Misty's Twilight Read online

  CONTENTS

  1. The Dream

  2. D-Day

  3. Memories Run Deep

  4. A Living Likeness

  5. Ponies for Sale

  6. The “Sold” Tag

  7. Fasten Your Seat Belts!

  8. Sunshine

  9. I’m a Filly!

  10. Why Not?

  11. Gentlin’?

  12. The Cutting-Horse Man

  13. Dream On, Lady

  14. Home Again

  15. Never?

  16. Judge Tate

  17. Kritter Korner

  18. The Night of the VCR

  19. Whistling in the Rain

  20. Action!

  21. Hoofprints

  About Marguerite Henry

  To Dr. Sandy Lynn Price (owner of Misty’s Twilight)

  who warmed my heart by saying,

  “Our book is like a dream come full circle.”

  This is the story of Twilight, Misty of Chincoteague’s great-great grandfoal.

  Chapter 1

  THE DREAM

  On an early Saturday in spring, when dreams explode into reality, Dr. Sandy Price tiptoed about her home on Stolen Hours Farm. She was gathering up research for the trip she’d planned ever since she was a ponytailed youngster in the sixth grade. That was the year she first read a book called Misty of Chincoteague, and the year one of her lifelong dreams had begun.

  Sandy piled the breakfast nook table with a rainbow of color. The kitchen calendar topped the display, with a lively parade of ponies, wild and tame. Three glasses of freshly poured orange juice paled by comparison.

  Thrilled with her production, Sandy stood back a moment to admire it. She was interrupted by two sleepy-eyed children who came yawning into the room. Sandy announced the electrifying news: “All aboard for Chincoteague! What a glamorous way to spend your birthdays!” She picked up the calendar and with a dramatic flourish tore off April, May, and June and pointed to the last week in July. Chris and Pam stared.

  Pam whispered, “Mom’s flipped.” But nothing could stop Sandy now. She circled the last week of July in red ink and called out:

  “July 23 - Two birthdays and Departure Day, northward bound from Ocala, Florida, to Chincoteague, Virginia.

  July 24 - Still heading north.

  July 25 - Arrive Chincoteague Island.

  July 26 - Scouting neighboring Assateague for wild ponies.

  July 27 - The roundup and the swim across the channel.

  July 28 - The auction.”

  Both children studied their mother as if she were a teacher dictating weeks of assignments. “Why, that’s the middle of summer!” Chris said.

  Sandy was deaf to the tone of his voice. She translated it as “That’s so far away I can hardly wait.”

  “That’s it,” Pam said with a shrug of impatience. “It’s done! July twenty-third—our birthday, Mom’s D-Day.”

  The children shoved their chairs into place, gulped their orange juice, ate their cereal in silence, and bolted out-of-doors.

  All Pam could think of was the extra chores that would come with more horses. “Do I have to be a pony girl forever, weeding the racetrack and picking stones off it?” Pam wondered. Those were the chores she hated most.

  Chris thought only of his snakes. “My boa constrictor is going to have babies in July. Maybe fifty! And Mom wants me to leave her behind for some dumb ponies?”

  Inside, their mother remained at the table, lost in a happy daydream of wild ponies and crashing surf. In Misty of Chincoteague wise old Grandpa Beebe called one of the ponies “just a piece of wind and sky.”

  “Soon,” Sandy promised herself, “some of those wild pieces of wind and sky will come to live right here on Stolen Hours Farm!”

  Chapter 2

  D-DAY

  Three months later, when D-Day finally arrived, the big thoroughbred trailer stood ready for loading. Sandy was up at sunrise directing operations.

  “Pam, please bring in the empty water jugs and the pails. Chris! Can you lug a bale of hay and a bag of sawdust up the ramp?”

  “’Course, but why?”

  Pam explained, “Sawdust for footing, you dummy, and hay to feed the ponies.”

  Sandy laughed in gladness for the day. She felt an endless energy. She helped Chris pull the hay and sawdust up the ramp and against the trailer’s wall.

  “Now, who volunteers to clean two old and worn halters? They’re hanging behind the door of the tack room; they’ll be just the right size for two Chincoteague foals on their way to Stolen Hours Farm.”

