Katie and the Mustang #1 by Kathleen Duey

Author:Kathleen Duey [Duey, Kathleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2004-05-24T04:00:00+00:00

The spring cleaning dragged itself along—finally it was finished—at the end of two weeks, not one. And then it was March. It didn’t feel like spring. It got colder than it had been all winter.

We had a snowstorm, and Hiram left off flattening the cornstalks from the year before to go help Mr. Firner slaughter his pigs for the year. The cold weather kept the meat fresher until they could get it into the smokehouse and packed in salt.

It got so cold that Mr. Stevens moved Midnight and Delia and the plow team back into the barn day and night. I had to fill the chicken coop in deep straw to keep the one batch of early-hatch chicks alive. Tiger moved back into the barn, too, and insisted on getting her milk there. She refused to walk a snowy path if she didn’t have to. It was all right. The Mustang knew she was harmless now.

The Mustang seemed to like having horse company all the time. From the first night that all the other stalls were full, he seemed calmer and more content. He always watched when I scratched Mid-night’s ears and combed out Delia’s mane and tail.

If I had time to stand still in front of his stall and talk quietly to him for a while, he would usually come to the gate and let me touch him—but only if I was the only one in the barn. If Hiram or Mr. Stevens came in, he stood at the back of the stall again.

Hiram was always patient and quiet-voiced. The stallion watched closely when he came in every morning to clean the stalls and feed. Hiram always talked to him, too, but the Mustang never came to the front of the stall for Hiram.

I could tell that Hiram was uneasy sitting around the Stevenses’ house. When the snow eased up, he would be glad to go back to clearing last year’s cornstalks in the two fields where Mr. Stevens had left them standing last fall.

The ears in those two fields had been too small to harvest before first frost because Mr. Stevens had planted late. He had brought in half a crop, at best.

Every morning, I stood in front of the Mustang’s stall before I milked Betsy. “Will you let me touch you today?” I asked him.

He always reacted. Sometimes he would switch his tail back and forth; sometimes he would blow out a long breath. But it seemed like he could understand me.

“The ground is still frozen,” I said to him one day. “But as soon as it thaws for good, Mr. Stevens will put the other horses out in the pasture. Don’t you want to go out, too?”

He was standing at the back of his stall, looking at me. He stamped a forehoof and walked forward, stopping so that his muzzle was directly above the stall gate. I took a single step toward him, then stopped. I stood still for a moment, then I stepped forward again—a slow half step, and I kept my arms close to my body.

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