Date: 1964-06-28 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Juvenile Fiction; Fantasy & Magic; Social Themes; Friendship; Action & Adventure; General
Description: The first novel from three-time Newbery Honor–winning writer Zilpha Keatley Snyder's: a mystical fairytale about a girl, a magic amulet, and one unforgettable summer Life is difficult for Pamela. She usually lives with her two aunts because her father is always traveling for work. But this summer, Pamela's father has promised to take her away with him. On the day of their departure, however, he breaks his promise. Instead, he leaves Pamela an amulet engraved with mysterious lettering that he claims has magical properties. Pamela is skeptical, but things change quickly when the necklace summons
Publisher: Yearling

Season of Ponies

Zilpha Keatley Snyder

TO Susan AND Douglas

Contents

A Morning of Hope

An Afternoon of Sorrow

A Magic Evening

Pamela Makes a Choice

A Warning

A Pale Pink Clue

In a Forest Clearing

A Glimpse of Fear

On a Stormy Night

In the Old Granary

Shadow Glen

Fear Comes Closer

A Puzzling Surprise

The Circus Game

In the Pig Woman’s Swamp

The Pig Woman

Back to Oak Farm

An Unexpected Visitor

Old Questions Answered

Endings and Beginnings

A Biography of Zilpha K. Snyder

A Morning of Hope

THE DAY BEGAN AS June days are supposed to, in a burst of sunshine; but before noon, dark clouds were sweeping across the sky. In the afternoon, rain fell in dull gray torrents; and just before nightfall, a strange swirling ground fog, heavy and white, swept through the valley. Afterward, Pamela heard Aunt Sarah say she’d never seen fog like that in the valley before.

It started out to be the day that Pamela was to leave Oak Farm. When she awoke that morning, even the weather seemed to be celebrating. A few bright rays of sun had somehow managed to slip through the thick branches that hovered over the old house, and then to find the tall narrow windows of Pamela’s room. Bright cheerful splotches warmed the faded rug and the dark wood of the high old bed.

Pamela bounced to the floor and ran to the window seat. From her window on the second floor, she could see the huge sloping lawn edged with oak trees, the creek, the bridge and patches of the road. To the left she could see a part of the deserted farmyard. It all looked much better than usual in the bright new sunshine of that very important morning.

It was a view Pamela had seen thousands of times in the last five years. She turned away from the window and faced the room. Her feet touched the floor below the window seat now. When she had first come to live at Oak Farm, she couldn’t even touch with her toes. She had sat there on the window seat for hours watching the road and looking for Father. She didn’t do that any more. He always wrote when he was coming, and there wasn’t any use hoping he’d come unexpectedly.

It had been a long time since that first year at Oak Farm, but Pamela could remember a time before that when she had lived with her father. When she thought hard, she could bring back blurry pictures of long rides in trains and cars, rooms where they didn’t stay long, and laughter and good times. There were dim memories, too, of long lonely hours of waiting in the car while her father talked to people who wanted to buy the trucks and machinery he sold. But the clearest memories were good ones. There had been picnics and trips to parks and zoos. She could remember how sometimes Father used to say, “Today is for you, Pam. What shall we do?” Pamela remembered that even then she usually chose to go where there were horses, if she could.

And before that, there had been another time when her mother was still alive. That was hardly a memory at all, mostly a feeling. A good feeling—and there was something about her mother in a filmy white dress, sitting on a white horse. It was a dim and shadowy memory, almost like a scene from a dream; but still it was the clearest memory Pamela had of her mother, and she often thought about it. Sometimes she wondered if it was a real memory at all. Perhaps it was just a dream. After all, riding a white horse in a fluffy white dress was not the sort of thing people’s mothers were likely to do. Not any mothers she’d ever heard of anyway.

She would have liked to ask about that memory, but she knew better than to ask Aunt Sarah or Aunt Elsie. She had learned long ago that no one at Oak Farm would talk about her mother. Even Father said very little.

Pamela decided to think about something else. It always made her unhappy to wonder why people didn’t want to talk about her mother. “No, I won’t think about it,” she said right out loud. But still, she wondered if Father would tell about her, if she asked, before he left.

“Before he leaves!” Pamela laughed. For a minute she had almost forgotten that she was going with him this time. Imagine forgetting that—even for a minute!

Just then the hall clock struck eight. Pamela leaped off the window seat, scrambled into her clothes, and quickly brushed and braided her long dark hair. Even if it were her last day at Oak Farm, there was no point in making Aunt Sarah angry by being late to breakfast. In fact, today would be particularly bad because it was very possible that Aunt Sarah would already be angry about Father’s decision. No sense in making it worse.

As Pamela pushed open the big double doors to the dining room, Aunt Sarah and Father were standing by the windows. Aunt Sarah was talking, and Father seemed to be looking at his shoes. They saw her and stopped talking quickly. Pamela suddenly felt afraid, but Father’s smiling, “Good morning, Pam,” was reassuring.

Pamela smiled back a little weakly. “It must be all right,” she told herself. “He promised I could go.” But somehow she wasn’t quite convinced. There was something about the way Father looked.

Aunt Elsie backed through the swinging doors from the kitchen with a silver tray, and Pamela was busy for a while helping to distribute plates and pour coffee. Aunt Sarah was talking about places Father would be visiting on his trip. Pamela found it hard to keep her mind on what she was doing. Surely something would be said about her going, too.

“Pamela,” Aunt Sarah said sharply. “What are you thinking of? You served your father’s plate from the wrong side, and now you’ve spilled the coffee.”

“I’m sorry, Aunt Sarah,” Pamela said. “I’ll clean it up.” She hurried to the kitchen for a cloth for the spilled coffee; and when she returned, Father’s trip was no longer being discussed.

All through breakfast Pamela waited for the grownups to bring up the one thing that filled her mind. But Aunt Sarah began talking about old days at Oak Farm, and that always went on for a long time. Pamela couldn’t change the subject because Aunt Sarah believed that children should not speak unless spoken to.

It began to look as if no one else was going to change the subject either. Father and Aunt Elsie were listening politely and even asking questions, just as if they had never heard about the garden parties before.

“Let’s see. That must have been the year the summer house burned down, wasn’t it Elsie?” Aunt Sarah was saying. “I don’t suppose you remember the summer house burning, do you Randall? You were quite young. I was only seventeen that summer. You know it was Thayer Ashwood who tipped over the charcoal brazier—quite accidently, of course—right in the midst of one of the nicest garden parties. You do remember Thayer, don’t you? He was such a nice young man. The Ashwoods lived two miles down the valley where those Italian dirt farmers are now. It was called Ashwood Park then.”

Father shook his head. “No, I’m afraid I don’t remember,” he said. “But I’ve heard so much about it all, it seems as if I do.”

Pamela sighed quietly. She’d heard about it, too. She’d heard all about Oak Farm in the days when Aunt Sarah was young, before times started changing. She knew what a gay and busy place it had been before her grandparents died and left Aunt Sarah with all that land to manage and a much younger brother and sister to rear. She knew almost by heart how bad times had forced Aunt Sarah to sell all the animals, little by little. First the blooded horses for which Oak Farm had been famous and then the champion Black Angus cattle, until at last the farm buildings stood silent and empty.

“But I haven’t sold one square foot of the land of Oak Farm,” Aunt Sarah always ended the story. “And I won’t! Why before I’d leave, or even sell one little piece, I’d turn it into a hog ranch!” Her eyes burned darkly when she said that. Pamela was always glad that this time it wasn’t something she’d done that made Aunt Sarah look that way.

It was mostly her eyes that were so frightening. Their dark gaze could make you feel frozen—helpless and speechless. Father’s eyes were very different, brown and smiling, and Aunt Elsie’s were a pale and gentle blue. But their eyes were not the only way that the three of them were different. They were so completely unlike each other that it was hard for Pamela to remember they were brother and sisters. They were no more alike than three different kinds of animals, Pamela decided.

Aunt Elsie, of course, was a rabbit. Nothing else could be that pink and white and quivery. Aunt Sarah was hard to picture, but Pamela finally decided on a bird—a big bird with fierce beak, sharp eyes and smooth dark wings. And Father? That was easy. Her favorite animal—a horse. A bright bay mustang; strong and swift and full of fun.

Pamela glanced at her father. He was smiling, but it wasn’t his real smile that made you feel like smiling, too. He nodded quickly to everything Aunt Sarah said. Pamela frowned. “He really doesn’t seem much like a wild mustang right now,” she admitted to herself. “But that’s what he is sometimes, anyway.”

An Afternoon of Sorrow

BREAKFAST WAS OVER WITH no mention of Pamela’s going away; but as they were leaving the dining room, Father put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m going out to look the old place over and say good-by. Want to come along, Pam?”

That sounded encouraging. She would be only too glad to say good-by to Oak Farm. They crossed the house yard and the silent dusty barnyard and started up the little hill in the old horse pasture. Pamela chattered happily. “It’s a good thing I like riding in trains and cars. I mean, some people get sick even. But I think it’s fun. I liked it even when I was little, didn’t I? And I won’t mind changing schools often because I’m not used to having lots of friends my own age anyway. And even if I have to leave my friends after a little while, it will be better than not having any at all.”

Pamela’s father seemed unusually quiet. At the top of the hill they sat down in the tall grass. Below, they could see the empty farm buildings, the row of small houses where the farm workers had once lived, and beneath its clustering oaks, glimpses of the big house. Oak Farm House, silent and shadowed even on a sunny day.

Pamela talked faster and faster, trying to bury with words her growing fear that something was wrong. “Remember the games we used to play when we were traveling? I remember we used to see who could count the most horses on his side of the road. I liked that game. And sometimes you’d stop the car if the horses were close to the road. You used to hold me up so I could pat them. Do you remember?”

Pamela stopped. Her father’s silence could no longer be ignored. He was staring at a blade of grass that he held in his brown fingers and tearing off little pieces with quick, hard movements. “Pam,” he began, “I know you’ll have trouble understanding this, but ...

A cold, thin slice of fear shot up Pamela’s spine. “But you said I could go with you!” she cried. “You promised!”

“I guess I was fooling myself, too, Pam. Because I wanted to have you with me so much. But it just wouldn’t work. No real home, traveling from town to town, changing schools all the time, eating in restaurants. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

Suddenly Pamela was angry. “That’s not the reason!” she cried. “None of that’s the real reason. She won’t let you. She just won’t let you.” She flung herself down on the grass, and hard painful sobs shook her body and ached in her throat.

She cried for a long time, while her father sat beside her saying nothing at all. She cried in bitter disappointment because she would be left behind again; but even more she cried because her father had broken his promise and would not tell her that what she had said was a lie. Finally he put a handkerchief under her clenched fist.

“Dry your eyes, Pam, and sit up. I have something to show you.”

She did as she was told, but she was careful to keep her face turned away. Her father took her hand and pushed something hard and round, like a very large coin, under her fingers.

“This is for you, Pam. I don’t think I ever told you before, but when I first met your mother she lived with her old grandmother. Granny was a very wise and wonderful old lady. Right after your mother died, she gave me this and said it was for you. She said I would know when the time came for you to have it. I wondered about that, but—she was right. Somehow, I’m sure this is the time she meant.”

Pamela tried not to look. She didn’t want him to think she had forgotten his betrayal. But she couldn’t help being curious. A gift given to her so long ago was fascinating enough, but when it concerned her mother, her mother who was so seldom mentioned, it was almost irresistible. Slowly she turned her head and opened her fingers.

In her hand was a sort of amulet or medallion on a slender chain. On each side of the amulet were strange raised figures. On one side there was a small triangle at whose points were a cat, a snake, and a beetle. On the other, odd little symbols that seemed to be letters of some kind ran all around the outside, and in the center was a large eye.

