Season of Ponies (10 page)

“I guess I haven’t,” Pamela admitted. Inwardly she sighed with relief. Now she would never be asked to explain.

For a while she had considered telling her father all about what had really happened, but she decided that she couldn’t. She couldn’t because she felt quite sure Ponyboy wouldn’t want her to, feeling as he did about grownups. But even more, she couldn’t because somehow she still felt that something had changed on that day in June when a promise had been broken.

T
HE DAYS WENT BY
quickly until at last Pamela was allowed to go outside. Father carried one of the porch swings out onto the lawn under the oak trees, and then he carried Pamela all the way downstairs and out to the swing. She was really well enough to walk, but her legs were still a little shaky; and, besides, it was more fun to be carried. They sat on the swing together and talked.

“I guess the air is just as fresh on the porch,” Father said, “but it’s more fun out here, isn’t it?”

Pamela looked at her father quickly. She wondered if he knew how she felt about Oak Farm House. Or maybe, it made him feel sad and smothered, too.

“Do you think Oak Farm House is—uh—pretty?” she asked.

It was her father’s turn to look sharply at Pamela. As usual, he knew what her question really meant because he answered, “It’s a sad house, Pam, because it’s looking backwards.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he gazed at the huge old house. “It was a lovely house once, and it could be again; but not by looking backwards. Someday, Pamela, when you are a lot older you’ll come back to Oak Farm House and show it how to look forward again. But I think in the meantime it’s not a good place for you.”

Pamela suddenly felt what seemed to be a huge hard knot in her stomach. She waited for what her father was going to say next. She wanted so much to have him say he was going to take her with him, but still, she didn’t want him to. If they planned it again, Aunt Sarah would just make him change his mind, and that would be too much to bear.

So she said nothing and only stared at her hands folded in her lap as her father went on. “You’re way ahead in your studies, so it won’t matter if you don’t get much schooling next year. I’ve been promised a permanent area in a year’s time, and then we can settle down. We’ll get a house a little way out in the country so you can have a horse of your own. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

Like it! It sounded heavenly; but Pamela couldn’t answer or even raise her head and smile because of the lump of dread that rested heavily at the bottom of her stomach.

“And in the meantime, we’ll concentrate on enjoying traveling around and getting you well and strong again. And we’ll go to every horse show and circus and riding stable we can find. Shall we?”

It sounded marvelous. It just had to be real this time.
Anything’s real if you want it enough.
The memory of what Ponyboy had said came back suddenly, and with it there came a hope she had never really known before. She threw her arms around her father’s neck. “Oh let’s!” she cried.

Pamela didn’t sleep much that night. She was sure this time it would happen. When morning finally came, and breakfast time, Aunt Sarah was at her place in the big chair at the head of the table. Everyone was seated and Aunt Elsie was just handing the first waffle to Aunt Sarah, when the time came.

“Pamela,” said Aunt Sarah, “I want you to put molasses on your waffle this morning instead of syrup. I think I’ll have Pamela eat lots of molasses this winter, Randall. You may not remember, but Father always said it was good for the blood. She still looks quite pale.”

Pamela looked at her father. It would have to be said now. But Father’s face had the careful nervous look it so often had when he was talking to Aunt Sarah. “Uh—I was going to ask you, Sarah, what you think about my taking Pamela with me this time,” he began.

No! No! That wasn’t the way! He should just say, “Pamela is coming with me.” She glanced at Aunt Sarah. The keen black eyes were frowning beneath the smooth dark wings of hair.

“Whatever are you thinking of, Randall,” she said sharply. “If it was unwise to drag the child around the country before, it’s doubly so now when she has just been so ill. You can’t be serious.”

“I’m quite serious,” Father said. “I’ve thought about it a great deal, and I’ve decided that in the long run she’ll be better off with me.”

For a long moment Aunt Sarah said nothing, but her eyes were blazing with cold dark fire.
“Better off with you!”
she said at last, and her voice was like a whip. “How can you possibly know what is best for her. Your wife might be alive right now if she hadn’t been forced to live such an unsettled life—and she was accustomed to a gypsy existence. If you take Pamela with you, I won’t answer for her welfare!”

