CASSOWARY TRIES MY PACES
"The evening is young yet. Dad says you are a racing pony. Come, show me
your paces," and in a jiffy this swift girl had Drunkard chained to a
veranda post, and had seized a new riding bridle that someone had thrown
on a chair.
Then she sprang on my back, and giving my neck a slap said, "Head of the
Lake, racer."
I went slowly for a few paces to see what kind of a seat she had, but I
soon found that she rode like a fearless boy and would stick on no
matter if I went like the wind.
Now what about the road? I didn't want to break a leg and have to be
shot.
There was no trouble here. It was as smooth as a table. Mr. Devering's
crusher had been at work, so I pricked up my hoofs and showed her what
an Arabian-Shetland can do when on its mettle.
"Prince Fetlar," said my rider as we galloped along, "you may be a
winner, but so far you don't beat my Apache Girl, who is an Indian
pony."
I pricked up my ears and she went on just as if she knew that I
understood her, "Apache Girl is a dear and don't you dare to cross her.
If you do, you'll reckon with me. She's up in the far pasture now with
the other ponies, but she is soon coming home and you'll have a chance
to get acquainted. Now away, away. I'm jockey number one and my colors
are blue and white. Next us is a sorrel pony, his jockey is red and
green, next him a white pony, colors black and gold. Beat them, Pony,
beat them!" and she gave me a good whack.
So this nice wild girl wanted me to beat those imaginary ponies, did
she? Well, I could pretend to see them as distinctly as she could, and I
entered on a pace that grew and grew till we seemed to be flying.
She had all she could do to hold on now, yet she screamed, "Go it! Go
it!--We've overhauled blue and white, but red and green is three lengths
ahead. Beat him, Pony, beat him!" and she thumped me well.
"There now!" she exclaimed presently, "the sound of his hoofs is getting
fainter and fainter. He's fallen behind--we're it--we're it."
I had not been exercised for some days, and the road did feel good to my
hoofs, while the keen sharp air seemed to cut open to let us through and
to bathe us with wood scents as we passed.
There was the pungent odor of burning logs in the settlers' cottages
that seemed to dance by us and the lovely scent of flowers and young
leaves in the woodland patches between the houses. The air was like
velvet to my nostrils. How different from the irritating city dust that
made me sneeze and cough.
I stretched out my neck, and as for my tail it floated out so straight
behind that I didn't seem to have any. My every stride was a little
longer, a little faster.
By and by we passed the last of the settlers' houses and the summer
cottages, and now there were only the flying trees on one side and the
cool gloom and pallor of the lake on the other.
Suddenly we came into shadow and partial darkness. We were rounding the
head of the lake and high above us towered forbidding steep rock cliffs
shorn of all greenness by a bush fire that had passed over and left them
desolate.
I flashed by them like a streak of lightning, but just beyond them when
we got into the neighbourhood of some gaunt pines fire-scorched but not
burnt, my clatter over the bare hard road suddenly ceased. My rider had
pulled me up.
"Bang!" she yelled, "over the line, over the line, first money for us,"
and flinging herself off my back, she threw her arms about my neck.
"There's your share," she said and she gave me a regular bear hug. Then
she sprang on my back again. "Home, Prince Fetlar, home! Mother will be
saying, 'Cassowary is as bad as the robins. She won't go to bed--she
won't go to bed.'"
I hated to think of this nice girl being scolded, so I took her back as
quickly as we had come, she clinging to my back like a crab and making
as much noise as a loon.
She did wake the loons up, and afterward I learned that they knew her
voice and loved her, for she was good to them and protected them.
They were in full cry that night and answered every line of the victory
song she howled as she clung to me with her bony young knees.
"I ran my pony in a race,
He leaped and bounded full of grace,
The loons they called, they called to me,
I answered them quite daft with glee."
"Not good poetry, Prince," she gasped, "but Dad says--he says when your
heart is bursting, break into verse--any old verse. It's yours. Other
fellow doesn't know your thoughts. I'll sing again--about you and
Dallas. Echo! loonies," and she began to shout,
"With hoofs of gold and temper sweet,
A pony's come to our farm,
He brought a master trim and neat
And full of charm.
Alas! the master likes to lie,
He does not know that Satan waits,
And pitchforks boys to bye and bye,
Who wander out from Truth's dear gates."
I stopped short. I thought she was making too much fuss about my poor
young master's pleasant stories--and what about her own made-up tales
about the three other ponies in the race with us?
"What's the matter with you, boy?" she asked as she nearly plunged over
my head. "Oh! you want me to go say good-night to Happy Harry--bright
thought," and in a trice she was off my back and running up a path to a
pretty red house.