  Each child pointed to the other.

  “How about drawing straws?” Sandy suggested. “The short one wins the job.” Ten minutes later Pam was standing on the bale of hay, hanging up the sweat-fragrant halters where they’d be ready at hand when they were needed.

  Sandy nodded her approval. “Thank you, Pam. Now will you two run up to the house, grab your suitcases, and say good-bye to Judy. We’re ready to hit the road.”

  While she waited for the children, Sandy climbed into the trailer. She pulled out a wisp of hay and began chewing on it, ruminating on how life shuffles us around. A child’s world changes, she thought. Nothing stays the same . . . except maybe a dream.

  Sandy had held onto her dream. The only other thing that had stayed the same in her life was her father’s love. No, there were two things: Papa Ed’s love, and his and her kinship with horses. From birth to old age, horses could be sad and glad, aching and frisky, jealous and angry—the whole gamut of ups and downs. Horses share so much with people, Sandy thought.

  Her musings were cut off by the sounds of morning—the staccato hoofbeats of the yearling trainees, then the closer sounds of Chris and Pam grumbling.

  “Who wants to go to a nerdy place with a nerdy name like Chicatig?” Unmistakably Chris.

  Pam was agreeing. “And I was invited to a picnic with Jan and Beth, and they were going to bake a birthday cake for me—all chocolate!”

  “Big deal!” Chris scoffed. “What’s an old birthday cake? My boa constrictor is going to have babies. She could have fifty, you know. What an awesome birthday present!” He paused. “Where the heck is Mom?”

  Sandy sagged against the wall, scraping her cheek against the metal buckle of a halter. She barely felt the pain in the greater sting of disappointment. Her children didn’t share her dream! They were going to Chincoteague out of duty! How could she have mistaken their real feelings?

  Mechanically she straightened up, walked down the ramp, raised the gate, and shot the bolt into place. “Once we reach ‘Chicatig,’” she said to herself, “the adventure will take over and they’ll be fine.” Then she quickly crossed her fingers, hoping she was right.

  She climbed into the driver’s seat and beeped the horn. Judy, the housekeeper, waved her apron and called, “Safe journey!” as the children stowed their baggage in the trailer.

  Sandy circled the driveway and sang out in her strongest church voice the words to “Happy Birthday to You.”

  No response. No sound except the tires spitting crunchy gravel as they made the curve.

  From the back seat, Chris took off his cowboy hat and bopped it on Pam’s head. His voice taunted:

  “Happy birthday to you,

  You live in a zoo

  You look like a monkey

  You smell like one, too!”

  Pam turned around and made a face at Chris. “Thanks a bunch, baby brother. Hey, why are you messing in the cooler?”

  “Where’s the cake?” Chris asked.

  “Shh!” Pam scolded. “You don’t eat birthday cake in a car!”

  “What’s the difference? You eat hamburgers and hot dogs in a car, don’t you? Anyway, I’m hungry.”

  San
dy’s face must have shown her stricken feelings, for Pam put her hand on her mother’s arm. “Mom, don’t feel sad. I don’t need cake. Boys—they’re always hungry.”

  Pam’s words comforted Sandy. Her own excitement would not be stilled. It rose and fell with yo-yo resilience. She was on her way to collect her dream!

  Chapter 3

  MEMORIES RUN DEEP

  Sandy skimmed through Georgia at top speed. She had taped a small map to the dashboard of the van showing the route from Ocala, Florida, through Georgia, and on up through the Carolinas to Virginia and the tiny offshore island of Chincoteague.

  As the miles wore on, Pam and Chris began talking less about home and more about where and why they were going on this strange pilgrimage.

  “How did the ponies really get to‘Chicatig’?” Chris asked.

  “They were washed ashore from a wrecked Spanish galleon,” Pam told him. “Don’t you remember how, in the beginning of Misty of Chincoteague, they swam to a nearby island called Assateague? I don’t remember what the name means. Mom, what does it mean?”

  The question brought back a rush of memories to Sandy. All the scenes she recalled from the book made her eager to explain the purpose for this visit.

