"Who says I'm jokin'?"
In the waiting silence Misty poked her head inside the truck and the
brown goat gave her a friendly butt. Misty came right back, asking for
more.
"I give up!" Grandpa sighed. He pulled out his ancient leather purse
and began fumbling inside, transferring bits of string and wire to
a pocket. At last he held out a much-folded five-dollar bill. "This
may seem mighty little to ye, but hoss-keepin' ain't what ye'd call
profitable. Here, take it."
Buck Jackson chewed on a toothpick, thinking. "If I didn't say yes," he
said at last, "even Misty here'd hate me. It's a deal, Clarence, and
I'll throw in a bale of hay besides."
The transaction was quickly completed. But even with the nanny and her
kid in the pickup, Paul didn't find it easier to say good-bye to Misty.
"Don't ride her," he cautioned David. "She's going to have a colt."
"I know she is," David replied in disgust. "_Everybody_ knows that."
Dr. Finney held onto Misty's halter. "Don't you worry, Paul. I'll sleep
in the stall next to her, and I'll stay within sight and sound during
her foaling period."
"You promise?"
"I promise."
* * * * *
It was almost dark when Grandpa and Paul crossed the state line back
into Virginia.
"Tradin' whets my appetite," Grandpa confided to Paul. "What d'ye say
we stop by Wallops Station and have some nice hot Red Cross food with
Grandma and Maureen?"
"What about our goats? Shouldn't we hurry home and put them in the hay
house with Billy Blaze and Watch Eyes? They got to get used to being
with horses."
Grandpa wasn't listening. A flicker of a smile crossed his face. "Don't
interrupt me, son. My mind's turnin' over important thoughts."
The refugee room looked much the same, except for more cots and more
people. And it still smelled of old rubber and leather and steamy
woolen socks.
As the family sat down at the long table, Paul whispered to Maureen, "I
like the smell of goats better'n people, and we got two--a nanny and a
kid."
"Oh, Paul, how beautiful!"
"They're not beautiful; they're really kind of funny-looking with their
eyes so different from horses'."
"I know. They're bluey-yellow, and they look glassy, like marbles."
Paul and Maureen could hardly eat for all they had to say to each other.
"Misty's at Doctor Finney's, Maureen. She can't keep on postponing
forever and she can't go on living in Grandma's kitchen. Ain't healthy
and airy for her. And besides...."
"Besides what?"
"I overheard the doctor say there could be complications."
Grandma and Grandpa were deep in conversation, too. Grandpa seemed to
have forgotten he was hungry. "Idy," he said, "Pony Ranch is now the
owners of a nanny goat and her kid. A billy-kid, at that! It's got
whiskers as long as yer sea-captain pa."
"Clarence Beebe! Don't you talk like that. I'll not have ye comparin'
my father to a billy goat!"
"Oh, come now, Idy. I'm jes' bein' jokey. Besides, yer father smelled
real good--of tobaccy and things. By the way," he asked, trying to
appear casual, "you and Maureen had yer arms scratched against the
typhoid?"
Grandma nodded.
"Good! I'm turribly glad."
"Why? Is the typhoid raging?"
"No, but I need ye at home, Idy, to perten me up for what I got to do."
"What's that?" Grandma asked in alarm.
"I got to see that all my dead ponies is taken off'n Chincoteague, and
the dead ones on Assateague, too."
"Oh ... oh, how dreadful! But they say wimmenfolk can't go home now.
Regardless."
"I know they _say_ so." Grandpa's eyes crinkled with his secret. "But
_I_ say the Lord helps them as helps theirselves."
Grandma looked at him questioningly.
"Idy, how'd ye like to...?"
"Like to what?"
Grandpa sopped up some tomato gravy with a chunk of bread and ate it
slowly, enjoying Grandma's impatience. Then he leaned close to her ear.
"How'd ye and Maureen like to be smuggled back home? Right now!"