No pony could get ahead of this girl, and I watched her as she went into
the Talker home. I could see the family through the windows. Mr. and
Mrs. Talker were sitting each side of an open fire, and on a lounge
between them was a young man who must be Happy Harry.
I looked back over the road we had come, and as I looked some electric
lights suddenly flashed on, making the market road as beautiful as a
dream.
On one side of us was the lake, on the other the narrow frontages of the
cottages and a cute little country store with a veranda to it. It was
some distance behind us, but I could see men sitting tipped back on
chairs on the veranda, and someone was playing on a concertina.
Tall Lombardy poplars that I found out afterward were the pride of Mr.
Talker's life, lined the road, and their leaves glistened like silver in
the bright light that evidently came from Mr. Devering's power house.
I thought I would go and look in the windows, to see what Miss Cassowary
was doing, so I stepped softly up a path in the grass.
The girl was on the hearthrug standing quite still, and listening to the
brown-faced boy on the lounge. He was talking in a very lively manner,
and made frequent gestures with his hands. His poor legs were quite
still under a rug. He had gone away to the war, and having lost his own
feet had now artificial ones that often hurt him very much. However,
his face was nice and brown, showing that he was out in the sunshine a
good deal.
His parents' eyes were glued to his face. He was the joy of their life,
and they were so thankful not to have had him killed that they did not
seem to mind his lameness.
He minded it, though, and many a time later on when he thought no one
was looking, I saw him passing his hand over his eyes as if he wanted to
shut out the sight of other young people dashing about on their own
strong feet.
Mr. Talker looked quite gentlemanly in dark house clothes, for he had
shed his working suit. I soon discovered that he was a clergyman, and
the reason he hadn't talked to my young master in coming in from the
Lake of Bays was on account of his always choosing the time of long
drives for the composition of his sermons.
Just now he was holding a skein of wool for his wife to wind, but they
were getting it all tangled because their eyes were on their boy.
Suddenly Cassowary began to speak, and I heard through the open window
some nice praise about myself.
She was telling about our race and an old dog who was lying by the fire
got up and came to growl at me.
"There's your intelligent wee beastie at the window," said Mrs. Talker.
"Invite him in, please Father," said the young man, lifting himself on
his elbow.
Mr. Talker threw him an affectionate glance, then he came to the front
door and politely asked me to come in.
I am always sorry for young people who are not strong, and I have often
been taken into their rooms to cheer them up.
Pausing in the doorway, I bowed my head to the company, then I went in,
picking my steps carefully so as not to bump into chairs or tables.
Happy Harry had been in the artillery and was used to horses. He put his
hand out, and I went and stood beside him.
"Fine of bone, and slender of body," he said; "some Arab in him, eh?"
"Lots," said Cassowary, "his grandfather came from Fetlar in the
Shetlands."
"He's a good deal more than forty-six inches high," said the young man.
"Yes, for his parents were bred in the American corn belt."
"It's queer," said Happy Harry, "how the Old Country people run to a
stocky, blocky pony. We like more refinement of shape."
"Yes," said Cassowary, "I've heard that the real Shetland type over
there is like a tiny draft horse."
"This little fellow is a bit too high," said Harry. "He'd be
disqualified in a pony show."
"He isn't going to be shown," said Cassowary, patting me, "he's just
going to have a good time,--aren't you, Fetlar?"
I pawed the hardwood floor three times, and they all laughed heartily.
"He's a beauty," said Happy Harry, and he grinned cheerfully. "Oh! to be
a boy again and on a pony's back!--Can you shake hands, little fellow?"
I lifted my right fore-foot and he shook it heartily and then began to
fumble in a basket of wool.
"He knits," said Cassowary to me. "Isn't he splendid! Dad is wearing
some of his socks now."
The old dog began to growl again. He saw lumps of sugar coming out from
among the balls of wool.
I didn't care. I ate all I wished from the kind palm of the brave young
soldier man, then I made one more bow to the company and backed toward
the door.
They all clapped their hands. "I didn't know he could do tricks," said
Cassowary delightedly. "I'll get Dad to put him through his amusement
paces."
As I went out to the veranda the old dog followed me, and as soon as we
were alone I gave him a gentle nip.
"What's that for?" he asked in an ugly way.
"To teach you manners," I said. "This was my first call, and you
received me in a surly way."
He drooped his head so sadly that I said, "What's the matter with you?"
"I'm getting old," he said, "and I'm afraid Mr. Talker will shoot me."
"You don't want to die?"
"No, I want to live. I like the Talkers and the feeding is good."
