The Christmas Pony (5 page)

“Snow?”
Lucy began to dance around the kitchen. “Snow for Christmas—do you really think so, Grandma? Oh, I can't wait!”

“Don't count your snowflakes before they fall,” Mama warned her.

“Which reminds me . . .” Grandma looked at Lucy. “Did you tend to the chickens this morning?”

Lucy nodded. “I did. But there were no eggs today.”

Mama blinked as she hung her coat by the door. “No eggs?”

“It's nearly winter solstice.” Grandma moved the cast iron pot to the hottest part of the stove. “The shortest day of the year.”

“That's right!” Lucy remembered from last winter—shortly after they'd purchased the laying hens from a neighboring farm. “The chickens need more sunlight to want to lay eggs. That's why there were no eggs this morning.”

“You probably won't find eggs again for a while.” Grandma shook her head. “Fortunately we still have a couple dozen in the cooler. I'll have to tell Mrs. Brewster that we can't sell any to her after all. I should've remembered that this always happens at Christmastime.”

“Just one more reason I'll be glad when Christmas is over and done with this year.” Mama reached for her apron.

“Mama.”
Lucy let the disappointment show in her voice. “How can you say that?”

Mama looked somewhat contrite. “I'm sorry, Lucy. I know you love Christmas. It's just that . . . well, when you're a grown-up . . . things change.”

“Then I
never
want to grow up,” Lucy declared.

Grandma patted her head. “Then how about if you go set the table?”

As Lucy set the table, she decided that even if she had to grow up, she would never be like Mama. Not about Christmas, anyway. No, Lucy told herself as she set the plates down, she would rather be like Veronica Grant. Surely Veronica still liked Christmas. And Veronica liked going to movies—even on Sundays—and Veronica liked wearing pretty clothes and
laughing and all sorts of exciting things. Veronica probably even liked sweet gray ponies!

A
fter Sunday dinner, Lucy announced that she wanted to take a walk later, after she finished helping to clean up the dishes. Her intention was to stroll down to the Greenburg farm and check on Smoky. Maybe she'd even chat with Mr. Greenburg if he was around. “Would anyone like to join me?” She looked longingly at Veronica.

“Not me.” Veronica stifled a yawn. “All that good food and getting up early has made me very sleepy. I think I'm going to take a little nap.”

“I'd love to go stretch my legs,” George said. “That is, unless I can do something to help out around here.” He looked at Mama and then Grandma. “Need any firewood chopped?”

“No. No, thank you,” Mama said quickly. “You go ahead and take a walk with Lucy if you like.”

“Just make sure you bundle up,” Grandma told them. “It's getting mighty cold out there.”

“Grandma said it might snow,” Lucy told George as she started to help clear the table.

George peered out the front window, then shook his head with a frown. “Well, I sure hope it holds off some. At least until my car gets fixed.”

Lucy carried the dishes to the kitchen, but then Grandma shooed her out. “Go ahead and take your walk, Lucy. I'll get the dishes washed, and you can dry them when you get back.”

Lucy found George and they layered on coats, scarves, and hats, then headed on down the road toward town. As they
were walking, Lucy confessed her real reason for wanting to take a walk. “He's the most beautiful pony in the whole wide world,” she told George. “Smoky's got the prettiest coat you've ever seen—dapple gray. And it's already soft and fuzzy. Nice and warm for winter. His eyes are big and brown. And he's very smart too. He'll come over to the fence when I call him. You'll see.”

“He sounds like a great little pony. I'm surprised the owners want to sell him.”

“I'm surprised too,” Lucy admitted. “But I know times are hard. We had to sell almost all of our livestock.”

“You had livestock?”

She nodded as she stuck a mittened hand into a coat pocket, checking to see that the big end of a carrot was still safely there. “Before my daddy died, we had cows and horses and pigs. Now we just have the chickens and one milk cow.”

“Was it too hard to take care of all those animals?”

“I guess so. Mama said that someday we might get them back, though. That is, if we get the rest of our farm back.”

“The
rest
of your farm?”