  “Assateague is an Indian word for ‘outrider.’ It’s a perfect name,” she added, “because Assateague really does ride right outside Chincoteague Island, protecting it from the crashing winds and waves of the stormy Atlantic.”

  “Who protects ‘Assatig’?” Chris interrupted.

  “Assateague is a refuge of its own and a haven for wild ponies, white-tail deer, muskrats, migrating water birds, and the silver-gray Virginia squirrel, which is endangered,” Sandy explained. “When we get to Chincoteague, maybe we’ll even get to see some wild ponies thundering along Assateague’s shoreline.”

  On the second day, as they were whisking through the Carolinas, the questions became even more lively.

  “Mom, how did you hear about Misty of Chincoteague in the first place?” Pam asked.

  Sandy smiled. How could she make the answer as exciting to her children as it had been to her? She slowed her pace a smidgen as she thought.

  “I was just twelve,” she began, “and there was a library close to school. Every Monday our class marched there, two by two, to take out an armful of books.

  “Miss Paula Pepper was the librarian, and we kids liked her a lot. We had fun calling her Miss P.P. behind her back, but we didn’t mean any harm by it. Well, one day Miss P.P. held out a well-worn book titled Misty of Chincoteague. She offered it to me with a kind of pride, then suddenly clutched it to her as if the pony on the cover might run away. Then she said, ‘Your impression might be that this is a child’s book because of the many illustrations, Sandy, but I want to tell you that people twelve years old and older check it out because it’s adult in concept.’

  “I liked the sound of that, and I liked the look of the little colt on the cover. Miss P.P. offered me the book a second time, and I took it eagerly. For the next week I lived with herds of wild ponies on a narrow barrier island called Assateague.”

  “And with the Beebes and Misty and her mother,” Pam chimed in, excited. “What was Misty’s mother’s name, Mom? I forget.”

  “The Chincotoeaguers called her the Phantom,” Sandy replied with a remembering smile, “because she was so elusive no one was sure she really existed. That is, until Paul Beebe caught her.”

  “That’s right. I remember now!” cried Pam.

  “I don’t! Tell us again, Mom,” Chris commanded.

  So Sandy retold the story of Misty of Chincoteague to Pam and Chris: how the descendants of the ponies from the wrecked Spanish ship lived and flourished on Assateague Island; how two youngsters, Paul and Maureen Beebe, had fallen in love with the wild Phantom; how they determined to catch her and gentle her; and how they’d ended up with not just the Phantom but her tiny baby Misty as well. “You see, Misty was born only a short while before Pony Penning Day, and when the men came to round up the herd, she was so little and weak she couldn’t keep up with the others. That’s what slowed Phantom down, and that’s how Paul caught her,” Sandy explained.

  “What’s Pony Penning Day?” Chris broke in.

  “Once a year, in July, the wild ponies are rounded up and driven into the channel at low tide; where they actually swim from Assateague Island to Chincoteague. Then the foals and yearlings are sold at auction.”

  In chorus, Pam and Chris asked, “You mean we’re really going to buy some wild ponies?”

  “That’s the plan . . . if we’re lucky. I’ve been putting aside a nest egg for just this occasion. We’ll bid on two foals, one for each of you.”

  “Mom, how long have you been planning this?” Pam asked in astonishment.

  Sandy smiled. “Ever since I first read the book.”

  From the backseat, Chris made a face at Pam in the mirror. “You know what?” he said. “Some moms never grow up!”

  Pam nodded. For once they agreed.

  Chapter 4

  A LIVING LIKENESS

  On the afternoon of the third day the big horse van was joined by a parade of traffic inching slowly over the causeway from mainland Virginia to the tiny island of Chincoteague.

  Sandy clapped her hands on the steering wheel in amazement. “Look at the color!”

  “Yeah, everywhere it’s yellow-green,” Chris said.

  “Yes! Sea and sky to match the salt marsh grass.”

  From that moment of discovery—even before their wheels had touched the island itself—Chincoteague began working its magic.

  Right away they checked in at Chef Jim Hanretta’s Channel Bass Inn, one of the finest little hostelries in Virginia.

