The Black Stallion

other car but his uncle's.
    The Queen turned toward the lane, her head alert. And the foal, too, aroused by the noise of the car, struggled to his feet and stood close beside his mother.
    The car moved out of the woods and, crossing the brook with undiminished speed, drew up before the paddock fence.
    Tom rose to greet his uncle and aunt.
    "So it came," Aunt Emma said quietly. And then she turned to her husband, who was leaning heavily upon the fence. "It came after all you said!" she shouted to him.
    The man's gaze never left the foal, and if he heard his wife's sharp criticism he ignored it, for all he said in his slowest drawl was, "It's all right."
    "It's a colt," Tom said, his eyes shining. "Jimmy Creech wanted a colt."
    Aunt Emma nodded while Uncle Wilmer asked, "What'd you say?"
    "He said it's a colt!" the woman shouted.
    "I know that, all right," Uncle Wilmer said.
    The colt encircled the mare, then swept beneath her belly and came up to gaze at the three onlookers with his large, curious eyes.
    Aunt Emma, glancing around, saw the wet dishtowels hanging on the fence. She recognized the green border stitching and her eyes lost their warmth as she bustled her way toward the towels. Sweeping them off the fence, she waved them vigorously in the air. "Thomas!" she bellowed. "What have you been doing with my new Miracle dishtowels!"
    "I-I dried th-the foal with them," Tom stammered. "They're soft," he added feebly.
    They looked at each other for several seconds while Uncle Wilmer's gaze shifted uneasily from one to the other.
    "I had to have something soft," Tom said again. "I'm going to give them a good washing."
    Aunt Emma looked at the foal, then at the boy. She lowered her eyes as she said, "Well, see that you do, Tom." And her voice was amazingly soft for Aunt Emma.
    Uncle Wilmer had had his head cocked, listening, but he hadn't caught the woman's words. He turned to her questioningly, but she swept by, ignoring him.
    When Aunt Emma reached the gate, she stopped. "Wilmer!" she shouted. "You come along. I got work for you!"
    Grudgingly, Uncle Wilmer moved away from the fence after one more look at the foal. "It's a good one, all right," he said mostly to himself. And only when he was about to follow Aunt Emma did he turn to the boy to say, "Don't suppose you fed the chickens, did you, Tom?"
    The boy's gaze left the foal for Uncle Wilmer. "I forgot them. I'm sorry. I'll do it now."
    His uncle walked toward the gate and, without turning his head around, said, "It's all right. I'll feed them. You stay with him."
    So Tom stayed with his colt. And he decided he was going to stay there all day, if he could. He didn't want to miss a thing. He'd even write Jimmy from here. He would say, "Dear Jimmy, he came this morning. A colt, just like you wanted. And I think he's the most beautiful, most wonderful colt there ever was…"

Hard Hands
5
    Very often during the following week, Aunt Emma suggested bluntly to Tom that he might as well sleep in the barn for all she saw
of
him. "Land sakes!" she told him. "Next thing we know you'll be eating oats!"
    And, more often than not, whenever the word
oats
was mentioned, Uncle Wilmer would turn to Tom, shake his head sadly, and say, "You're wastin' good money, Boy. The mare don't need oats now. Grass is plenty good enough for her. Grass makes milk for the colt."
    And Tom would always reply, "She needs both, Uncle Wilmer. Jimmy Creech says she does."
    " 'Jimmy Creech says this'! Jimmy Creech says that'!" Uncle Wilmer would bellow, stalking from the room.
    But his uncle's tantrums did not bother Tom any more than did his aunt's sarcastic remarks about his living in the barn. For Tom's world now centered there and he accepted it. Hour after hour, day after day, he watched the colt.
    He saw the sharp ribs seemingly disappear overnight and the chunky body fill out before his eyes. No longer did the colt shuffle along on uncertain legs. After his second day he was trotting about the paddock, falling only when he took too fast a turn.
    And Tom watched him with wondering eyes, marveling at the rapid growth and agility of one who only a few days ago had been so helpless.
    By the end of the first week, the paddock was almost too small for the frolicking colt, and Tom knew that the time had come to put him and the Queen in the pasture. He had waited for the colt to gain full confidence in his long legs before putting him to the task of coping with the pasture's hilly and uneven terrain. He