning there.
“Don’t give Revel any more sugar now, Donnie-boy! She’s had enough.” Una
was drawing her horse away. “Here! show me the puppy. Have you one for
me—I’d like a dog?”
“Of course he has.” Donnie’s father turned his head from where, at a
little distance off, he was showing Dorothy how to post, rise gracefully
in her saddle, hold her whip well back. “Of course he has a a pup for
you, Miss Una. Which do you want, a male or female?”
“’Tisn’t—’tisn’t either of those,” protested Donnie indignantly. “It’s
an Airedale!”
There was a laugh. Una drew Revel off towards the fence. The farmer
moved away, starting Dorothy off on a preliminary canter round the
pasture.
The eight who were to ride this morning had, by this time, captured
their mounts.
It was then that Cartoon, stealing up, sniffed his opportunity. His
sharp nose, rooting in the air, said: “Sugar” and told him that the
sweets were in the breastpocket of a little child.
It was then that Pemrose, watching afar, felt her “rooting” breath
suddenly become a snort, an excited “Weugh!” like his.
Leaving Revelation with the white saddle-girths dangling, she started to
run across the pasture, crying out as she did so.
But Cartoon was quick—greedy and quick. Taking short, mincing steps in
his excitement, his breath coming in very short puffs, he stole up
behind the child, lowered his high head and began feeling him
over—rooting softly with his nose near the tiny pocket.
Donnie started and saw, not Revel’s fair “nuzzling” face near to his,
but the dark, ugly, Roman-nosed one.
The child gave a scream and plunged away—tripped in his terror and fell.
The horse plunged, too, with a baffled snort, wheeled crossly, lashing
his heels out.
“Oh! God help—” breathed Pemrose, in the utter horror of
helplessness—for she was many, many yards away.
And then the angel of God appeared—appeared so suddenly, in such an
unlooked-for shape that Pem, dazzled, saw two of her—and three of
Cartoon.
It was a girl with wide dark eyes in whose blaze the angel of God had
bared his scabbard, his scabbard of deliverance, a girl with face
waxen-white as a snow-flower—a girl who “went through life as daintily
as if she were picking a flower”—who was snatching Donnie from the
proximity of those lashing heels—within an inch of being struck by them
herself.
“U-na!” Pemrose’s hand went to her cold cheek—she was fairly stricken
still, out in the middle of the Long Pasture.
“Goodness! I—I don’t know how I did it,” said Una, sinking down.