Lucy explained about how some of their land was being farmed by the Farleys now. “The Farleys have six boys to help out with farm chores,” she told him. “For a while Mr. Farley paid us every year at harvest time for using our land. But he can't do that anymore. Mama says we're just lucky he's working it at all. Otherwise it would just go back to weeds.” She pointed at the Saunderses' neglected farm. “Like that farm.” She told George about Clara and her family moving away and how much she missed them. “Clara was my very best friend.”

“Are there any other girls living nearby?” he asked.

“No.” She sadly shook her head, explaining that the Brewsters never had children and that the Greenburg children were all grown up.

“Maybe that's why Mr. Greenburg wants to sell his pony,” George suggested.

She nodded. “Maybe so.” She pointed at the sign still on the fence post. “That's for Smoky,” she said happily. “That must mean no one bought him yet.” She ran up to the fence, climbed onto the bottom rail, and called out. Just like that, Smoky left where he'd been standing in the trees, trotting over to see her.

“Don't tell anyone,” she said as she extracted a slightly fuzzy-looking carrot stub from her pocket. “But I sneaked this from the kitchen.”

George chuckled. “Your secret's safe with me.”

“Hello, Smoky,” she said happily. “How are you doing today?”

He shook his mane as if to greet her, and she peeled off her mitten and held out the carrot stub in the palm of her hand. “It's not much,” she told him. “But I hope you like it.” She giggled as the warm, fuzzy muzzle tickled the palm of her hand and just like magic the carrot disappeared. She patted the broad side of his cheek. “Isn't he just the most beautiful pony you've ever seen?”

George reached out and stroked Smoky's mane. “He's a very nice-looking pony, for sure. And he seems healthy too.”

Lucy looked all around the field behind Smoky, hoping to spot Mr. Greenburg. But all was quiet and still today. Maybe the Greenburgs were in town. She looked up at the sky now, noticing that it was almost exactly the same color as Smoky, and then to her delighted surprise she spotted a snowflake
fluttering down right in front of her. “Look at that!” she cried, pointing upward. “It's starting to snow!”

George looked up and chuckled. “You're right about that.”

“Maybe we will have a white Christmas,” she told him.

“Maybe so.” He slowly nodded.

She remembered his concerns about getting to California in the snow. “Or maybe it's just fooling us,” she said quickly. “Sometimes our weather is tricky like that. It looks like snow is coming, but then it waits a few days.”

“Well, just in case, I suppose we should turn back and get home. I wouldn't want to get caught out here in a blizzard.”

She climbed down from the fence. “Good-bye, Smoky,” she said sadly. “I'll come back and see you again as soon as I can. Please don't let anyone buy you.”

Smoky tipped his head up and down as if agreeing to this. Lucy reluctantly turned away, and she and George headed back toward home. They walked quietly for a ways before Lucy spoke up. “Please don't tell Mama that I took you to see Smoky,” she said suddenly.

“Why not?”

Lucy considered this. “Well, Mama doesn't want me to keep wishing for a pony. She thinks it's impossible. And Grandma says ponies are only for rich people. But I've been praying for a pony, and Pastor McHenry says God can do impossible things.” She peered up at George. “Do you think God will answer my prayer?”

George's mouth was in a firm line now. “Yes . . .” he said slowly. “I definitely think God will answer your prayer, Lucy. But sometimes God's answer isn't the answer we want. Sometimes God's answer is no . . . or wait.”

Lucy kicked a stone on the road and sighed. “I know. Grandma says that exact same thing sometimes. But maybe God will say yes.”

“Maybe so.” George pointed up at the sky. “It looks like this snow is really coming now. Maybe we should walk faster.”

By the time they got home, everything, including Lucy and George, was spotted in white snowflakes. Pausing on the front porch to brush the snow off, Lucy suddenly remembered Smoky. “Do you think he'll be okay?” she said quietly to George.

“Who?”

“Smoky.” She imagined the pony coated with snow, shivering in the wind.

George got a thoughtful look, then nodded. “Yes. Smoky has a thick wooly coat. I'm sure he'll be just fine.”