Through the depths of her disappointment there ran a sudden ripple of excitement. What was it? What did the mysterious symbols mean?

“What is it?” she heard herself asking, almost against her will. “What does it mean?”

“I don’t know myself, Pam. Granny wouldn’t say much, except that it was very old—and very powerful.”

“Powerful,” Pamela repeated. “That sounds like it’s magic. Do you suppose it gives three wishes?”

Father smiled. “That’s funny. You know, I asked the same thing. I was joking—but Granny didn’t seem to think I was very funny. She got quite indignant. ‘Do you think,’ she said, ‘I’d give my great-granddaughter anything so dangerous as that?’ ”

“What do you suppose that meant?”

“I don’t know, unless she felt most people wouldn’t use three wishes wisely. She wouldn’t say much more about it. But she did tell me what the writing says. It doesn’t make much sense to me. I wrote it down.” He took out his wallet and from a card pocket produced a small piece of worn and discolored paper.

Pamela took it eagerly and read, “Give the searching heart an eye, and magic fills a summer’s sky.”

“I don’t understand it,” she said after a moment. “It sounds like a riddle.” Disappointment welled up again, choking her throat and burning her eyes. “I wish it had been three wishes. Then I could have wished to go with you—and even Aunt Sarah couldn’t have stopped me.

Father’s eyes dropped, and he reached for her hand. They sat quietly for a few moments, and then he took the amulet and fastened the chain around her neck. He let it slip down inside her dress. Their eyes met, and she recognized his “we’ve got a secret” grin. She turned away without smiling. She had always loved to share a secret with her father, but this time it only made her feel angry again.

As they climbed down the hill, she noticed that dark clouds had begun to fill the sunny sky.

Pamela felt no comfort in the amulet as she watched her father’s car disappear down the Valley Road that afternoon. The summer stretched before her as dreary and as endless as the huge bank of black clouds that by now completely hid the sun. It’s just an old necklace, she thought bitterly. It doesn’t make anything any better. It doesn’t change not seeing Father until October. It doesn’t change not having any friends or pets. It doesn’t change not ever going anywhere. Everything is just the way it always was, and it will always be the same.

Her throat was getting tighter and tighter. The aunts had already gone back in the house, so no one saw Pamela as she turned and ran through the kitchen, up the backstairs, into her room and threw herself face down on her bed.

She cried at first with angry bitter sorrow. Then for a long time she cried softly with old tired sorrow for all the sadness of her ten years of life. And much later she cried because she was tired of crying and couldn’t remember how to stop.

The last thing she remembered was that rain had begun to beat on the windows and that she was very tired.

A Magic Evening

PAMELA WOKE UP SLOWLY and reluctantly. At first she couldn’t remember why she was lying on her bed with all her clothes on, or why she felt so sad. Then it all came back with a rush. She sighed a long quavering sigh and rubbed her eyes hard with her clenched fists.

Something hard seemed to be pressing against one of her ribs making her vaguely uncomfortable. She sat up and, rubbing the spot, discovered that she had been lying on the amulet. She took it out and studied it carefully. It did look magical with all those weird figures and strange writing. But it certainly hadn’t done anything about Father’s leaving. She gave it a little shake. “Why don’t you do something?” she said impatiently.

She looked around expectantly, but not a thing happened. It was very quiet in the big old house. Aunt Sarah and Aunt Elsie were probably taking naps. She looked at the clock on her dresser. Over two hours till dinnertime and nothing to do. And then there would be all the rest of the summer and part of the fall, stretching away, day after day. Pamela lay back on the bed and closed her eyes.

She lay limply, keeping her mind empty, trying not to hear the smothering silence of the old house. And then, quite suddenly, out of the quietness, there came a soft uncertain breath of distant music. The first faint rippling trill faded, and Pamela wondered if she had imagined it. But it came again, a little nearer now and she thought perhaps it was a bird singing. But then, as the sound grew stronger, she knew that it was not. It was too patterned to be the song of a bird or a brook and yet too free to be a human melody. The music rose and fell in lovely liquid spills of sound. Pamela knew now it was something she had never heard before. A secret singing sound that was not a voice, and yet sang a joyous open song of fun and freedom.

The music came nearer and nearer, and very slowly and carefully Pamela stood up and went to the window. She was afraid to make a sound or even move quickly for fear it would fade off into a dream. Outside the light was dim under the great oak trees. The air was clear and clean and smelled of rain. Slanting rays of sunlight slid through the black branches here and there to turn the last raindrops to crystal tears. Out by the creek a strange white mist drifted and swirled. Long fingers of fog wavered up across the wet lawn, past the twisted trunks of the oaks which seemed to rise from ghostly white islands. Nothing moved but the flowing fog.

The music grew and grew. Pamela found she was shivering, not with cold or fear, but with the certain knowledge that something was about to happen—something strange and wonderful, something beyond imagining.

Then shadows moved in the white mist and suddenly the fog was full of—ponies! They were coming right down the old Valley Road just beyond the creek. They came out of the dim light and the swirling mist, but Pamela could see them quite plainly.

They were only a little taller than Shetland ponies, but not stubby and shaggy like Shetlands at all. Their heads were very small and as delicate as the heads of sea horses. Their necks were long and slender and sharply arched. Like Arabians, their long legs were quick and supple and their dark eyes vulnerable and proud. They were of many pale and misty colors; cloudy grays, pale golds, smoky blues, and even a dusky pink like the color of clouds at sunrise just as they fade from pink to gray. But, perhaps most wonderful of all were their manes and tails. Of deeper and brighter shades then their pale bodies, their manes and tails foamed and plumed in clouds of color as they pranced through the swirling mist.

Pamela’s breath came in quick little gasps and her heart pounded just at the bottom of her throat. She had never seen anything so beautiful as the proudly prancing ponies moving through the wisps of fog, tossing their sea-horse heads. The last one was larger than the rest and—and there was someone on his back. It was a boy! Not a valley boy, surely, but a stranger, a stranger with curly brown hair, too long for a boy, that fell down over his forehead like a pony’s forelock. A stranger with pale gold skin and great dark eyes.

The boy sat straight and slim on the dancing pony’s back and played a flute. As the pony passed, the boy did not stop playing, but he turned his golden face toward Pamela’s window. And then, just as he began to fade into the mist, the pony whirled back to face the house. The boy raised his hand and pointed with the shining flute straight towards her window, and Pamela thought she saw him smile. Then he turned quickly and disappeared into the mist.

The music began again and once more the damp air was full of the wild sweet sound. But it was fading now, softer and farther away, and Pamela was alone again with the shadows spreading under the oaks and only raindrops falling from the eaves breaking the silence of the old house.

Pamela Makes a Choice

PAMELA STOOD AT THE window for a long time, although everything was still now, except for the drifting fog. “What a strange thing to happen,” she mused. “Ponies don’t really look like that. They were like ...like ...” She ran to her bookcase. On the top shelf were dozens of horses. Horses her father had brought her from all the places his work had taken him. Horses she had bought herself whenever she had had a chance. Even two little china horses from Aunt Elsie.

There were horses of china, copper, silver, wood and—glass! That’s what they were like. The glass ponies were at one end of the shelf arranged on their own green silk handkerchief pasture. They were her favorites. Her father had once taken her to watch a man who shaped animals, birds, and ships, from slim tubes of molten glass. They had bought every horse he had. The smallest was a colt of clear yellow glass with a little golden teardrop of a tail.

They were all tiny things, so fragile you were almost afraid to pick them up. When you held them to the light their pale colors glowed. Their necks arched proudly, and their dainty hooves were poised for prancing.

A sudden thought made Pamela catch her breath—the amulet! She examined it thoughtfully. It looked just the same; the same strange symbols and wisely staring eye. Nothing was a bit different. But still—“Give the searching heart an eye, and magic fills a summer’s sky.” Could it be that magic might really fill the sky, even the sky of Oak Farm?

“Pamela! Time for dinner.” Aunt Elsie’s voice startled her. It seemed to come from another world. With a sigh, she tucked the amulet back under her dress. She gave her hair a quick brush and hurriedly checked her hands and face. They would have to do. No time to get ready properly. But as she walked down the stairs, slowly and with her head up as Aunt Sarah felt was necessary for young ladies, she suddenly laughed out loud. It was almost fun to be dignified and ladylike when underneath you had such an unbelievable secret.

The giggle seemed to startle Brother, Aunt Sarah’s haughty tomcat, who was sitting on the landing where the stairs turned. He gazed at Pamela sternly. Once, Aunt Elsie said, there had been two kittens, Brother and Sister, but Sister had died years ago. Pamela thought it was almost as hard to imagine Brother as a kitten as it was to imagine Aunt Sarah as a little girl. Brother was now the only animal on all the many acres of Oak Farm, and he felt his importance keenly. He resented Pamela, and his cold green stare and flicking tail plainly said so. But he was often sitting on the landing when Pamela came to dinner, and she thought she knew why.

Pamela sat down and put her face close to Brother’s. His whiskers twitched nervously. “You mean old thing,” she whispered. Just sitting there hoping I’ll try to make friends again just so you can snub me. Well, I don’t need you for a friend any more. So there!” Pamela marched on down the stairs while Brother batted his green eyes in surprise.

In the dining room the aunts were already at the long table. Aunt Sarah’s frown told Pamela that she was late. She slipped quickly into her chair. “I see you have forgotten the talk we had about punctuality just a few days ago,” Aunt Sarah said.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Sarah.”

Very little else was said until the meal was half over. Then Aunt Elsie cleared her throat nervously. “About the school, Sarah,” she said.

“All right, Elsie. I hadn’t forgotten,” Aunt Sarah replied. “Pamela, your Aunt Elsie feels you are lonely and that, in spite of the problems involved, you would be better off attending the Valley School. She tells me that there is a summer session beginning next week.”

Pamela’s mouth flew open.

Aunt Sarah raised her hand. “Now I want you to think carefully before you answer. You have been told my reasons for keeping you at home. Your Aunt Elsie is a trained teacher, and you have been making good progress in your work. Valley Road isn’t kept up as it should be, and the school bus is in a disgraceful state of disrepair. Finally, as you well know, many of the children who attend Valley School now are not the kind of people you would enjoy. However, your Aunt Elsie—and your father I might add—feel you are not being sufficiently amused here at Oak Farm. I want you to consider all these things carefully before you answer.”

Pamela didn’t need the warning. She was speechless with surprise. She didn’t remember when anyone had changed a decision of Aunt Sarah’s, certainly not Aunt Elsie. Pamela could imagine what Aunt Elsie must have been through. At any other time she would have wept with joy. For years she had pictured herself in a classroom surrounded by friends. But now, did she want to go? Now—when something strange and wonderful had come to Oak Farm?

Pamela closed her eyes for a second and tried to bring back the old pleasant picture of herself in a real schoolroom—but somehow it was gone. The eyes of her mind were full of something else—something that moved mysteriously through a white mist. Something that ran and danced to a brave wild song of freedom.

Hanging her head so she wouldn’t have to look at Aunt Elsie, she mumbled, “I don’t mind studying at home. I don’t think I want to go to Valley School, Aunt Sarah. Thank you anyway.”

Even Aunt Sarah seemed surprised at Pamela’s answer; but her eyes gleamed triumphantly as she said, “You see, Elsie? I was right. All the fuss was quite unnecessary.”

During the rest of the meal Aunt Sarah had a great deal to say about the wisdom of Pamela’s decision. But Aunt Elsie was quieter than ever, and Pamela could feel her worried glance. Aunt Elsie had known and understood just how she felt. It was no wonder she didn’t understand now.

