Sea Star: Orphan of Chincoteague Read online

  Maureen and Paul smiled back at Grandpa. He never seemed to fail them. They bent their heads over their plates and ate. To their surprise the food tasted good. The oysters were so slippery they did not stick in their throats at all. And they drank glass after glass of tea.

  “I guess we had Grandma’s fritters,” Paul said. “Hers are the prettiest brown.”

  After dinner the fire chief was nowhere to be found in the milling crowd, so Grandpa stepped up to the announcer’s stand in the center of the grounds. “I’ll thank ye to call out the fire chief’s name in that squawker contraption,” he said to the announcer.

  “Calling the fire chief!” the voice rang out above the noise of the people and the music of the merry-go-round. “Calling the fire chief! He’s wanted at the announcer’s stand.”

  This brought the fire chief weaving his way through the crowd. He was nodding to visitors at right and left, and the cane which he carried when he was tired was nowhere in sight.

  The people made way for him until he reached the stand. Then Grandpa Beebe stood in his path.

  “Was it you wanted me?” the chief asked.

  Grandpa nodded.

  The chief’s eyes crinkled. “Clarence,” he said, “ain’t this the best crowd we ever had to Pony Penning? Weather’s good, too, and everything’s running along smooth as honey on a griddle cake.”

  Paul and Maureen hung a little behind Grandpa. Paul was tying knots in a piece of string, and Maureen stood twiddling her curls in the wrong direction. When the fire chief caught sight of them, he came a step closer and lowered his eyes to theirs.

  “I know you two are feeling sad about Misty, but you done a fine thing. Besides, she’ll come home swishing her tail behind her—maybe not for a few years—but one day for certain. Chincoteague ponies is like Chincoteague people. Once they gets sand in their shoes they always comes back.”

  “That ain’t what’s eatin’ ’em, Chief. I’ll let ’em tell ye theirselves while I go make arrangements fer shipping one o’ my ponies that’s goin’ all the way to Sandusky, Ohio.”

  There was a little silence while the fire chief and Paul and Maureen followed Grandpa with their eyes. They watched him tack back and forth in the sea of people like a sailboat, his old battered hat the topgallant sail. When he was lost to view, Paul and Maureen suddenly felt adrift.

  The fire chief drew them to a bench away from the crowd and motioned them to sit down, one on each side of him. Then he helped them with a question.

  “You folks at the pony sale this morning?”

  “No,” Paul answered. “We were oystering over to Tom’s Cove.”

  “So?”

  “Yes, sir.” Paul spoke quickly now. “And lying on the beach was a mare with the brand of the Fire Department on her.”

  “Was she solid brown, with no white on her at all?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Except she was getting white around the eyes,” Maureen spoke up.

  “Was she a very good mare, Chief?” Paul asked.

  “That she was! Raised up frisky colts. A new one each year. Always hers brought the highest prices at the auction.” The fire chief’s voice had a faraway tone. “Guess she helped buy a lot of equipment for the fire company,” he said. “This year she and the Phantom were the only mares who didn’t get rounded up. We figured the Phantom was too smart, but we feared for the brown mare.”

  A slow tear showed at the corner of Maureen’s eye. It grew fuller and rounder and finally spilled over.

  “Come, come, child. That mare was full of years. She’d had the free and wild life for nigh onto fifteen years. Don’t cry about her, honey.”

  “I’m not. It’s her new-borned baby I’m thinking about.”

  The fire chief was silent for what seemed a long time. “Hmmm,” he said at last. “Had a colt, did she?”

  “A baby horse colt,” Paul answered. “A beauty! All brown except for a white star in the middle of his forehead. His name’s Sea Star.”

  A smile played about the fire chief’s lips and his head nodded as if he saw the spindly legged foal standing all alone at Tom’s Cove with the sea at his back.

  “Sea Star!” he chuckled. “I declare! You young ones pull just the right name out of the hat. How d’you do it?”

  “It was Maureen,” Paul said. “I was thinking of calling him Lonesome, but that was too sad of a name. Maureen just said his name right out. ‘Sea Star’ she said, without even thinking.”