Pamela looked at her father. His face was pale, and he sat for a long time looking at his plate. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said at last in a voice that Pamela could scarcely hear. “Perhaps ...

But just at that moment the strangest thing in the world happened. In the midst of all the fear and dread, suddenly a tune was running through Pamela’s mind. She heard it so clearly she thought it must have come from somewhere in the room, but when she looked around she realized it had not. It was—it was—and then she knew. She had sung that song herself—just once before. It was the song Ponyboy had said she shouldn’t forget.

Shutting her eyes, she tried to bring it back. It came slowly, phrase by phrase, a few lingering notes at a time. But not the whole song—not strong and sure and clear as it had been on the island in the swamp.

She heard her father’s voice, sounding suddenly more sure over the growing music in her mind.

“Perhaps you’re right, Sarah, but I think I must do what I think best.”

Pamela clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes tight shut, trying with all her might to remember the whole song.

Aunt Sarah’s voice, shrill with anger, cut through her song scattering the broken phrases. “Randall, I absolutely refuse to permit you to do anything so foolish.”

For an awful moment the notes were gone—scattered like frightened birds. With almost painful effort Pamela tried once more to bring them back; and suddenly she could remember it all. Silently it sang in her mind, free and clear, strong and unshaken, as it had before. She looked over at her father with what she knew was a look of confidence and faith.

Father stood up. “I’m sorry, Sarah. I know you want the best for Pamela, but I don’t think you understand. I’m Pamela’s father, and she belongs with me. We’ll get along just fine. Come on, Pam. Perhaps we’d better leave right away.”

The song was gone again, leaving not a note behind. But something had changed at Oak Farm, just as Ponyboy had said it would. Pamela smiled at her father, and he smiled back.

The legs of Aunt Sarah’s chair screeched angrily as she shoved it back violently and strode from the room, her face pale with anger. The room seemed suddenly very quiet when she had gone.

Pamela, Father, and Aunt Elsie looked at each other uneasily for a moment. Then Father grinned, “Cheer up, everybody. She’ll get over it.”

Aunt Elsie smiled weakly. “You might as well sit down and finish your breakfast. No reason to leave without eating.”

“I guess you’re right, Elsie,” Father said. “We can pack as soon as we’re through eating. No need to waste your Aunt Elsie’s good waffles, is there, Pam?”

“No, Father,” Pamela said, her eyes on her father’s face. And as Aunt Elsie passed the waffles and Father poured the syrup, she kept right on watching him. She was watching him because suddenly his Oak Farm Look was gone and he was the way she wanted him to be—strong and sure and full of fun.

“Don’t be so solemn, Pam,” he said, smiling. “Everything’s going to be all right. Except your pigtail’s about to get in your syrup.”

Pamela giggled.

“That’s better. By the way, Elsie. Is there a radio on somewhere in the house? A little while ago I thought I heard music.”

“No,” Aunt Elsie answered, “but isn’t that strange. I thought I heard something, too.”

Pamela smiled and said nothing at all.

Later that morning a very remarkable thing happened while Pamela and her father were packing her horse collection.

“Better give this fellow some extra wrapping,” Father was saying. “He looks like he—” He broke off suddenly and stared towards the bedroom door.

Pamela turned to see Aunt Sarah standing in the doorway, watching them with a very strange expression on her face. Pamela’s alarm turned to amazement as she realized the odd expression was a smile—unmistakably a smile.

“It’s not necessary to do that just now, Randall,” Aunt Sarah said. “You might as well leave tomorrow as you had planned.”

“Well, all right, Sarah. If you want us to stay until then,” Father said. “But I thought that with things the way they are it might be easier for everyone if—”

“I know,” Aunt Sarah interrupted. “However I’ve been thinking the matter over, and I have decided that—” She stopped and seemed to take a deep breath, “—that you both were quite right.” She stopped and regarded them both sternly for a moment, as though expecting someone to disagree. Then she turned with great dignity and disappeared down the hall.

Father sat down on the foot of the bed and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, what do you know about that,” he said.

The next day on the wide veranda of Oak Farm House, Pamela told the aunts good-by.

“I’ll miss you, Aunt Elsie,” she whispered. “Write to me every day.”