Pamela longed to say something, to tell Aunt Elsie why. But she knew she couldn’t possibly explain, not to anyone, not yet. How could she make anyone understand that a necklace was more than a necklace, and a riddle more than a riddle, and right outside her window there had been something that was more, much, much more, than a strange white fog.

A Warning

THE NEXT MORNING PAMELA reported to the library for her lessons earlier than usual. Once the day’s assignments were finished, she would be free. Free to go outside to—she wasn’t sure just what. But she was sure, with complete certainty, that somewhere outside there would be waiting for her the strangely beautiful ponies and the boy with the silver flute.

She arrived so early that Aunt Elsie was still busy in the kitchen. Pamela wandered restlessly up and down the library. Now and then she reached up to touch the stiff leather binding of a familiar book—greeting an old friend. Aunt Elsie had helped Pamela discover that many of the dull-looking old books held fantastic adventures. Together they had spent hours reading and talking about the stories until Pamela had been able to substitute for real playmates, dozens of friends from history and fiction. Her favorites were the legends and myths of ancient times, full of marvelous heroes, terrifying dangers, and magical events.

The library at Oak Farm was a dim and dusty room with long thin windows and stiff scratchy furniture. The air was heavy with the smell of dust and aging leather, and the huge old globe on its carved wooden frame showed countries and territories with bygone names and boundaries. Here, even more than in the rest of the house, everything seemed asleep and dreaming of the past.

Near the big desk, on a low shelf, were Pamela’s schoolbooks. This corner of the library was the only schoolroom she had ever known, and Aunt Elsie had been her only teacher. Furthermore, Aunt Elsie, who was a trained and qualified teacher, had never had another pupil. Aunt Sarah had allowed Aunt Elsie to go away to college; but afterwards, as Aunt Elsie explained it to Pamela, “I just couldn’t go away and leave your Aunt Sarah here all alone. I did think about teaching at the Valley School, but Sarah was sure I wouldn’t like it there.” Pamela never said so, but she was quite sure that Aunt Elsie would have liked it fine.

Aunt Elsie finally arrived, and Pamela fairly flew through her lessons. She had always been good at schoolwork and it never took her long, but today she even amazed herself. She rushed through arithmetic, history, and spelling in record time.

As she worked, she wondered if Aunt Elsie would ask her why she had changed her mind about going to Valley School. What could she possibly say? But all during the lessons, Aunt Elsie talked only about fractions and adjectives and the rivers of South America. Then, just as Pamela was gathering up her books to put them away on the shelf, the dreaded question came.

“Pamela, I’ve been trying to understand your decision about going to a real school. I’ve been worried about it.” Aunt Elsie put her hand on Pamela’s shoulder, and her mild blue eyes were full of concern. “It’s not right for people your age not to have friends and things to do. I know you’re feeling sad because you wanted to go with your father, but...”

“Oh, it’s not that,” Pamela stammered. “I—I—can’t quite explain it, Aunt Elsie. But I just don’t want to go away every day just now. I—I—wouldn’t have much time to play outdoors,” she finished lamely.

Aunt Elsie didn’t look a bit less worried. Pamela hastily put away her books and started from the room, knowing that she hadn’t been very convincing. Halfway to the door she stopped and came back. “But I do thank you for talking to Aunt Sarah about it.” She kissed Aunt Elsie’s pale cheek and turned to go.

“Wait, dear!” Pamela turned to see Aunt Elsie touching the spot on her cheek where Pamela had kissed it. “Wait,” she said. “I want to tell you something.”

Pamela came back, but for quite a while Aunt Elsie only arranged some pencils neatly at the edge of the leather frame that held the desk blotter. She seemed to be arranging something in her mind, too. Suddenly she said, “Someday you must leave Oak Farm. If your Father doesn’t take you, you must leave by yourself, as soon as you are old enough. For your own sake, mostly, but for your father’s, too.”

“For my father’s sake?” Pamela repeated falteringly.

“Yes, dear.” Aunt Elsie paused, but looked as if she might go on.

Sharp firm footsteps interrupted. Aunt Sarah was walking down the hall past the library door. Aunt Elsie jumped up. “Well, run along and play, dear. We’re all through for the day.” She hurried from the room.

Left alone in the library, Pamela traced the carving on the huge old desk with her finger as she thought about what Aunt Elsie had said. She almost understood. It had something to do with why her father was so different when he was at Oak Farm.

The more she thought about it, the more confused and unhappy she felt. Suddenly she shook her head firmly as if to shake all of it from her mind, and ran from the room quite forgetting how Aunt Sarah felt about running in the house.

A Search and a Pale Pink Clue

AS THE HEAVY OLD front door with its great bronze knocker closed behind Pamela, she breathed a sigh of relief. It was always nicer to be outdoors at Oak Farm. The huge old house with its great dark rooms, so empty of people, seemed sad to Pamela, as though it were remembering a happier time. Outdoors, things were better. Of course, the barn and stable and storerooms were all empty, too, and even the pastures and meadows grew untouched. But at least the sun shone brightly, birds sang, and the wind was alive in the oak trees.

And on this day there was the wonderful hope that somewhere there might be the ponies and the boy.

Since she had seen the ponies on the road beyond the creek, that seemed a good place to watch and wait. She could sit on the railing of the old bridge that led from Oak Farm to the Valley Road.

On one side of the bridge the road wound away for miles and miles to the mouth of the valley. But on the other it ended just a little way above Oak Farm, and the mountains and forest began. The road was little used these days. The nearby farms were mostly abandoned, and the people down the valley seldom came up so far. Aunt Elsie said that when the Old Families still owned the valley land, the road had been kept in good repair; but now it was dusty and full of potholes. Pamela sometimes tried to imagine those days when many cars and carriages came up the long road and turned in at Oak Farm. It was not hard; Aunt Sarah had told so many stories about it.

Pamela sat on the railing and swung her feet. The sun was bright, and the water of the creek murmured companionably beneath the bridge. She could see minnows and tadpoles in the quiet eddies. It had been fun to catch them for pets until she had slipped one day and gotten her dress muddy. Then Aunt Sarah had forbidden her playing in the creek. But today Pamela no longer regretted the loss of the tadpoles.

It seemed the kind of day for something to happen, but the hours passed and nothing did. Once or twice Pamela thought she heard the wild clear notes of the boy’s flute, but each time the sound faded into silence or lilted into the song of a bird. Shadows lengthened across the old road, and still nothing stirred. Dinner time came without a sign, and Pamela finally decided that the road must be the wrong place to look, especially on a bright clear day. It was different, perhaps, on strange silent evenings when white mists rode the damp air.

That night after Pamela was ready for bed she couldn’t go to sleep. She slipped out of bed in her long white nightdress and stood looking at the glass ponies on their green silk pasture. When she almost closed her eyes, she could imagine that a white mist was beginning to form around the tiny ponies. If she closed her eyes even tighter, she seemed to see them begin to grow. As they grew, the cold clear glass clouded into warm and living velvet, and the gracefully frozen poses melted into lovely flowing motion. She opened her eyes and the ponies were again tiny, cold, and lifeless.

She sighed and took out the amulet, studying it carefully, as if its strange symbols could tell her what she wanted to know. But the bronze eye stared back at her silently.

In the days that followed, Pamela looked in many places. She looked in the fruit orchard among the neglected old apple trees. She looked at the edge of the woods, where it came down the hill close to the barn. She looked in the deserted farm buildings: the barn, the stable, the blacksmith shop and the granary. Perhaps she would have been discouraged sooner, but she found two strange things that made her keep looking.

The first she wasn’t sure of: a mark on the soft ground behind the barn, a mark that might have been a small hoofprint. But it was rather indistinct and she couldn’t be quite sure. There was no doubt about the other, however.

She found it on the third day, when she was looking in the farm buildings and had just been in the granary. It was almost empty. Pamela saw nothing but some dusty grain sacks and a few empty barrels, until she started to leave. Then she noticed something caught on the rough wood of the door frame. It was a long strand of hair. The hair was long and silken soft, and when Pamela held it up to the sunlight, it gleamed—palely pink!

She stayed near the granary that afternoon until she was nearly late to dinner again, but she saw nothing more. Finally she had to run for home. She coiled the pink strand into the palm of her hand before she opened the kitchen door. Fortunately, Aunt Elsie was still in the kitchen. “Thank goodness,” she said as Pamela came in. “I was afraid you were going to be late again. Run upstairs and wash up.”

As Pamela hurried up the stairs, she met Brother in his usual spot on the landing. He wasn’t the kind of cat to give up easily. She knew he was just hoping she would try to pet him so that he could lash his tail and stalk off in cold and haughty dignity.

Pamela laughed. “You might as well give up,” she said. “I’m not going to waste any more time trying to make friends with you. I have other things to think about now. See!” She shook out the lovely pink strand and trailed it teasingly across his smug cat face. She didn’t at all expect his reaction. With a yowl, Brother shot straight up in the air, every hair on end and his tail like a bottle brush. His usual grandeur was completely missing as he shot down the stairs and scrabbled around the corner.

Pamela watched in amazement. What on earth had gotten into Brother? She ran the long pink hair thoughtfully through her fingers as she went on up the stairs.

But the days went on, and. nothing more happened. It began to be hard to remember why she had felt so sure she would see the ponies and the boy again. At times she would have believed it was all a dream, except for the coil of pale pink hair in the handkerchief box on her dresser. Of course, she wore the amulet constantly, but as the days passed by she began to wonder if it were not just any old necklace after all.

Once in a while she thought about the summer classes that were meeting everyday at Valley School. How could she have given it up? She wondered if she would ever have another chance like that.

One warm June afternoon, she was just too discouraged to go on looking. She was tired of hoping and hoping and always being disappointed. It seemed best to forget the whole thing, at least for a while.

She decided to spend the afternoon reading. In the library she picked out a book about Greek gods and goddesses. She tiptoed to the door and stopped to look and listen for a moment before she ventured out into the hall. Aunt Sarah had not said that books could not be removed from the library, but Pamela had a feeling she might if she thought of it. And there were many much more cheerful places to read.

On her way through the kitchen, she found that Aunt Elsie had left out a plate of freshly baked cookies. So she filled up her pockets.

The old barn was one of Pamela’s favorite places. Of course, no animals lived there any more, but the loft with its piles of hay was a lovely place for reading. The quiet shadowy spaces and the faint and friendly smell of animals who had once lived there made it almost cozy.

She closed the heavy door behind her and started towards the ladder that led to the loft. She was not even thinking of the ponies and the boy, when a slight sound made her jump and whirl towards a dim corner.

In a Forest Clearing

THERE IN THE SHADOWS stood—a pony! One slender silken pony with a milk-white coat that shaded to softest gray on its face and legs and tail. It stood watching her with its great gazelle eyes, its neck sharply arched and its hooves close together, as though ready to spring away.

Pamela stood frozen with wonder. Surprise and delight tumbled over each other in her mind. For a long, long moment Pamela and the pony gazed at each other in silence. Then the pony moved towards her. Pamela watched, breathless, fascinated by the beauty of its motion. The pony advanced until it was able to touch her gently on the shoulder with its velvet nose. Then slowly, gracefully, it tucked in a dainty hoof and sank down on one bent foreleg.

Like one in a dream, Pamela climbed onto the pony’s back. It turned its head and looked at her, as if to be sure she was ready, and then gently stood up.

Out through the open corral door at the back of the barn and up the hill, the pony went. Pamela had ridden horses before, but she had felt nothing like the lovely flowing motion of this gray-white pony. The coarseness of other horses’ manes were nothing like the clouds of smoky gray that blew back against her arms and face.

At the crest of the hill, the pony began to gallop. Pamela had no saddle or bridle, but she wound her hands in the soft gray mane and rode the gallop easily.