  Paul shoved his toe in the sandy soil until he almost bent it back. “Chief,” he said, “will the Fire Department, you think, sell off the little colt? To us?”

  The fire chief pinched his lip in thought. He closed his eyes for a minute. “Sometimes,” he said, talking more to himself than to Paul and Maureen, “sometimes the whole Department has to be called together so’s a matter like this can be laid on the table for discussion.”

  A little groan escaped Maureen.

  “That’s the way of it in most cases.” He was about to say more, but one of the roundup men came up, his eyes reddened.

  “Got my specs knocked off during the ropin’ this morning,” he said. “Wonder, Chief, if you could do something about the nosepiece. It’s broke.”

  “Lucky you ain’t bug-eyed,” the fire chief laughed, “or you’d lost more’n your specs. I’ll see they re fixed for you.”

  He turned back to Paul and Maureen, going right on where he had left off. “Then there are times,” he said, “when a thing’s so clear we’d only be wasting the men’s time if we called up a meeting.”

  “Yes?”

  “This, now, is one of those times,” the chief said. “A decision’s got to be made quick when a pony’s too young to fend for itself. By the way, where’s Sea Star now?”

  “He’s in Misty’s stall,” Maureen said.

  “And,” Paul looked at the chief gravely, “we’ve got ten dollars from the bronc-busting contest, because Mr. Van Meter wouldn’t take the money to buy carrots for Misty.” Paul leaped to his feet as if an idea had just burst in his mind. “Mr. Van Meter said we might need it for something very special, and Sea Star’s it!”

  There was a waiting silence while the fire chief opened up a roll of peppermints and offered them to Maureen.

  Paul clenched his fists in impatience. He made himself look straight into the fire chief’s face. “I reckon we’d need lots more than ten dollars,” he said bitterly. “That is, if you’d sell him at all.”

  Again a little whirlpool of silence while the chief absently folded the tinfoil around the peppermints. “Now I view the matter like this,” he spoke at last. “It’s risky doin’s, laying out money for a colt under three months. Mighty risky.” He pocketed the peppermints. “No,” he said thoughtfully, “the Fire Department wouldn’t think of taking a cent over ten dollars for an orphan. I’m sure on it. Besides,” he added, “that baby needs you two! Needs you bad.”

  Paul and Maureen looked at each other. They wanted to thank the fire chief, but the words would not come, not even in a whisper.

  Maureen found her voice first. “Oh, Chief . . . !” she gulped, then could say no more. She threw her arms around his sun-creased neck and whispered an unintelligible thank-you in his ear.

  Paul reached for one of the chief’s hands and shook it hard. Then he slid his hand into the pocket of his jeans and took out the neatly folded ten-dollar bill.

  Chapter 13

  NO ORNERY COLT FOR US

  WHEN PAUL and Maureen returned home they found everything in the stall just as they had left it. The Arab mash untouched. The grass in the manger undisturbed. The water bucket full. And huddled in a corner of his stall, his head hanging low between his knees, Sea Star was sobbing out his lonesomeness in little colt whimpers.

  Maureen’s face went red and her lips tightened. “We tried Grandpa’s way,” she exploded. “Now I’m going to fetch that bottle.”

  “No, you ain’t!” a voice behind them spoke sharply. Maureen hardly kn
ew it for Grandpa’s voice, and the sharpness hurt because it was so seldom used.

  “I’ve been doctor-man to my hosses since afore you two was borned.” A fierce light of pride came into his eyes. “In all my days I raised up only one colt to be mean and ornery, and I promised myself I’d nary do it again. Ye’ve got to trust me a mite longer. Ye’ve just got to. Chincoteague ponies is wiry. Tougher than you think.”

  He stooped down on one knee and looked eye to eye with Sea Star, putting his gnarled fingers underneath the ringlets of the colt’s mane.

  The colt turned his head and sniffed. Memory told him there was no need to be afraid. He accepted Grandpa and Paul and Maureen as if they were no more nor less than the little wind that sifted in between the chinks in the siding.

  Grandpa’s eyes were unyielding as he straightened up. “How many Pony Pennings,” he asked, “can you two recomember?”

  Paul and Maureen thought a moment, counting up on their fingers.

