Read The Bride's Farewell for Free Online Page B
Authors: Meg Rosoff
lodgings.
Eleven
P ell emerged from the womb with a view of ponies on the green, some of which had a habit of wandering into the house in search of food or company. By the time she was old enough to run, she was charged with bringing the mares in from the heath to foal—not an easy task, for they were moody and unpredictable in that state. And it was the strangest sight to see the little girl with her own wild mane of hair leading a string of swollen mares out of the forest, and them tame as tame, or so you thought till you tried to take over the job yourself.
The traditional way of herding involved ropes and traps and wild chases, catching what you could by the tail and hauling it in, or galloping a handful of ponies round to where someone was waiting with a gate and hoping they didn’t swerve before the chute. Stillbirths were common, but in the absence of anything better that’s how it was.
Pell’s method confounded the men, but it worked, transforming the process from a trauma to something altogether more peaceful, with a word of calm and a slim hand to change the direction of a breech or a stuck foreleg. And afterward she cleaned and stroked the foals and muttered fondly to them so they would not grow up wild.
Finch’s children could all ride and catch a pony before their fifth birthday, and Pell and Frannie learned just the same. In an acre of bays and roans and grays, they never hesitated in knowing which belonged to whom, and the name and nature of each. The yearlings given into their care they taught to stand quietly and be led, while the two-year-olds learned to carry a child to the next village or haul a load of cabbages to market. Like the Finches, Pell watched and learned the way to shape a shoe to correct a bad stride or foster a good one and, as she grew, to hammer it on quick as any grown man. Unlike them, she could see through the skin of a horse, through the thick bony skull to its brain, or deep into its chest where resided the heart and soul. She could tell at a glance what a horse could do, or might do if asked nicely, and how to ask so that the answer was always yes.
The day Birdie’s father took Pell on to work for pay was the day he found her sat backward astride the very devil of a stallion, untamable, or so everyone said, braiding celandine and hound’s-tongue through his tail. Her own father had only ever noticed that she was a girl, and thus had no aptitude for preaching.
By fifteen Pell knew the farrier’s craft as well as any full apprentice, despite the fact that neither of her parents cared a whit for animals or could tell a pit pony from the Darley Arabian. Birdie’s father made a habit of watching her, while thinking what a useful daughter-in-law he’d be getting in time.
“You’ll make a fine helper for my son one day soon,” he told Pell, pleased as pleased, on her seventeenth birthday.
This pronouncement surprised her. She had always assumed Birdie would make a fine helper for her. The genesis of this misunderstanding was simple enough: she could handle a horse better than he could, and anyone with eyes in his head knew this to be true. That it was not the natural order of things, she chose not to acknowledge.
On Birdie’s twentieth birthday, when he learned that his uncle had leased him ten acres of his own and a cottage besides, he ran to her shouting that they could be married at last. And in that moment, years of unacknowledged doubt turned to dread. When Birdie saw the look on her face, he had to sit down.
“Aren’t you happy for us?”
“For you,” Pell said.
“For us, ” replied Birdie, reaching out to her. But she ducked away from him and ran out into the forest calling for Jack. She came upon Birdie’s mare, Maggs, who showed the usual friendliness, happily ignorant of goings-on in the human realm. The mare followed along until Pell turned on her, impatient, and shooed her off, whistling for Jack and him taking his time answering. When he finally
Eleven
P ell emerged from the womb with a view of ponies on the green, some of which had a habit of wandering into the house in search of food or company. By the time she was old enough to run, she was charged with bringing the mares in from the heath to foal—not an easy task, for they were moody and unpredictable in that state. And it was the strangest sight to see the little girl with her own wild mane of hair leading a string of swollen mares out of the forest, and them tame as tame, or so you thought till you tried to take over the job yourself.
The traditional way of herding involved ropes and traps and wild chases, catching what you could by the tail and hauling it in, or galloping a handful of ponies round to where someone was waiting with a gate and hoping they didn’t swerve before the chute. Stillbirths were common, but in the absence of anything better that’s how it was.
Pell’s method confounded the men, but it worked, transforming the process from a trauma to something altogether more peaceful, with a word of calm and a slim hand to change the direction of a breech or a stuck foreleg. And afterward she cleaned and stroked the foals and muttered fondly to them so they would not grow up wild.
Finch’s children could all ride and catch a pony before their fifth birthday, and Pell and Frannie learned just the same. In an acre of bays and roans and grays, they never hesitated in knowing which belonged to whom, and the name and nature of each. The yearlings given into their care they taught to stand quietly and be led, while the two-year-olds learned to carry a child to the next village or haul a load of cabbages to market. Like the Finches, Pell watched and learned the way to shape a shoe to correct a bad stride or foster a good one and, as she grew, to hammer it on quick as any grown man. Unlike them, she could see through the skin of a horse, through the thick bony skull to its brain, or deep into its chest where resided the heart and soul. She could tell at a glance what a horse could do, or might do if asked nicely, and how to ask so that the answer was always yes.
The day Birdie’s father took Pell on to work for pay was the day he found her sat backward astride the very devil of a stallion, untamable, or so everyone said, braiding celandine and hound’s-tongue through his tail. Her own father had only ever noticed that she was a girl, and thus had no aptitude for preaching.
By fifteen Pell knew the farrier’s craft as well as any full apprentice, despite the fact that neither of her parents cared a whit for animals or could tell a pit pony from the Darley Arabian. Birdie’s father made a habit of watching her, while thinking what a useful daughter-in-law he’d be getting in time.
“You’ll make a fine helper for my son one day soon,” he told Pell, pleased as pleased, on her seventeenth birthday.
This pronouncement surprised her. She had always assumed Birdie would make a fine helper for her. The genesis of this misunderstanding was simple enough: she could handle a horse better than he could, and anyone with eyes in his head knew this to be true. That it was not the natural order of things, she chose not to acknowledge.
On Birdie’s twentieth birthday, when he learned that his uncle had leased him ten acres of his own and a cottage besides, he ran to her shouting that they could be married at last. And in that moment, years of unacknowledged doubt turned to dread. When Birdie saw the look on her face, he had to sit down.
“Aren’t you happy for us?”
“For you,” Pell said.
“For us, ” replied Birdie, reaching out to her. But she ducked away from him and ran out into the forest calling for Jack. She came upon Birdie’s mare, Maggs, who showed the usual friendliness, happily ignorant of goings-on in the human realm. The mare followed along until Pell turned on her, impatient, and shooed her off, whistling for Jack and him taking his time answering. When he finally