It was such a marvelous feeling to gallop so swiftly and smoothly along the top of the hill, that Pamela was too happy even to wonder where they were going.

Suddenly the pony turned sharply and plunged down the hillside. Now they were among high oaks and evergreens, and the pony picked its way around graceful green ferns and dense underbrush. The forest grew thicker and thicker until Pamela had to lie flat to keep from being lashed by the branches.

Her face was hidden in the pony’s mane when suddenly she heard a voice saying, “Good girl! Nimbus.”

She sat up with a start and found herself in a clearing surrounded by thick forest. And just in front of the pony’s nose stood the boy.

The boy walked around to the side of the pony and looked at Pamela deliberately. “I don’t suppose you brought anything to eat?” he asked.

Pamela remembered the cookies in her pocket. Wordlessly she held them out.

“Perfect!” said the boy. He sat down on the grass and began to eat. Pamela stared at him.

He’s all brown and gold, she thought. His hair needs cutting and his clothes look as if he made them himself. He hasn’t any shoes and ...and he must be awfully hungry.

The boy was stuffing the cookies into his mouth. He glanced up at Pamela. “Are you going to get off, or just sit there staring?” His dark eyes were laughing. They were strange eyes that slanted up at the edges; untamed eyes, cocky and full of mischief, like a yearling colt untrained to even a halter. “Down, Nimbus!” he said.

The gray-white pony knelt quickly, and Pamela slid off onto the grass. The pony moved away and began grazing.

The boy handed her a cookie. “Why were you crying the other day?” he asked.

Pamela fished for her lost voice and found a shaky uncertain part of it. “I—I don’t know. I was sad,” she stammered. In her confusion, it didn’t even occur to her to wonder how the boy knew she had been crying.

“What had They been doing to you?” he asked, frowning.

“They? Who?”

“I don’t know,” the boy said impatiently. “The ones you live with. That’s what I call most people, just They.”

“Oh, nothing really. It wasn’t really anybody’s fault. I was just lonely.”

“I thought so,” he nodded confidently. “That’s the way They always make you feel. Ponies are different. You can’t be lonely with ponies.” He motioned, and Pamela noticed for the first time that the clearing was full of ponies.

“Oh, they’re beautiful,” she cried. “May I pet them? What are their names?”

“Well, that gray mare that brought you is Nimbus. She’s the gentlest one. The tall blue one I ride is Cirro. He’s the leader of the herd.” The boy whistled between his fingers, and the biggest pony threw up his head and galloped to them. Right in front of Pamela, he reared, pawing the air. He pranced around her, occasionally stopping to stretch his long neck and sniff, and then jump away snorting and showing the whites of his great dark eyes. Tendons stood out sharply under the silken hide of his face, and his nostrils flared nervously. Like Nimbus, his body was purest white, but his tossing mane and tail were plumes of smoky blue. Around his muzzle and near his hooves, the white gradually shaded to the same beautiful color.

“He’s wonderful,” Pamela said a little shakily. She was thinking she much preferred the gentle Nimbus.

A soft nudge made Pamela jump. Standing beside her was a colt—pale gold and, even more than the others, so very like the horses of blown glass. He nuzzled her affectionately with his velvety nose and flicked his frizzy golden tassel of a tail.

“That’s Solsken,” the boy said. “He loves to be petted.” Pamela ran her hand down the soft gold fuzz of his mane. A tiny fuzzy forelock fell over his round baby forehead. His eyes were fawn’s eyes, soft and wondering. His black nose was warm and wiggling, and he pushed it into Pamela’s hand and ate the last of her cookies.

“Oh, he’s a darling.” Pamela threw her arms around the colt’s neck and hugged him. “I wish I could take him home with me.”

The boy laughed. “Wouldn’t that be a little hard to explain? Besides, we really couldn’t spare him. He’s the pet of the herd. The others all spoil him. That is, all except Aurora. But you can play with him when you’re here.”

Just then there was a quick rush of hooves and a shrill whinny, and a perfectly marvelous mare slid to a stop and nipped the colt on his smooth gold rump. Solsken kicked up his heels angrily and bucked away.

The boy laughed. “Aurora’s jealous. She thinks she’s queen of the herd just because she’s pink.” And sure enough, the mare, who was now strutting daintily around them, was really pink. At least her mane and tail were pink; the rest of her coat was of palest pearly gray with just the faintest rosy touch.

Pamela gasped. “She’s beautiful. She’s almost too pretty to be real.”

The boy frowned. “That’s a silly thing to say. I don’t like that word. Nothing’s real unless you want it to be, and anything can be real if you want it to enough; so real doesn’t really mean anything.” Then quickly he smiled again. “Do you want to meet the others?”

“Oh, yes,” Pamela said eagerly.

Two snow-white mares were grazing side by side not far away. They stopped as the boy and Pamela approached. They tossed their heads and snorted softly. Great blue eyes looked at Pamela warily between strands of milky-white forelocks. “This one is Neige, and that one is Nuage,” said the boy. “They’re always together.”

Pamela put out her hand gently and let the mares sniff it. Then she rubbed their soft foreheads. In a few minutes they were almost as friendly as Solsken.

The twin mares followed as they went on to another white mare with a long flowing mane and tail of pale gold. “This is Solsken’s dam,” said the boy. “Her name is Luna.”

Luna accepted Pamela’s greeting with calm majesty. She bowed her lovely head and pawed the earth delicately with one forefoot. Her mane rippled and shimmered. “She’s beautiful,” Pamela breathed. “Like a queen.”

They went on through the herd. There was Luvia, Brisa, Rosee, and other names Pamela couldn’t remember. There were blues, grays, whites, and golds.

Some were quiet and gentle. Others snorted and danced sideways as Pamela approached, rolling their eyes until the whites showed and pluming their beautiful tails. Pamela thought she could look at them forever. “They’re so gorgeous,” she said. “I’ve dreamed about horses all my life, but I’ve never even imagined any so beautiful.”

“I know,” the boy said.

Nimbus came up and rubbed her lovely dove-gray head on Pamela’s shoulder. Pamela patted the mare’s soft neck thoughtfully. “What do you mean? How do you know?”

“Never mind. Let’s do something. Would you like to ride some more?”

“Oh, yes. It was wonderful coming here. But first, I wish you’d explain everything to me. Who you are—and where you live, and where you got the ponies and—and—everything.” Pamela’s questions trailed off weakly because she noticed that the boy’s dark brows were tipping into a really violent frown. Suddenly he whirled and stomped off across the meadow.

Pamela looked after him in wonder. What could have made him so angry? The boy sat down on a log at the other side of the clearing with his back to her and leaned his chin on his hands.

Pamela stood in the midst of the ponies, not knowing quite what to do.

A Glimpse of Fear

THE PONIES DRIFTED BACK to their grazing until only Nimbus remained. Pamela ran her fingers through the silken mane. “I wish I knew what was the matter.” Nimbus’ gray eyes seemed sympathetic. “Do you think I ought to go ask him?” Nimbus tossed her head as though she were nodding. “I guess I will. I feel silly just standing here. Come with me, Nimbus.” Pamela tugged on the gray mane. When they reached the log, the boy’s dark slanting brows were still pulled down fiercely.

“I guess I made you mad,” she said. “But I didn’t mean to. I think you could at least tell me why you’re angry.”

For a moment longer the boy sat and frowned. Pamela felt very uncomfortable. Suddenly he jumped up and glared at Pamela. Then he said very slowly and distinctly, “I—don’t—like—questions!”

“Qu—questions?” Pamela stammered. For a moment she couldn’t remember what she’d asked. “Oh, that! Well, you should have told me so. I won’t ask any more.”

The boy looked at her suspiciously. “I’ll bet you do. You probably can’t help it. Girls are that way. I should never have brought you here.”

Pamela sighed. If only he’d stop being angry. Then, remembering something that often worked when she had displeased her father, she hung her head and looked very meek and humble. “I’ll try not to,” she said gently.

Glancing up under her lowered lashes, she saw it working. The boy’s frown changed to an uncertain look and then suddenly to a grin.

“Let’s go riding,” he said.

As he whistled for Cirro, Pamela breathed a sigh of relief. She watched with admiration as the boy vaulted onto the dancing horse, but she was glad that Nimbus knelt for her to mount. As they started out of the clearing, the other ponies stopped grazing and followed. They moved slowly through the forest, ducking branches and trailing vines. Pamela could hear the rest of the herd moving all about them.

After a while they came out of the forest onto a grassy hillside and picked their way up a zigzag trail toward the crest of the hill. The pony herd followed single file now, working their way back and forth across the face of the hill, their heads bobbing rhythmically as they climbed. Below them valleys and hills and forest stretched in all directions.

“That’s the way back to Oak Farm,” the boy said, pointing towards the east. “And that’s the forest we just left, down there. The valley on the other side is Shadow Glen. The ponies like to graze there.”

The crest of the hill was all covered with rocks and boulders. It rose slowly ahead of them as they followed the narrow path. Off to the west, below the hill, Pamela could see a huge stretch of flat land, partly hidden by a low heavy fog. Through the fog she could see glimpses of crooked mossy trees and dark water.

“We’re on Sleeping Lady Mountain now, and that’s the swamp.”

Pamela pulled sharply on Nimbus’ mane bringing her to a stop. As she stared down at the gloomy fog-shrouded scene, she felt a wave of excitement rush over her. But the wave became a backwash filled with a surge of shapeless fear. She sat motionless, unable to take her eyes from the lonely nothingness that stretched before her. It was as though she were trying desperately to look through the heavy fog for a glimpse of something—something frightening, known and yet unknown.

She glanced at the boy and saw that he, too, was staring, fascinated by the scene before them. But just then he caught her eye and laughed, a little uneasily.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Pamela was burning with curiosity, but she remembered in time about questions so they rode on silently.

The crest of the hill dropped, and the ponies wound their way down to a broad valley. Here the two rode slowly with the herd bunched behind them, except for Solsken who galloped on ahead, bouncing sideways on his gangly legs and flicking his tiny tail.

The boy took a small flute from a cord around his neck and began to play. The music was very much as Pamela had remembered it. A strange wild sound that was not quite a tune, as if all the sounds of the forest were shaped to the clear sweet tones of the flute.

The ponies seemed to like it, too, for they lifted their feet higher and arched their slender necks more sharply.

Pamela was having such a wonderful time she didn’t realize how late it had become until quite suddenly she noticed that the sun was very low. “Oh, I’ll be late for dinner!” she cried. “I’ll have to hurry home.”

“All right, we’ll hurry,” the boy said. He made a quick sound with his tongue, and the ponies sprang into a run. Up hill and down they swept, so fast they seemed to be sailing on the wings of the wind. Cirro and Nimbus raced side by side like pale shadows over the ground. Pamela and the boy lay close to the ponies’ necks, half-buried in the flowing manes. A little way behind them ran the rest of the pony herd, the thunder of their racing hooves filling Pamela’s head like the crescendo of a symphony.

When Pamela felt the ponies slowing down, she sat up and found herself in the familiar woods back of the old barn. They moved slowly now and very quietly. The excitement of the wild run down the valley had left Pamela feeling a little limp. She swayed softly with the pony’s gentle motion. Near the barn they stopped, and all the ponies crowded around as if to say good-by.

The sun was low in the west, and Pamela knew she must hurry. She patted each velvet nose quickly. She looked up at the boy who was still sitting on Cirro’s back.

“Good-by. I had a wonderful time—” She paused. “Why, I don’t even know your name.”

The boy frowned. “I don’t like names. I don’t have one, and I don’t want to know yours. I’ll call you Girl.”