"Well, if you want to live," I said, "hold up your head and look
cheerful. I'd shoot you on sight if you were my dog. You've such a
disagreeable air."
He didn't care anything about my opinion. He was a very selfish old dog,
but he snapped at my suggestion.
"Do you think it would make a difference?" he said eagerly.
"Don't I just! Toss up your head now, pretend you're a pup, and gambol
down the road. Come on, I'll go with you."
He made a desperate little break for a few paces, then he stopped short.
"My breath's gone."
"What's the matter with you?" I asked. "You haven't any wind at all.
Don't you exercise every day?"
"No. I lie mostly by the fire. I'm old, I tell you."
"Oh! get out, old dog," I replied, "you only think you're old. Let me
see your teeth."
He curled back his lips.
"You're lazy," I said. "That's all the trouble with you. Spruce up, and
go trotting for a while, then run, then leap. Mr. Talker will say you've
got your second wind and he'll spare you."
"But I might fall dead," he said.
"Suppose you did. There's another life for dogs, many good people say.
You'll start afresh and live forever. No one could kill you if they
tried."
"I like the sound of that," he said, putting his head on one side.
"Perhaps I'd better just loaf along here and slip off as soon as I can."
"No, no, that won't do," I said. "While you live, live, and work and
play. Don't think about death. The old reaper will do your thinking for
you."
"Who's he?" he asked.
"Now you just think that out," I returned. "Your dog mind is as rusty as
your dog body. Good-night, here comes my young Missy," and I stepped
down to the path.
However, Miss Cassowary did not get on my back. One never knew what that
girl would do.
"Race me to the house, Prince Fetlar," she said and off she started on
her own young hoofs.
Of course I let her beat me and kept behind watching her long black hair
flapping up and down in the wind, for the ribbon had come off. However,
I came in a close second when she pulled up in front of her own home.
A voice from the veranda said, "Late again, my daughter. No pocket money
this week."
"Ah! Daddy," she said in a wheedling voice.
"Rules must be kept, and wild girls must be broken," he replied gaily,
"and poor Dad must be sacrificed on the altar of family affection," and
he laid a hand on her head.
"Oh! dear," she said quickly, then she repeated in a rapid voice, "every
boy and every girl on coming home from a ride must give his or her mount
a rub-down. Rule of the house number three. I'm sorry I'm so late, Dad."
"Go face your mother," he returned, "she's in a fine state about you.
No girl must be outside the gates of Devering Farm after dark. Rule
six--Come on your highness," and cheerily whistling he led the way to my
log cabin.
There was no light in my little home, so he hung up an electric torch,
and when he found my brushes he asked me to come outside. The grounds
were beautifully illuminated by globes on high poles and he whistled and
rubbed till I was in a glow all over.
Here was a man that understood grooming a pony. Oh! there is such a
difference in hands--tough hands, harsh hands, impatient hands and cruel
hands, all affect a pony's temper. On the other hand if at the end of a
hard day nice kind understanding hands smooth your body and comfort your
pony soul, you go to bed so happy.
When he finished grooming me he smiled as I went in and nosed over the
hay in my rack.
"Fuss-box, eh!" he said. "I thought so. What about some nice warm
gruel?"
How I pricked up my ears and whinnied at this.
"Then come up to the barn kitchen," he said, and off we started.
He led the way round the big barn to a room in the carriage house. There
was an electric stove here and he soon had water heating and was making
me the nicest mess of oatmeal gruel I ever tasted. What a clever man he
was! He could do anything, even to the making of good gruel, and I
lifted my dripping muzzle from the basin and gave him a grateful look.
"All right, Prince," he said, patting me, "you'd do as much for me if
you could. Now go put yourself to bed. I must wash up. 'Leave pots and
pans as you find them'--Rule 8, Devering Farm."
I made him a bow, which he did not see, as he was washing his dishes,
then I paced thoughtfully to my cabin. This was a remarkable place.
There was something in the air here that made a pony feel happy all the
time. The master and mistress were kind, and though the children were a
bit lively and quarrelsome, they were all right at bottom. I should like
it here. I was glad I had been brought up to this wildwood place for
this dear new young master, and I glanced toward the room where he was
sleeping.
How amazed he would be when he found out that his mother was not dead.
All young things love their mothers and cling to them. Even I,
middle-aged pony, remember my mother's lovely care and how she would put
her little body between me and danger.
Once an angry bull ran at us and gored her painfully before the men
drove him away. She didn't care. She had saved my young skin. Mothers
are certainly very comfortable things, and at this point in my thoughts
I fell asleep and dreamed I was a foal again running beside this same
dear wee mother over the fields of the beautiful estate on Long Island
where I was brought up.