“Of course I’ll write, dear,” Aunt Elsie said. “But not every day, I’m afraid. You see, I’ll be teaching at the Valley School next year, so I’ll be quite busy.”

Pamela glanced quickly at Aunt Sarah, but she seemed to know all about Aunt Elsie’s plans and had nothing to say. The summer had changed things for Aunt Elsie, too.

“That’s wonderful, Aunt Elsie,” Pamela said. She kissed her pale cheek and turned to Aunt Sarah.

Aunt Sarah bent to receive Pamela’s kiss. “Good-by, Pamela,” she said. But as Pamela turned to go she added sharply, “Come here.”

Startled, Pamela turned back. Aunt Sarah’s face gave a little twist as if she had a pain somewhere and she reached out with both hands. Then suddenly her hands dropped, and her face was again proud and still.

“Do try to remember to stand up straight and to be punctual,” she said.

“Yes, Aunt Sarah. I’ll try,” Pamela said out loud, but as she started slowly down the stairs something inside her said wonderingly, “Poor Aunt Sarah.”

Brother sat at the foot of the steps neatly arranged in his usual china cat pose. Pamela decided she even liked him today, though he was a stuck-up old thing. She stopped to give him a good-by pat. But as she did, Brother stood up and, accompanying himself with a rusty purr, wound himself around her leg like any affectionate feline. Then, as she stared in amazement, he rearranged himself primly on his stair step. Pamela could only look on in wonder.

“Coming Pam?” Father called from the car. Pamela ran across the lawn and climbed in beside him. As they rattled over the old wooden bridge, she looked back. There were the aunts waving from the veranda steps, the broad lawn under the dark Oaks, part of the silent dusty farmyard—and just a glimpse of the old barn.

The old barn! Where she had first met Nimbus and where she had last seen the ponies. Where she had so often told Ponyboy good-by while the ponies crowded around her, nickering softly and touching her with their velvet noses.

As the car wound its way down the narrow Valley Road, Pamela stared straight ahead, but she wasn’t seeing with her eyes. Instead, she was looking backward over the summer. Tears filled her eyes as she twisted the braided ring on her finger.

It was really over now. The wonderful summer, the summer of ponies, the magical gift from her unknown grandmother. If only it could happen all over again. In spite of her joy, she was suddenly sad.

“Look, Pamela,” her father said suddenly. “Look up ahead. The trees are beginning to turn gold.”

Pamela blinked the tears from her eyes and looked. Sure enough, a patch of trees glowed with the bright golds and reds of autumn. Fall was just ahead, and then winter. But there were other things ahead, too. There would be traveling with Father and new friends and good times and then a real home and a horse of her very own.

Pamela sighed, “I can’t wait for fall,” she said.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder (b. 1927) is the three-time Newbery Honor–winning author of classic children’s novels such as
The Egypt Game
,
The Headless Cupid
, and
The Witches of Worm
. Her adventure and fantasy stories are beloved by many generations.

Snyder was born in Lemoore, California, in 1927. Her father, William Keatley, worked for Shell Oil, but as a would-be rancher he and his family always lived on a small farm. Snyder’s parents were both storytellers, and their tales often kept their children entertained during quiet evenings at home.

Snyder began reading and telling stories of her own at an early age. By the time she was four years old she was able to read novels and newspapers intended for adults. When she wasn’t reading, she was making up and embellishing stories. When she was eight, Snyder decided that she would be a writer—a profession in which embellishment and imagination were accepted and rewarded.

Snyder’s adolescent years were made more difficult by her studious country upbringing and by the fact that she had been advanced a grade when she started school. As other girls were going to dances and discovering boys, Snyder retreated into books. The stories transported her from her small room to a larger, remarkable universe.

At Whittier College, Zilpha Keatley Snyder met her future husband, Larry Snyder. After graduation, she began teaching upper-level elementary classes. Snyder taught for nine years, including three years as a master teacher for the University of California, Berkeley. The classroom experience gave Snyder a fresh appreciation of the interests and capabilities of preteens.

As she continued her teaching career, Snyder gained more free time. She began writing at night, after teaching during the day; her husband helped by typing out her manuscripts. After finishing her first novel, she sent it to a publisher. It was accepted on her first try. That book,
Season of Ponies
, was published in 1964.