Pamela laughed. “Then I’ll call you Ponyboy. I’ve called you that to myself since I first saw you.”

“All right,” he said. “I don’t mind that.”

“Good-by, Ponyboy.” She started away. Then she turned back. “But the ponies have names.”

“That’s different. Ponies’ names are just to call them by. They don’t try to carry them on or live up to them or worry about having a good one.”

Pamela looked thoughtful. “Oh,” she said. “Well, good-by.”

On a Stormy Night

PAMELA WAS QUITE LATE for dinner that night. Aunt Sarah was very upset. “Where ever have you been?” she began icily as Pamela came into the dining room.

Pamela was frightened. What could she say. She couldn’t tell the truth, and yet Aunt Sarah always knew a lie.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Sarah,” she began. “I was reading in the barn—and—and—I’m not sure exactly what happened.”

Just in time Aunt Elsie came to her rescue. “She must have fallen asleep, Sarah. I’m sure she didn’t mean to be late.”

“Really, Elsie,” Aunt Sarah snapped. “You and I have been over this very topic enough times for you to know how I feel about excuses of that nature. ‘Not meaning to’ is no excuse for any sort of failure. I’m quite aware that you excuse your own weaknesses in that manner, but I do not mine—nor shall Pamela be encouraged to excuse hers.”

Aunt Elsie’s small face looked crumpled. Pamela was sorry for her, but she was relieved that Aunt Sarah had forgotten to question any further. When she turned back to Pamela she said, “Take your plate to the kitchen. You shall eat there alone for a week. And tomorrow you will write a five hundred word essay on the value of punctuality.”

The danger was over, but it had come too close for comfort. Pamela took her plate to the kitchen, thinking she would have to get home on time the next time. The next time! How marvelous to have a next time to look forward to!

Next time, however, didn’t come as soon as Pamela expected. A summer rainy spell set in, and for three days the rain fell steadily and the wind roared in the oak trees. Pamela, of course, was not allowed to leave the house. She fidgeted from room to room, looking out every window to see if the rain showed signs of stopping.

I wonder where they are, she thought. What are they doing? I hope they have a place out of the rain.

On the third night after dinner, Pamela was sitting on the window seat in her room listening to the moan of the wind and the beat of rain on her window. It was quite dark outside, and the lights from the house made strange patterns on the wet grass of the lawn.

As she watched the rain slant in sparkling splinters through the squares of light, Pamela could feel the weight of the amulet beneath her dress. What did it have to do with Ponyboy? It must somehow have brought him. How could she ask about it without making him angry? If only the rain would stop so she could go out.

Her musing was interrupted by a sudden movement beneath the oak trees at the edge of the lawn. A gray shadow caught her eye. It looked as if it might be—yes, it was—a pony! Pamela snatched her raincoat from the closet and tiptoed to the back stairs that led to the kitchen door. She was sure her aunts were in the parlor, but she held her breath as she glided across the kitchen. From a chair Brother watched her with narrow eyes.

“I’m glad you can’t talk,” Pamela whispered. “You’d just love to tell on me.”

Outside, she gasped as the cold rain-filled wind hit her face. Beyond the patches of light on the lawn, nothing was visible. There was only darkness under the oaks where the pony had been.

For a moment Pamela hesitated. What if she hadn’t really seen a pony under the trees? Or worse, what if it had been something else—something unknown and dangerous?

She stood undecided while the oak trees moaned and tossed and the rain beat through the patches of light. Then a door slammed somewhere in the house.

Aunt Sarah, coming to put Brother out! It was too late to go back, and Aunt Sarah would surely see her where she was.

Mustering her courage, she plunged into the wet darkness. She reached the oaks and dashed on, too frightened to stop running. Suddenly, just ahead, a pale shadow loomed. Pamela almost screamed as her outstretched hands touched something warm and wet. Something warm and wet and satin smooth.

“Nimbus!” she gasped in relief. Hastily she scrambled onto the wet back. Surely and quietly the gray mare picked her way among the oaks. They circled the house and took the wagon road to the barnyard.

They weren’t going to the forest. Pamela could tell that. But where were they going?

The ride was quickly over. Nimbus stopped before the door of the old deserted granary where Pamela had found the strand of pink hair. She slipped off the pony and pushed open the heavy sliding door.

The granary was full of a strange flickering light—and ponies! Ponies were everywhere. As Pamela stepped inside, their small fine heads turned towards her and one or two nickered a greeting. The firelight shone on their sleek hides and sparkled in their deep soft eyes.

In the Old Granary

“CLOSE THE DOOR,” PONYBOY said. “You’re letting in the rain.” He was sitting cross-legged on the floor near a small fire that burned in part of an old metal oil drum. The flickering light made strange shadows on his dark face.

Pamela closed the door and led the dripping Nimbus up to the fire. “She’s all wet,” she said. “Is there something I can rub her down with?”

Ponyboy nodded approvingly. He handed Pamela a grain sack. “I don’t suppose you brought anything—like cookies maybe?”

“No, I didn’t.” Pamela felt in her pockets just to be sure. “I’m sorry. I came away so fast I didn’t think.”

“Oh, never mind,” he said quickly. “I just thought you might have. It doesn’t matter.”

But Pamela thought he looked quite disappointed. She opened her mouth to say, “Are you hungry? Where do you get your food?” But just in time she remembered about questions.

The boy seemed to guess what she was thinking, however, because he said quickly, “I have lots to eat. The forest is full of things to eat, if you know where to look. It’s just that there’s not much of some kinds of things, like—like cookies, for instance.”

Pamela was busy rubbing Nimbus dry so she couldn’t see his face, but his voice had a wistful ring. “Next time I’ll bring cookies,” she promised.

“Don’t bother,” he said grandly. “Nuts are just as good. I brought some along. I’ll show you how to roast them.”

“All right, but first I want to say hello to everyone.”

Nimbus was almost dry now, so Pamela went around to all the ponies, patting their necks and whispering in their silky ears. Solsken trotted around with her trying to get more than his share of petting. Even the timid white mares, Neige and Nuage, greeted Pamela enthusiastically.

“They all remember me,” she said as she came back to where Ponyboy was fixing a comfortable seat of grain sacks near the fire.

“Of course. Ponies don’t forget their friends,” he said. “They’re not like people.”

It was quite warm near the fire. Ponyboy arranged some nuts to roast on the coals at the edge of the drum. Outside, the wind roared, and high overhead rain pattered on the roof.

“It’s nice in here,” Pamela said.

“We come here a lot when it rains. Either here or to one of the other buildings on the farm. We like to stay near Oak Farm in bad weather. There aren’t many other places where we can get indoors and know we don’t have to worry about Them snooping around.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Pamela. “That explains the pink hair I found on a splinter there by the door. Aurora must have swished her tail as she was going through. I wondered how it happened to be there.”

Remembering the pink strand made Pamela recall Brother’s strange behavior when the pink hair touched his face. She wanted to ask Ponyboy for an explanation, but she knew better. Perhaps if she just told the story—

“You know,” she began carefully. “There was something funny about that. I was taking that piece of hair to my room and Brother—that’s my Aunt Sarah’s cat—”

“I know who Brother is,” Ponyboy interrupted.

“Oh?” said Pamela, wondering how. But she was beginning to get used to his knowing things he had no way of knowing. “Well anyway, he was on the stairs and I tickled his face with the hair. You should have seen him! You’d have thought he’d seen a ghost.” She looked at Ponyboy hopefully. He was grinning. He leaned forward and carefully rearranged the nuts on the coals.

“Brother’s a realist,” he said finally.

“What does that mean?” The question popped out before she could stop it.

Ponyboy frowned slightly. “It means he was born without one of his senses,” he said in a tone that plainly meant he had no more to say on the subject.

Pamela still didn’t understand, but she said no more.

The nuts were ready soon, and Ponyboy raked them out of the coals. They were delicious. Pamela thought she had never tasted any that were quite so good. As they munched together, she decided to make one more effort to get some information. She took out her amulet and, leaning forward so that the firelight gleamed on its strange symbols, said, “You haven’t seen my necklace.”

Ponyboy glanced at the amulet. “Very nice.” He was grinning again.

“Uh—aren’t the symbols interesting,” Pamela persisted.

“Fascinating,” Ponyboy said. “You know, that thing looks as if it might be good for something. Too bad it doesn’t answer questions.”

Pamela glanced up quickly. Little teasing flames were leaping in his eyes. She felt her face getting hot.

She was relieved when he suggested, “Let’s tell stories. Your turn first. I like fairy tales.”

“All right,” Pamela agreed. “How about The Blue Princess?”

For the next hour they told stories; that is, Pamela told stories, and Ponyboy told what he would have done if he had been there. At the end of each of Pamela’s stories, he said something like, “Well, it turned out O.K., but if I’d been that prince I’d have—” And he would change everything around to suit himself.

While they were talking, most of the ponies went to sleep; but Cirro stayed near the door, alert and wide awake, guarding the herd. He tossed his head nervously from time to time, and his long mane leaped like a blue flame. Solsken folded his long baby legs and lay down right between Pamela and Ponyboy. Pamela stroked his warm duckling-soft coat as she talked.

It was a wonderful evening, but after awhile the rain died down and Ponyboy said, “You’d better go back now, while it’s not raining.” He called Nimbus and made a step with his hands to boost Pamela up. As he was sliding back the heavy door, Pamela had an awful thought.

“What if Aunt Sarah has locked the doors? She usually does by now. I won’t be able to get in.”

“Oh, that ought to be easy,” Ponyboy said. “I’ll go along and show you how.”

He went back into the granary and came out with the beautiful Luna. He shoved the door shut, leaving the rest of the ponies inside.

“Why aren’t you riding Cirro?” Pamela asked, remembering too late it was a question.

But apparently this wasn’t the kind of question Ponyboy minded because he answered cheerfully enough. “Cirro doesn’t like to leave the herd alone when we’re away from the forest. Besides, Luna’s better for going quietly.”

Pamela nodded. It would be hard not to be noticed on Cirro.

Nimbus and Luna moved so gently and silently they scarcely seemed to touch the ground. Side by side they came to the edge of the oaks and stopped. Ahead Oak Farm House loomed, a huge black shadow in the darkness.

“We’ll leave the ponies here,” Ponyboy whispered. “They don’t like houses.”

The two dismounted and tiptoed across the broad lawn, around the house to the kitchen door. With breathless caution Pamela climbed the steps and tried the door. It was locked!

“The front door,” she whispered, pointing. A broad veranda ran the length of the house in front. As they started up the stairs, something moved in the darkness and two green eyes glared at them from the veranda railing. Pamela gasped. Then she realized she had seen that bad-tempered stare before.

“It’s only Brother,” she breathed.

Ponyboy laughed softly. He stepped toward the cat and held out his hand. Brother exploded into a ball of bristling fur. “Me-your!” he yowled as he shot straight into the air. Coming down, he missed the railing and landed in a bush where he scrambled furiously for a moment before he reached the ground and disappeared in a furry streak.

Pamela and Ponyboy had to smother their giggles with their hands.

“He doesn’t like anybody but Aunt Sarah,” Pamela whispered. “But he just ignores me.”

“I make him nervous,” Ponyboy said, grinning. “But I suppose I’d make Aunt Sarah nervous, too.”

The front door was locked, but Ponyboy confidently motioned for Pamela to follow him. At one end of the veranda a vine climbed a sturdy trellis. Ponyboy went up as easily as if it were a ladder, and Pamela followed. The veranda roof ran just below Pamela’s window, and to her relief, she found that the window was unlocked. Ponyboy pushed it open, and Pamela slipped through.

“Good-by,” Pamela whispered.