  “Seven,” Paul said.

  Maureen said, “Seven for me, too.” Then at a surprised look from Grandpa, she changed her mind, “Well, five for sure, Grandpa.”

  “All right. Five times ye’ve both seed the wild ponies swimmed across from the island of Assateague to Chincoteague, ain’t ye?”

  The boy and girl nodded, while Sea Star tucked his forelegs beneath him and lay down on his side. He soon fell asleep to the drumming of Grandpa’s voice.

  “And five times,” the voice went on, “ye’ve both seed the mares druv into the big pens and the colts cut out and druv into the little pens.”

  Paul and Maureen nodded again, their eyes watching the foal’s sides rise and fall.

  “And each time after the cuttin’ out was over with, ye’ve heard the colts bellerin’ fer their mammas.”

  Maureen clapped her hands to her ears as if she could hear the sound now.

  Grandpa did not stop. “The youngsters go millin’ around in the pens hungerin’ and thirstin’ and refusin’ to tech the water and grasses the firemen pervides. But,” and here Grandpa began rubbing the bristles of his ear, “but before the week is out, what always happens?”

  “The colts are eating nice as you please,” smiled Paul.

  “That’s the right answer, Paul! Now I know you’re a hossman!”

  Maureen slipped her hand inside Grandpa’s. “We’ll wait, Grandpa, afore we think about that nursing bottle again. Sea Star’ll be eating like a stallion by the time the week is over, won’t he?”

  * * *

  Friday passed. The crowds trickled out of the Pony Penning Grounds and over the causeway to the mainland.

  Saturday came, and the mares and stallions were let out of the big pens and driven back home to the island of the wild things. The few unsold colts were driven back, too. They were older, wiser, able to fend for themselves.

  At Pony Ranch, Sea Star dozed the hours away. Unlike the other colts, he seemed to have grown littler, younger.

  Saturday night came. Darkness drifted down softly over Chincoteague. The moon rose slowly, unrolling a broad carpet of silver out across the Atlantic.

  It found Paul’s bed and tickled his face with its beams. He turned to the wall, but the moon would not be put aside. It rode through his sleep. In his dreams he was flying on a moonbeam, lighting a path through the woods for the Phantom, lighting a schoolyard in New York where crowds of children were pressing in on Misty, stroking her neck with grubby fingers. He was lighting a desk in Richmond where Uncle Clarence Lee sat bent over papers and books.

  Then suddenly the moonbeam became a silver lance and Sea Star was dancing in the prick of light it made. Now the silver lance was cutting the grass in wide swaths, showing the colt how tender it was, and soon Sea Star understood. He began ripping it, grinding it with his baby teeth.

  Paul awoke. He listened sharply. It was only the wind shaking the pine needles.

  He jumped from his bed. He looked out over the flat tongue of land where the silver plane had landed. The moon was still shining brightly. He dressed and quietly opened the door of his room. The guinea hens were beginning to wake. They were clacking loudly. Paul was glad. Now his footsteps would not waken Grandma and Grandpa. He passed their closed door. He came to Maureen’s door and almost collided with her. There she was, tiptoeing out into the hall.

  “What you fixing to do?” whispered Maureen.

  Paul’s sheepish grin was lost in the dark. “Sh!” he said, putting his finger to his lips. “I’m going to make a warm gruel.”

  Maureen’s mouth flew open. “Why, that’s exactly what I was fixing to do!”

  In single file they stepped wide of the boards that creaked and came down into the kitchen. A light glowed brightly over the stove and there was Grandma stirring oatmeal porridge and reading her Sunday school lesson as she stirred.

  “Well, I never!” she gasped at the two surprised faces before her. “I thought I was seeing owls. I just got up early to prepare my lesson,” she explained. “Come sit down and eat a morsel of porridge. Though I was fixing it for someone else—a four-footed critter.”

  Maureen caught Grandma’s hand and clasped it tight between both of hers. “Oh, Grandma,” she said, “you’re the understandingest grandma in the whole wide world.”

  Paul fumbled under the sink where the pots and pans were kept. He found an old one that had lost a handle and held it up for Grandma.