Lucy hoped that George was right. She'd never worried about farm animals being out in the cold like that before, but she knew that she wouldn't want to have to live outside when it was snowing and blowing like it was starting to do now. And even though Mama used most of the barn for her laundry business, there were still some nice warm stalls in the back. Surely it would be all right for a pony to use one of them . . . just to come in from the cold. Lucy would keep it nice and clean.

Lucy was pleased to wake up to a white, wintry world on Monday morning. It was only a few inches so far, but it was beautiful. Like a gigantic frosted cake.

“Sit still,” Mama said as Lucy kicked the heels of her boots against the kitchen stool. “Let me get this last braid finished.”

“I just can't wait to go outside,” Lucy said happily. “I'm going to make a snow angel first thing. Then a snowman if the snow is sticky enough.”

“Just make sure you see to the chickens first. And bring in some more wood.”

“Yes, Mama.” Lucy pulled on her coat, searching her pockets for mittens. Before long she was bundled up and on her way outside with a bucket of chicken food. The air was crisp and cold, and the sound of snow crunching beneath her boots filled her with high hopes. She always felt excited over the first snow, and to have it before Christmas was a real treat.

“Good morning, Lucy.”

She jumped to see George coming around the corner of the barn. “What are you doing out here?” she asked.

“Just taking a walk.” He jerked his thumb behind him. “I broke the ice in the chickens' water trough. I hope that's all right.”

“Sure.” She grinned. “Thanks. I'm just on my way to feed them now.”

He turned around and walked back with her. “I noticed an old Model T back behind the barn.”

“That was my daddy's car.” Lucy opened the gate to the chicken yard and went inside. George hadn't just broken the ice; he'd refilled the water and even cleaned the snow out of the food trough so it was all ready for her to dump the kitchen scraps. The hungry hens gathered around her feet
as she spread the food out for them. “You girls need to start laying eggs again,” she told them.

“Why aren't they laying eggs?” George held the gate open for her, then securely latched it closed after she came out.

Lucy explained about the winter solstice, and he rubbed his chin with a thoughtful expression. “So they need sunlight to lay eggs?”

“That's what Grandma says. It always happens right around Christmastime.”

“What if we rigged up a light bulb inside their coop?”

“A light bulb?” She giggled as she tried to imagine a light bulb in the henhouse.

“You could turn it on just before the sun sets. Leave it on for an hour or so. Maybe the chickens would think it was still daytime and reward you with some eggs.”

“Do you really think that would work?”

“It might be worth a try.” He pointed to the barn. “I noticed there's electricity running from the house to the barn.”

“Mama had the electric put in so she could do her laundry out there.”

“Well, it wouldn't be hard to run a cord from the barn to the chicken coop and get a light set up. I could give it a try if you think it's a good idea.”

She nodded eagerly. “It's a swell idea.”

“Would your mother mind if I poked around to find what I need for the light?”

“I think Mama would be real happy if we started getting eggs again.”

“About that car,” he said as they walked back to the house. “Does it run at all?”

“No, it's been broken down for a long, long time. Mr. Brewster offered to buy it once, but Mama said no. Now she'd gladly sell it, but he can't afford to buy it anymore. And no one else wants a car that doesn't run.” She stopped walking and set the chicken bucket down. “I'm glad because sometimes I like to sit in it and I pretend like I'm driving.” She flopped down on her back, and George's eyes nearly popped out.

“What's wrong?” He bent over and stared. “Are you okay?”

“I'm making a snow angel,” she explained as she flapped her arms and legs.

With a quizzical expression, he pulled out his pipe and watched her.

“See?” She stood, proudly pointing to the angelic image in the snow.

“Very nice.” He lit his pipe and smiled.

She went over to where the snow angel head was and drew in a halo. “There. Perfect.”

“Do you think your mother would mind if I took a look at the old car?” He let out a puff of sweet-smelling smoke. “My dad used to have a car almost exactly like it, and if I'm lucky, I might be able to get it running again.”

“Really?”
She brushed the snow off her coat sleeves.

“It's a possibility.”

“I sure wish it could run again.” She sighed. “I remember how I used to ride to town in it with my daddy . . . back when I was a little girl.”