“Good-by. Next time remember the cookies.” Ponyboy closed the window, and in a moment he had disappeared over the edge of the roof. A slim shadow moved across the lawn, then everything was still.

The storm was rising again and dark clouds raced across the sky. The branches of the oaks tossed and reared like a herd of wild black horses. But free and clear, through the roar of the wind, Pamela heard a familiar sound—Ponyboy’s flute.

Just then the racing clouds broke for an instant, the moon shone through, and Pamela saw them: the two ponies, pale and perfect, and a boy who waved a silver flute. Then they faded into the dark shadows under the oaks, and the black clouds rushed across the moon.

Shadow Glen

ONE DAY NEAR THE end of June, Pamela overheard Aunt Sarah and Aunt Elsie talking about her. She was playing jacks on the veranda, and her ball rolled off the edge into some bushes. She was under the bush looking for it, when she heard her aunts come out.

“She seems so much happier lately,” Aunt Sarah said. “She’s beginning to realize how much better it is for her to be living quietly with us instead of being dragged all over the country by her father.”

“Well, perhaps,” Aunt Elsie answered. “But there’s something about her now that worries me. Her mind seems to be miles away. It’s almost as if she were off in a dream world. Sometimes I could swear she’s listening for something all day long.”

“Nonsense,” said Aunt Sarah. “You’ll have to admit that she smiles a great deal more. Why, just a few minutes ago I saw her playing jacks right here on the front porch and she was whistling the oddest little tune, and every once in a while she would laugh—right out loud. I tell you she’s a much happier child.”

Aunt Sarah was right about that much. But she would never have guessed why. Pamela was happy because she knew that almost any time, most often when she was least expecting it, she would be off on another adventure with Ponyboy.

Even the days when she did not see Ponyboy seemed to be less boring. She spent much more time out-of-doors now. The ponies did not like to come near the house in the daytime, and Pamela knew places where they might be. While she waited and watched for them, she found new and interesting things to do. She learned to climb trees and look for birds’ nests; she caught lizards with weed lassos; and she almost tamed a squirrel that lived behind the old barn. In the evenings she was busy rereading all her favorite fairy tales so she could tell them better.

Often, when she had not seen Ponyboy during the day, he would send Nimbus for her in the early evening. Right after dinner Aunt Sarah and Aunt Elsie retired to the parlor, and Pamela was sent to her room to read or study. Fortunately her aunts disliked climbing stairs, so they slept in downstairs bedrooms. They rarely climbed the stairs for any reason, so it was quite safe to leave right after dinner.

From her window seat Pamela would wait for the sound of Ponyboy’s flute or the shadowy form of Nimbus among the trees at the edge of the lawn. She kept her jacket ready with the pockets full of cookies. She never knew when to expect them, but if bedtime came without a sign, she knew they wouldn’t come that night.

On nights when she heard the secret sound of the silver flute or saw the gray mare, Pamela would slip out her window and down the trellis. There was always something wonderful to do. Sometimes they found a jack rabbit to chase and played fox hunting, galloping over hills and through valleys. Once a fox hunt led them up the boulder-strewn slopes of Sleeping Lady Mountain, and once again Pamela felt the senseless surge of fear as she looked down on the mysterious cloak of fog below. But there was so much to do, there was no time to worry about the swamp or anything else for long.

Sometimes they took the ponies to Shadow Glen to graze. They had a favorite spot on a ledge near a little waterfall where they liked to sit and talk while the ponies ate. Once, on a Saturday, they spent the whole day there. Pamela always remembered that Saturday picnic; partly because it was such a wonderful day and partly because it was the first time she really heard about the Pig Woman—although afterwards it seemed she had always known.

Every Saturday Mrs. Tibbets from down the valley came to Oak Farm to clean and scrub. Sometimes, in nice weather, old Mr. Tibbets came too, to take the aunts to town. It was a long ride to town, so they always spent the entire day shopping and visiting with old friends. It occurred to Pamela when she heard of a coming trip, that grumpy old Mrs. Tibbets would never notice or care if she was gone all day.

Ponyboy probably wouldn’t like her suggesting a certain time for him to come. She never knew when she would see him. But the prospect of a whole day’s adventure made her want to try.

The next time she saw Ponyboy, she told him about the approaching shopping trip. “And I could come in the morning and stay all day,” she said brightly. “It always seems like such a short time from after dinner till I have to go home.”

Ponyboy’s slanting eyebrows began to dip fiercely as she had feared they might. He didn’t like things to be so expected. But suddenly she had an inspiration. “I could pack a picnic lunch,” she added quickly.

Ponyboy’s eyebrows, on their way down, wavered. Then they started up again. “A picnic? What sort of picnic?”

“Oh, chicken sandwiches, and pickles, and olives, and lemonade, and cookies; maybe even doughnuts.”

The eyebrows were back to normal. “Well, I don’t know for sure,” he said. “I might be too busy, but if you want to pack a lunch Saturday and take a walk up the cowpath to the north pasture I might...,” he waved his hand vaguely, “be around.”

The lunch was easy. Aunt Elsie loved to cook, and the pantry was always full of good things to eat. Mrs. Tibbets was no problem either. She didn’t know enough about children to realize that a one-girl, all-day picnic wouldn’t be much fun. She seemed glad Pamela wasn’t going to be underfoot.

Pamela was excited as she started out along the north pasture cowpath early Saturday morning. It was so different to know, or almost know, that she was going to see Ponyboy and the ponies. But when she reached the gate at the end of the pasture, there was no sign of ponies or boy. She waited and was beginning to wonder if he had decided not to come, when a bird called sharply from a clump of trees on the hillside just beyond the gate. A bird, or was it?

Pamela quickly opened the gate and in a moment was among the trees. She looked around. Nothing stirred. Short, sun-dappled grass, tall pines and oaks, but nothing else. Perhaps it was only a bird.

Just then a giggle directly over her head made her jump. There, stretched out on a limb, was Ponyboy—his hands under his chin. He sat up and shoved himself off the branch, landing lightly beside Pamela.

“Hi,” he said. “I’ll carry the lunch. I left the ponies farther up the hill.”

Shadow Glen was beautiful that day. The sun was warm, but it was cool and dusky under the trees that edged the brook. While the ponies grazed, Pamela and Ponyboy made boats of tree bark, manned them with people made from hoarhound sprigs, and ran them over the rapids. While the daring hoarhound boatmen shot the waterfall, Pamela made up names and life histories for each limp green hero.

“This is Stanley Drudger,” she announced, shoving a boat out into the current. “He’s a street sweeper. His wife and eleven children are watching down there by the waterfall. He entered this race because he needs the prize money to buy shoes for his children.”

Pamela and Ponyboy leaned over the bank and watched the tiny craft bobbing precariously over the rapids. The boat plunged over the waterfall and disappeared under the swirling water.

“Oh, oh,” said Ponyboy. “There go the new shoes.”

“And daddy, too,” sighed Pamela. “It’s sad, isn’t it?”

Just then the boat popped up beyond the whirlpool, still carrying its hoarhound sailor.

“Hurrah!” shouted Pamela and Ponyboy. “Hurrah for Stanley Drudger!”

Pamela picked out an especially handsome hoarhound man, long and limply graceful.

“Next will be Sir James Diddle-Dumpling, from a noble British family. He’s shooting the rapids to impress his sweetheart Lady Gwendolyn. She says he’s a sissy.”

“I don’t blame her,” said Ponyboy. “He looks like one to me with that head.”

Well I think he’s handsome. He can’t help it if his head happens to be a daisy.”

Sir James was launched and soared grandly over the fall. The boat landed right side up in the whirlpool, spun round and round, and disappeared as if it went down the bathtub drain. After a long moment the capsized boat appeared—without Sir James.

Pamela and Ponyboy exchanged tragic glances. Ponyboy shook his head slowly. “He should have stayed a sissy,” he said solemnly. Pamela giggled.

After a while they ran out of boats and decided to hold a funeral for the race’s unlucky victims, Sir James and another unfortunate named Percival Poppyhead. They had a grand funeral procession which Solsken joined until they had to disqualify him for frisking. The heroes were buried near the site of their glorious deaths.

“Let’s eat lunch,” suggested Ponyboy. “Mourning makes me hungry.”

Fear Comes Closer

PAMELA AND PONYBOY SPREAD their picnic on the ledge and ate until they were stuffed. Solsken decided he much preferred cookies to grass and hung around getting in the way, almost stepping in the lemonade. Finally, they took what was left of the cookies up to where the fork of a huge old oak tree made a comfortable nest-like seat. Solsken wandered around below, looking up at them and stamping his tiny hooves.

“Why don’t your aunts take you with them when they go shopping?” Ponyboy asked suddenly. “Don’t they like you very much?”

Pamela was startled by the question. “No,” she stammered. “I mean—no, they do like me—and they would take me if I wanted to go. But they were used to not having children around for so long that it makes them sort of nervous; and it makes me nervous to be around people that I’m making nervous. So I’d rather stay home. Besides, they sit and talk to other ladies for hours. It’s not much fun.”

Ponyboy considered this for a moment. “How about your father?” he asked. “I guess he doesn’t want you along with him either?”

“He does, too,” Pamela said indignantly. “But he can’t take me.”

“Why not?”

“Well, he travels all the time, and lives in dingy hotels, and has to eat at restaurants, and—”

Ponyboy’s shrug dismissed all those things as unimportant.

“Besides, there’s Aunt Sarah. You see Aunt Sarah is my father’s sister. She’s older than he is, and she took care of Aunt Elsie and my father after their parents died. I guess they just got used to doing what she said when they were little, and it’s hard for them to stop.”

Ponyboy shook his head disapprovingly. Pamela was beginning to feel unhappy in the midst of such a wonderful day. But Ponyboy suddenly changed the subject.

“Let’s tell some more stories,” he said.

Pamela knew by now that this meant she would tell stories and Ponyboy would comment on them, but she didn’t mind. Some of his comments were fascinating and very puzzling.

“That’s silly!” he’d say when she finished a story. “Goblins don’t do things like that. I’ve never known a goblin that acted that way.” Once, after a story about a troll, he said, “I met a troll once. He was ugly, but he really wasn’t very dangerous.”

Pamela was fascinated, but she never asked questions. She knew it wouldn’t do. Once she had said, “Is that really true?” and Ponyboy hadn’t spoken to her for an hour.

On this particular day Pamela couldn’t think of any stories that she hadn’t already told.

“I’ve told all the best ones,” she said. “There’re just some awfully common ones like Hansel and Gretel and Goldilocks.”

“That one will do,” he said.

“Which one?”

“That one you said first—Hansel and Griddle.”

For the first time Pamela really realized that no one had ever told him fairy tales before. Imagine growing up to be—whatever age he was—and not ever hearing Hansel and Gretel.”

At the end of the story, Ponyboy had some comments to make as usual. “She was a pretty stupid witch to be tricked so easily. I’ll bet they couldn’t have fooled the Pig Woman like that.”

“Who’s the Pig Woman?” popped out before Pamela could stop it.

But Ponyboy seemed too startled by her question to notice it was one. “Don’t you know?” he asked in wonder. “You mean no one’s ever warned you? Well, isn’t that just like Them! That proves They don’t really care what happens to you.”

“Well, why don’t you tell me then?” Pamela asked. “Or don’t you care what happens to me either?”

Ponyboy looked impatient. “You sound just like a girl,” he said indignantly.

Well, I can’t help that, Pamela thought; but it didn’t seem wise to say it.

Finally Ponyboy stopped frowning. Slowly and reluctantly he said, “I wouldn’t want to see the Pig Woman get hold of anyone. I don’t much like to talk about her, but you really ought to know. Do you remember the swamp we rode by over below Sleeping Lady Mountain?”