  She looked at it and nodded. Then she spooned out a big helping of the steaming meal and sprinkled a handful of brown sugar over the top of it.

  “Go along, you two. Our breakfast can wait until after you coax Sea Star. Always and always it’ll be the same here, I reckon. The ponies comes first, then the people. Go along while I memorize my text.” Her words trailed out after them, “ ’And the angel of the Lord stood among the myrtle trees . . . ’ ”

  Chapter 14

  THE GENTLEMAN FROM KENTUCKY

  SEA STAR refused the porridge.

  Maureen said, “He spits it out as if ’twas vinegar.”

  “He was somethin’!” Paul said. “Just look at him now. Ribs showing like a squeeze box.” He turned away, stumbling across the barnyard, and headed for the piney woods.

  Maureen followed at a distance. The sun was rising. Long shafts of sunlight slid through the trees, gilding one side, leaving the other black. The piney litter underfoot deadened the sound of their feet. Maureen watched Paul’s fists go to his eyes and brush something away with the back of his hand.

  “Ain’t the cobwebs bothersome this time of morning?” she said, coming up to him.

  “Sure are,” Paul replied, keeping his face ahead. “For a girl, you’re right observing.”

  “Oh, thank you, Paul. I didn’t aim to be a tag-along, but I couldn’t bear not to come. I figured you’d be brooding something in your mind.”

  Paul slowed his steps. “I been brooding all right.”

  “Sure enough?”

  The boy nodded.

  “What you decided, Paul?”

  Paul’s voice began to sound more like his own. There was a wild note of hope in it. “One Pony Penning a gentleman was here all the way from Lexington, Kentucky. And he got to talking manlike to me and Grandpa. He had a big nurse-mare farm.”

  “A nurse-mare farm?”

  “A nurse-mare farm.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Quit interrupting, Maureen; I’m trying to figure something out. You just listen.”

  “All right, I will. But oh, Paul, make it good!”

  Paul cuffed the pine branches with his hands as he walked, sending dewdrops flying in every direction. It seemed to ease his feelings and loosen his tongue. “This gentleman,” he said, “owned lots of draft mares and jennies, and they most always had young ’uns tagging at their heels. Then when a fine Thoroughbred colt from one of the big racing stables near by lost its mamma, why, then the gentleman would rent out one of his mares and the little Thoroughbred would eat off her. He’d grow big and strong.”r />
  “Oh, Paul! It’s beautiful!” Maureen heaved a loud sigh. “Now all we got to do is rope a mare over on Assateague and rent her from the Fire Department.”

  Paul snorted in disgust. “ ’Taint as easy as that. A wild mare’d kick the living daylights out of an orphan colt. She’d want her own colt back, or none at all. She might even kill another colt.”

  “What if . . . ” Maureen gasped with the wonder of the idea that had come to her. “What if the mare couldn’t kick? What if her heel string was cut and she couldn’t light out with the other heel?”

  Paul let out a low whistle. “Why, she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on!”

  Maureen was beside herself with excitement. “Let’s go right back and . . . ”

  “Wait!” said Paul. “The man told me and Grandpa lots of other things. He said that if the nurse mare didn’t want to adopt a strange colt, she could hold herself all tense-like and the milk just wouldn’t come out. And besides, the mare with the cut heel has still got a mighty good set of teeth and she could bite. Bite hard.” Paul opened his jaws and snapped them sharply together. The sound sent a shiver through Maureen.

  “What we got to do,” Paul said, “is to make that mare want to take on Sea Star for her very own. That’s what we go to do.”

  For several minutes they followed along the winding path in silence.

  Maureen slipped past Paul, her bare feet making no noise at all. “Hmpf!” she taunted. “If your man from Kentucky was so awful smart, how did he do it?”

  Paul did not answer right away. He kicked a pine cone along the path with his toes until it scuttered behind a tree trunk. He peered into a deserted redbird’s nest. “I recomember now!” he said as if he had found the answer among the twigs and rootlets of the nest. “He told us he used to rub the colt all over with sheep dip. Then he’d rub the mare’s nose with it, too. He’d trick her into thinking the colt was hers ’cause they smelled the same.”