  “It’s a good thing you folks have a reservation,” the woman at the check-in desk told them. “We’re full up with guests from all over the country. Why, there’s a family here that’s come all the way from Idaho, just to see Pony Penning Day!”

  Sandy laughed. “I guess I’m not the only one who read Misty of Chincoteague and was inspired by it.”

  “No, ma’am,” declared the check-in lady. “That little filly has a national fan club that just gets bigger every year.”

  Pam tugged at Sandy’s arm with a worried frown. “Mom, what if there aren’t enough wild ponies to go around?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that,” advised the check-in lady. “But please do be considerate of the wild things on Assateague. With so many people around, we have to be extra careful not to damage or disturb their refuge.”

  “That’s right. That way we can be sure there’ll be wild ponies on Assateague for many years to come,” Sandy added.

  Within the hour Sandy, Pam, and Chris had dumped their bags and were pony scouting on the sliver of land across the water called Assateague. It was just like the book had described it—wild beauty, pounding surf, turtles, and birds—except for the crowd of tourists straining to see ponies running wild and free. But there was not even a straggler in sight. Only some ospreys, snowy egrets, blue herons, snow geese—and the face of a red fox, plainly visible from a cleft in the dunes!

  Travelers from far and near talked in small whispers, asking questions among themselves. “Do you s’pose,” said Pam, “that the ponies are hiding in brush and bramble as if they know it’s pony penning time and soon the firefighters’ll be a-whoopin’ and a-hollerin’ and crackin’ their whips to flush the foals out into the open?”

  No one had the answer. Except Chris. As if he’d read the book of Misty just yesterday he said, “Old stallions probably remember other Pony Penning Days, so they drive the foals into hiding.”

  A man on horseback rode up to Sandy and looked directly at her. “Your boy,” he said in a foghorn voice, “is dead right! Some stallions have seen a dozen or more roundups and know ’zackly what to expect.” Slitting his eyes, he gazed over the eager crowd. “It’ll be dark soon, folks,” he called out. With a friendly wave he trotted his horse toward the short bridge to Chinco
teague and was gone.

  Impatiently Pam and Chris waded along the beach while the sun set, and a sickle of moon rose up out of the horizon, casting eerie shadows.

  “Never mind,” Sandy told them. “Action will come tomorrow. Let’s head back.”

  They parked the trailer on Old Dominion Point, the little spit of land where Grandpa and Grandma Beebe and Paul and Maureen had lived. “This will be our vantage point tomorrow, where we can catch a glimpse of the ponies being rounded up and a close view of their swim across the channel to Chincoteague.”

  In spite of their eagerness for tomorrow they slept deeply in a big room at the Channel Bass Inn. When morning came, Pam and Chris felt the beginnings of excitement. They ate a Chincoteague breakfast of oyster fritters and golden squares of corn bread, and by seven o’clock they were slathered with sunscreen and ready to see the swim.

  “You’re way too early,” said a redheaded native about Chris’s age. “The ponies won’t swim across till the tide ebbs bare.” Then he grinned and added, “But you’ve got the best place to watch.”

  • • •

  For once the reality was more exciting than the promise. The Chincoteaguers put on a Pony Penning Day that made their hairs quiver . . . a bunch of men who were fisherfolk yesterday turned cowboy today and staged the biggest Wild West Show in the East!

  It was wild! It was mad! A hundred ponies were driven into the sea by a handful of whooping, hollering, cap-waving men.

  The water churned with ponies, and the air rang with the bugling of stallions calling their mares; mares neighing to their colts; and colts squealing in fright.

  The swim across the narrow channel lasted only twelve minutes, but every minute seemed to take a lifetime. As soon as the ponies hit the water their white patches changed to spooky brown. They had all been sudsed and rinsed by the sea until their coats became one color—sleek and dark.

  While the last swimmers were still scrabbling ashore, Pam and Chris ran alongside the pack as they were being driven down the main street of Chincoteague and into the pony penning grounds. By the time the ponies arrived, they were almost sun-dried; suddenly they were circus-colored pintos again!