Pamela could suddenly see the bleak gray swampland with its twisted, moss-hung trees and black, still water. She shuddered. “Yes, I remember.”

“That’s where the Pig Woman lives,” Ponyboy said. “Only sometimes she comes out into the forest.”

“Why is she called the Pig Woman?” asked Pamela. “And why is she so dangerous?” It seemed strange that Ponyboy, who seemed not at all afraid of anything else, should be almost afraid to talk about this mysterious person.

“Look, Girl,” he said. “Just remember if you see a woman with some thin black pigs—run as fast as you can! Or if you hear a woman’s voice singing anywhere in the forest, particularly near the swamp—run! That’s all you need to know. Just run!” And he wouldn’t say any more.

They had to leave Shadow Glen soon after that, to get Pamela home in time for dinner. On the way home she tried once or twice to bring up the subject again, but without success.

Then one night not long afterward, when she and Ponyboy were playing with the ponies in the forest clearing, a strange thing happened. They were trying to teach Solsken to jump over a rope when suddenly Cirro whinnied, high and shrill. Instantly all was quiet in the meadow as every pony stopped as still as a statue, listening. Pamela glanced at Ponyboy. With the rope still in his hand, he stood as if turned to stone while his dark eyes grew large and his golden skin paled.

Then Pamela heard a faraway voice singing. High and clear, beautiful and yet evil, the song drifted into the clearing.

As Pamela watched, Ponyboy began to move slowly toward the sound. His eyes were cold brown glass.

“Ponyboy!” Pamela screamed.

Suddenly his eyes were alive again. He clapped both hands over his ears and ran to Cirro. Leaping on the pony’s back, he gave the sharp whistle he used to call the other ponies. The frozen ponies sprang to life and together they dashed away into the forest. As Cirro rushed past, Pamela felt herself being lifted into the air. A moment later Nimbus was running beside them, and Ponyboy dropped her onto the gray mare’s back.

Lying low on the ponies’ necks, they fled through the whipping branches of the forest. Then out onto the open hillside they swept. Up to the top, and a sliding rush down the other side. But this was not like the wonderful moonlight rides they had had so many times before. This time fear rode beside them.

After a long while they stopped and rested in a little valley. Pamela tried to question Ponyboy, but he only shook his head.

Some time later they came, quietly, to the woods behind the old barn, and the ponies gathered around for Pamela’s good-by pat. Ponyboy had been very strange and quiet on the ride home, but now he grinned and touched his curly forelock in a mock salute.

“Thank you, Girl,” he said.

A Puzzling Surprise

NOTHING WAS CHANGED BY the strange thing that happened that night except that the next few times Pamela met Ponyboy they did not go to the forest meadow. Pamela couldn’t get Ponyboy to talk about what had happened no matter how skillfully she questioned him, but it seemed to her that he was troubled at times. Sometimes he would stop whatever he was doing and listen intently. Then he would be himself again. But he came as often as ever, and they had good times at Shadow Glen and in the forest.

After awhile they began to go to the clearing again to play games. Pamela was surprised to find how many games, like tag and hide-and-go-seek, could be played on horseback. They played these regularly, until the day they discovered the game of Circus. It started when Pamela was telling Ponyboy about a circus she had been to with her father.

“The part I liked best,” she said, “was the equestrian act. There was a whole family in fancy costumes who did tricks on a troupe of beautiful, trained ponies.”

“Bet they weren’t as smart as my ponies,” he said. “What could they do?”

Pamela told him all about it, down to the last detail, from the plumes on the ponies’ headdresses to the hoops of fire the riders jumped through. When she had told everything she could remember, Ponyboy jumped up excitedly. “Let’s do it!” he cried.

“Do it? What part of it?” Pamela asked.

He gestured impatiently. “Everything. All of it.”

“But you can’t just do those things. I mean not really. We could sort of pretend; but to really do the tricks, you’d have to practice and practice and it wouldn’t be easy. I read in a book once about how you start in a practice harness and—”

“A practice harness?” Ponyboy asked.

“Yes. It holds you up if you fall off the horse. Its fastened to a sort of crane overhead and—”

“Bring the book next time,” Ponyboy interrupted. “I want to see it.”

“Oh, I can’t. It was from the library in town. I got it out once when I went to town with my aunts.”

“Well, take it out again then.”

“I’m—I’m not allowed to go to the library any more.”

“Oh?” Ponyboy asked. “Why not?”

“I don’t know, really. Right after I got that book out, Aunt Sarah decided to go to the library and pick my books out for me. She said she would select more suitable material.”

“Just like Them,” he muttered disgustedly. “What’s wrong with a book about bareback riding, I’d like to know.”

“I don’t know. I wondered about it.”

Ponyboy’s shrug said that the whole thing was beyond sensible comment. “We don’t need a book,” he said cockily. “We’ll learn without it. It’ll be easy.”

The very next day Pamela had scarcely reached her room when she heard the flute’s call. Ponyboy had never come two nights in a row before. Surprised and delighted, Pamela scrambled down the trellis and arrived breathless under the oak tree where he waited impatiently. When they reached the meadow, Pamela saw that he had outlined with stones a small practice ring. It lay at the end of the clearing under a huge old oak, and from a sturdy branch there hung a practice harness.

“I made the harness from some stuff I found in the old barn,” he said proudly. “And I’ve been training the ponies. I think we’re ready to start learning.”

Pamela wasn’t nearly so sure. To stand up on a galloping pony’s back seemed pretty scary even with a harness. “But the ponies can’t be ready,” she hedged. “They have to be trained for a long time.”

“Not my ponies,” Ponyboy said. “Watch!”

He led Nimbus and Luna into the ring. He clapped his hands, and they began the slow rhythmical gallop of ring horses, their lovely heads tucked down sharply; their manes rippling gently to the softly rocking gait.

“Oh-h-h,” Pamela breathed, lost in admiration.

“Well, let’s get started,” Ponyboy said briskly. “Do you want to be first?”

“No! I mean, you go ahead. I don’t mind.”

“All right. I just thought you might want a head start. After all, I’m sure to learn much faster than you.”

He ran to Luna and vaulted onto her back. He caught the practice harness and strapped it around him. Very slowly he raised himself to a squat. He grinned at Pamela triumphantly as he went by. Then he very slowly began to stand up. Suddenly he waved one arm in the air wildly and then one leg and went sailing into space, dangling upside down in the harness. Luna snorted, as he sailed past kicking wildly.

That was the way it went for some time. Pamela sat on a rock and watched and tried hard not to laugh. Finally Ponyboy unfastened the harness and stopped Luna. He got down and put Nimbus into the ring. “Your turn,” he said. “I want to laugh at you for a change.”

“You know I can’t jump on her when she’s galloping,” Pamela complained. Looking exasperated, Ponyboy stopped Nimbus and helped Pamela up. Then he handed her the harness.

As he sat down at the edge of the ring he remarked loudly, “This ought to be good.”

Pamela let Nimbus gallop around the ring once or twice while she got up her courage. “Well, I might as well get it over with,” she thought. She put her hands flat on the pony’s back and started to lift herself into a squat. To her complete surprise, her muscles suddenly seemed to know what to do. Confidently she lifted to her feet, keeping her knees relaxed, giving with the pony’s action. Then she stood with outstretched arms as Nimbus rocked on, around and around the ring. Ponyboy stared in astonishment, but he was scarcely more surprised than Pamela was herself.

She was so amazed and delighted at being able to stand erect on the galloping pony’s back, as though she had done it all her life, that it wasn’t until the fourth or fifth trip around the ring that she noticed the look on Ponyboy’s face. She stopped Nimbus quickly and got off. She couldn’t help feeling a little triumphant, but she really didn’t want to hurt Ponyboy’s feelings.

She led Nimbus up to him. “I don’t know how I did it,” she said. “I guess it was just an accident.”

Ponyboy was generous with his congratulations; however, Pamela noticed that he sent her home rather early on Nimbus, and he didn’t go with her as he usually did. In fact, he stayed away for three days; and when he came for her again, she found he was quite good at riding standing up. So she was fairly certain that she knew just about how long it had taken him to learn.

She never tried to explain to him how she had learned so easily, partly because she didn’t think he wanted to talk about it, but mostly because she couldn’t begin to understand it herself.

The Circus Game

THE CIRCUS GAME SOON absorbed most of their time together. After they had both practiced for several evenings, they moved the ring out to the center of the meadow and made it much larger. They harnessed the two white mares, Neige and Nuage, together and learned to ride them standing with one foot on each pony. They taught all the ponies to gallop in formation, to whirl and turn in unison, and to walk on their hind legs.

Sometimes they would have a complete show with all the acts planned and scheduled just as if they were performing before a huge audience instead of a few rather indifferent birds and squirrels.

The ponies would be decorated with bridles made of flowering vines, with plumes of ferns and lilies nodding over their heads. First would come the grand entry with Ponyboy seated on Cirro, Pamela on the lovely pink Aurora, and all the other ponies following two by two. Cirro and Aurora were chosen as the parade leaders partly because they didn’t do well as ring ponies. Neither of them could resist adding all sorts of fancy flourishes to a trip around the ring, flourishes that could easily make a standing rider wind up upside down on the grass. But they were gorgeous as parade leaders, and they knew it.

They pranced and danced, sideways and backwards, their necks tightly arched and their tails like banners, one of blue flame and the other pink cotton candy.

After the parade came the pony drill. Seated on Cirro and Aurora and cracking vine whips, Pamela and Ponyboy directed the other ponies as they galloped in pairs, fours, and single file around the ring. The pony drill ended with all the ponies on their hind legs, and then the bareback riding began.

First, Ponyboy was ringmaster. He would stay in the ring while Pamela on Aurora led all the ponies out of the clearing—or Big Top as they called it—and into the edge of the forest. Two tall pines growing close together made a perfect archway for entrances and exits.

After a moment, Pamela would enter on Nimbus with a lacy tutu of ferns tied over her hitched-up skirt. Sometimes she would unbraid her hair so it could float out behind more gracefully. Once in the ring, Nimbus would begin her steady dependable gallop, and Pamela would rise slowly to her feet, sometimes shifting even to one foot. When her act was over, she would jump down and curtsy daintily while Nimbus bowed on one bent foreleg and Ponyboy, as ringmaster, pointed to them grandly with his whip.

Next Ponyboy on Luna did all sorts of daring acrobatics, jumping on and off the steadily galloping pony. Sometimes Pamela would drop her role as ring mistress long enough to sit on a log and be several hundred cheering spectators.

“Hurrah for Ponyboy!” she would shout, clapping loudly.

Next Neige and Nuage would be brought in harnessed together, and Pamela and Ponyboy would both ride them at once; first with one standing on each pony, and then one behind the other with a foot on each white back.

Solsken, of course, was too little to be in the show, but he loved to be in the midst of things and blundered about getting in everyone’s way. Finally, Pamela made him a floppy hat that tied under his chin with a big bow, and the circus had a clown.

By the time the circus was over, it was usually quite late. The ride home was always one of Pamela’s favorite times. They moved slowly through the forest, talking and laughing; but when they came to the valley, they always broke into a headlong run. There was wild excitement in the dash down the dark plain, with the night wind in their faces and the ground flying backward beneath the racing hooves. Beside her, Ponyboy crouched low over Cirro’s neck, while from close behind came the rhythmic beat of the hooves of the pony herd.

Pamela was always breathless when they reached the woods near the old barn. There in the shadow of the barn she said good-by while Nimbus nickered and nudged her gently with a dove-gray nose.

