The Black Stallion

George muttered. "What's he doin' here?" Jimmy said nothing, but when Tom turned to look at him he saw that every bit of color had been drained from his thin face. Yet Jimmy never left the doorway of their shed while the van was being unloaded and four yearlings, including the valuable Silver Knight, were taken into the shed. Jimmy's eyes blazed with anger as he watched everything.
    He saw Miss Elsie and the other drivers at Coronet gather around during the unloading. He saw the long, low, blue convertible come down the row and stop behind the van. Miss Elsie went to meet the tall, middle-aged man wearing an open camel's hair coat and a brown hat. He saw Miss Elsie smile at the man and shake his hand. He said nothing when George mentioned that "Probably that guy is Phillip Cox. Looks like what you'd expect of a clothing manufacturer."
    As he watched the man take his hat off to Miss Elsie, he noticed that his hair was dark and heavy, with no trace of gray. He saw them go over to the big colt with the tossing gray head. He knew that was Silver Knight, just as George and Tom did.
    The groom pulled back the fine white blanket with the red borders. The lettering across it read, "Cox Clothing Company." Miss Elsie stepped back to get a better look at Silver Knight; then they covered the colt again and all followed him into the shed.
    It was only then that Jimmy Creech spoke, and he never turned to Tom or George as he said, "Goin' home for a little while. Stomach."
    They let him go without a word, knowing that nothing they could say would help. When his car had gone down the road, George said with more bitterness in his voice than Tom had ever heard before, "It's not enough that Phillip Cox is here. He had to go an' pick Jimmy's racing colors, too."
    Tom glanced at Jimmy Creech's worn red-and-white blanket hanging in the sun and nodded sadly.
    A short while later, the blue convertible left with Mr. Cox at the wheel.
    "That's the blue convertible I told you about some time ago," George said, "—the kind Jimmy and me never knew." Then he saw Miss Elsie walking alone toward the track. "I'll find out what it's all about," he said, leaving Tom.
    He was back in a few minutes.
    "Miss Elsie said that Phil Cox's father was a friend of her father's," George said. "He needed a place to keep his colts until he goes to Florida for training January first. He couldn't get away from his business before then."
    "He'll only be here a month, then," Tom said thoughtfully. "Maybe it'll be all right, George. Maybe it will. A month isn't very long."
    "It depends on Jimmy," George said. "It all depends on how he takes Cox's being here at all."
    Tom learned how very long a month can be when you begin dreading each day and the next—for thirty-one days. Jimmy seldom talked and he just withdrew into his hard, embittered shell. Tom and George pleaded with him to stay home, but he came every day as though attracted despite himself to the shed next door with its newly painted red-and-white tack trunks, its gleaming sulkies and soft black sets of harness. Always the fine white blankets with their bold red lettering, "Cox Clothing Company," would be hanging on the lines to air, to wave in the breeze as though to taunt Jimmy Creech still more.
    Jimmy walked by Cox's shed once a day to look through the open doors and see the colts' nameplates, lettered black on golden brass, hanging above the stall doors. Yet he never said a word to anyone who worked for Phillip Cox—even to his trainer or the grooms, who were friendly and nodded to him when he walked past.
    Phillip Cox seldom came to the stables and for that Tom and George were grateful.
    Each morning they would stand beside the track to watch Cox's trainer work his colts, for they had been broken before arriving at Coronet. When the gray colt swept by, Jimmy would never ask Tom what he thought of him; it was as though Jimmy's whole being was now completely absorbed by his bitterness for Phillip Cox and his kind.
    Jimmy's face became more haggard than Tom had ever seen it, and he lost weight until he was nothing but skin and bones. Tom didn't think Jimmy could get any thinner or look worse. But Jimmy did both, and Tom was the cause of it.
    Early one morning, two weeks after the arrival of Phillip Cox, Jimmy reached the track in time to see Tom leaving the shed next door. His eyes blazed in anger, yet he said nothing to the boy and turned away from him.
    "I only wanted to see Silver Knight close," Tom