In the Pig Woman’s Swamp

ONE NIGHT, WHEN THE circus had become almost a nightly thing, Pamela watched and waited until darkness came, and there was no sign from Ponyboy. So reluctantly, she went to bed. It was several hours later when she awoke quite suddenly. She knew at once that it was very late, and that something had awakened her. She listened intently. What could it have been? Then it came again. Faint but clear—the whinny of a horse. Pamela felt her way to the window. There, directly below, a pale shadow moved. Not at the edge of the trees as usual, but right beside the house.

Pamela suddenly felt that something must be dreadfully wrong and she must hurry. Still in her long, old-fashioned nightdress she scrambled out the window and down the trellis. Almost before she reached the ground, Nimbus was beside her. Pamela felt a surge of fear. She knew that only something very serious would make Nimbus come so near the house. Nimbus knelt quickly, and leaped into a run almost before Pamela was settled on her back.

Faster than Pamela had ever ridden before, they flew through the dark night. Over hills, down into valleys, and then into the forest. Pamela hid her face from the slashing branches. She glanced up finally to find they were racing without pause through the familiar meadow. Very soon they were climbing again, and Pamela recognized the rocky slopes that Ponyboy had called Sleeping Lady Mountain. As they reached the crest of the hill, Nimbus paused for a second and with a gasp of horror Pamela looked down on the endless black water and twisted mossy trees of the Pig Woman’s swamp. A shiver of fear raced over her and Pamela felt Nimbus shudder beneath her; then he plunged downward towards the swamp.

At the edge of the swampland they came upon the pony herd. They were standing close together with their lovely heads and tails drooping mournfully. They greeted Pamela with pleading, forlorn eyes. She noticed that they seemed to be continually looking out across the marshland into the mysterious darkness. Then Cirro began to move forward, stopping to look back as though beckoning her to follow. Pamela urged Nimbus on, but she could feel the terror that shook the little mare’s body, so she slipped from her back and followed on foot.

Cirro led the way through tall marsh grass, over spongy, shaky ground, to a spot where, just ahead, stretched the dark water of the swamp. And there before them a narrow ridge of muddy earth wound away into the darkness. Cirro lowered his head as though sniffing the earth, and Pamela knelt beside him. By the pale light of the moon, she could just make out footprints—human prints—and the tiny hoofprints of a colt. The prints were deeply cut in the spongy earth. They seemed to be headed straight for the center of the swamp.

Pamela turned and looked back at the ponies. As her glance flew frantically from one trembling drooping pony to another, she knew suddenly what had happened. Solsken was missing. He must have strayed away from the herd and into the swamp, and Ponyboy must have gone after him. She was sure that nothing else could have made Ponyboy go into the swamp.

The ponies gazed at Pamela with frightening pleading eyes, and she knew what she had to do. Slowly, she started out over the narrow slimy path.

As she picked her way cautiously along the narrow trail, her mind raced. Where was Ponyboy? Would she be able to help him? Who was the Pig Woman? Pamela stopped. At the back of her mind a thought flickered, but she couldn’t quite get hold of it. It hung there like a name you can’t quite remember. She was almost sure it was something she had read. It had something to do with the Pig Woman, but the rest just wouldn’t come. Somehow Pamela felt sure it was very important. She could almost remember ...

Just then Pamela forgot everything and drew back in horror. Almost under her feet a part of the path squirmed, and a fat black snake oozed away into the slimy water. She stifled a scream.

She looked around her. A thick swirling mist drifted everywhere. Behind her she could not even see the familiar shape of Sleeping Lady Mountain. Ahead and on both sides through swirling mist she could see dark water, clumps of marsh grass, and huge dark shapes that could be twisted, mossy swamp trees. Or could they be crouching monsters waiting to spring? Frozen with terror, Pamela watched and listened. Now all around her she could hear faint rustlings and gurglings, as unknown creatures swam or crept.

Moments of frozen fear crawled by before Pamela could force herself to go on.

She watched each step even more carefully now. From time to time she caught a glimpse of Ponyboy’s footprints or the marks left by Solsken’s hooves. At times the trail narrowed to nothing, and Pamela had to jump to the next tiny island of mud and marsh grass.

After a long time she looked up to see a startling sight. Looming up straight ahead of her, half hidden in mist, was a house. With small dark windows and high teetering turrets, it had a gloomy forbidding look.

Moving carefully forward, Pamela reached a large area of firm but slimy earth. She could now see that the house was sitting on a small island in the midst of the swamp. There was no sign of life. The house looked completely deserted, dark and quiet.

As Pamela approached the house, she noticed that the ground seemed to be full of tiny holes. It felt rough and uneven to her bare feet. She examined it more carefully and then gasped in terror.

The Pig Woman

DAWN WAS NOT FAR away, and by the pale gray light she was able to make out thousands of footprints deeply pressed into the soggy earth. Waves of fright rushed over Pamela as she realized that the island was entirely covered by the sharp thin footprints of Pigs!

Too frightened to think, Pamela ran towards the house. She didn’t stop until the heavy door creaked shut behind her. She was in a large room with a few torn and broken pieces of furniture, heavy ragged drapes at the windows, and a damp and musty smell. Ahead was a winding staircase with broken hanging banisters.

Halfway up the stairs she stopped in midstep. From somewhere in the cold dark house came a sweet familiar sound—Ponyboy’s flute! Sadder and slower now, but still the same secret, singing sound. The sound led up the stairs, down a dim hall, up a narrow stairway to a heavy door. The door was locked, but there was a key in the lock. Pamela turned the huge key with difficulty, and the door swung back.

Before her eyes could become accustomed to the dim light, she heard Ponyboy’s startled voice.

“Girl! What are you doing here?”

And then she saw them. In one end of the room was a large iron cage, and in it sat Ponyboy. Solsken lay beside him with his golden head in Ponyboy’s lap.

“I came looking for you,” Pamela whispered. “Why are you in that cage?”

“The Pig Woman,” he said shortly. “She’s turning us into pigs.”

In horror Pamela stared at them, looking for sharp cloven hooves or snout-like noses.

“You—you don’t look at all like pigs to me,” she faltered.

“Oh, we’re not yet. But we soon will be. See that food and water over there? If we eat a bite or take one drink, we’ll become pigs. And if we don’t, we’ll starve. Solsken would have eaten long ago, but I wouldn’t let him.”

“Oh, Ponyboy, what will we do? There must be something we can do.”

“Well, it’s easy to see what you’d better do. You’d better get out of here. The Pig Woman’s out in the forest now, but she never stays long. And if she finds you here when she comes back, there’ll be one more pig.”

Pamela covered her face with both hands in fear and confusion.

What could she do? She was afraid, but she couldn’t leave Ponyboy. And she kept thinking there was something she could do to help, there was something she should remember.

“Girl!” Ponyboy shouted, breaking into her daze. Pamela jumped back in fright. “What’s that in your hand?”

Pamela looked down. She had not even realized that she still clutched the key she had found in the door. And with it were several other keys.

“Keys,” she stammered. “They were in that door.”

“Well, don’t just stand there.” Ponyboy’s impatience was almost frightening. “Try them in the padlock. That one looks just like the one that opens this cage.”

With trembling fingers Pamela slipped the key into the lock, and the rusty padlock squeaked open.

Instantly Pamela was almost jerked off her feet as Ponyboy grabbed her hand and dashed from the room. Down the stairs they flew so fast that Pamela’s mud-stained white gown and her unbraided hair floated behind her and little Solsken could barely keep up. The heavy front door slammed behind them, and they were running across the muddy pig-tracked ground.

They had almost reached the edge of the island when suddenly the air was full of a terrible, beautiful sound. Ponyboy ran slower and slower and then stopped. His eyes had changed again to brown marbles. Solsken, too, seemed frozen to the spot.

At the far end of the island, something was moving in the mist. First dozens and dozens of thin black pigs with sharp white tusks darted forward, their jaws clicking. Then out of the swirling fog came a woman. Long black hair hung around a sharp white face and floated out behind her into the mist. A heavy cloak of dull black feathers fell like two huge wings from her shoulders. She approached slowly, and from her open mouth came the dreadful song:

“Aie-e-e-e, Aie-e-e

Stop and listen to my song,

Listen well and listen long.

Soon its beauty weaves a spell,

Soon you love its tones so well,

Just to hear it you will give

Your greatest gift—your will to live.

Aie-e-e, Aie-e-e”

In vain Pamela tried to pull Ponyboy towards safety, but it was like trying to move a statue. Finally she turned to run herself, but it was too late. All around them was a circle of sharp black snouts, gleaming red eyes and clicking white tusks.

The Pig Woman was closer now, and the air rang with her song. Pamela stared at her with fascinated horror. And then the feeling that she must remember something was back—stronger than ever; she must remember, and quickly!

She covered her eyes and forced herself to think, and suddenly she knew: A story Aunt Elsie had read to her—about ancient times—an evil woman who lured men to their fate by singing and—and ...the rest wouldn’t come. Pamela opened her fingers and looked between them. The Pig Woman was very close now, her strange eyes glowing weirdly in her dead white face.

Pamela closed her eyes again and strained to remember. Someone else sang—that was it! Someone else sang so beautifully that the song of evil was drowned, and its victims escaped.

Without hesitation Pamela began to sing. She didn’t sing an ordinary song like those her father had taught her. This song came from somewhere deeper than memory, and it seemed to sing itself through Pamela’s lips. Without words, as a bird sings of happiness, Pamela sang of freedom and courage and hope, of friendship and laughter and adventure. She sang with all the strength within her.

When Pamela began to sing, the Pig Woman’s face became twisted with anger. She tried to sing louder and louder. As she strained to drown out Pamela’s song, the evil woman’s beautiful voice became hoarse and shrill. Little by little its awful beauty faded until it seemed to be no more than the screeching of an evil bird of prey.

When Pamela felt Ponyboy grab her arm, she knew that she was winning. She felt Solsken push his velvet nose against her hand, but she did not stop singing. She sang until she saw the black pigs, who surrounded them, stop snapping their long tusks and their glowing red eyes changed to dull black. She sang as she and Ponyboy and Solsken began to move slowly backward towards the swamp. When they reached the edge of the circle of pigs, the pigs fell back and let them through.

Seeing this, the Pig Woman clenched her fists and her song became an ear-splitting screech of rage. But when she saw her pigs following after Pamela quietly like a pack of well-trained dogs, she stopped singing altogether.

She jumped up and down and pulled her long hair in fury, screaming, “Come back! Come back! You can’t leave! You can never leave!” But the pigs did not stop. As if they heard nothing but the angry cawing of a crow, they continued to follow slowly and tamely after the children.

Suddenly the Pig Woman flung her clawlike hands above her head, gave a violent scream and, running to the edge of the island, jumped far out over the deep black water. For a moment her cloak of feathers spread out behind her and she looked like a huge black bird in flight. Then she disappeared beneath the slimy surface.

Pamela and Ponyboy watched in horror. The dark water swirled. Bubbles foamed upward and then stopped. Finally all was still.

For a long minute the boy and girl stared at each other in horrified silence. Both of Pamela’s hands were pressed to her mouth holding back a scream, and even Ponyboy’s face was pale.

But soon Ponyboy was himself again. “Cheer up,” he grinned, giving Pamela a shake. “I don’t think we’ll miss her a bit.”

Back to Oak Farm

ON THE WAY BACK across the swamp Pamela couldn’t help asking some questions even though she knew how Ponyboy felt about them.

“Why didn’t the Pig Woman’s song enchant me?” she asked.

Ponyboy shrugged. “Because you’re just a girl,” he said. “It didn’t work on girl things.”

“What will my aunts say?” Pamela asked later. “I’ve been gone a long time.”

“Oh, we’ll make it look as if you’ve been lost in the woods,” he said. “It’ll be all right.”

But Pamela’s last questions Ponyboy couldn’t answer. “What,” she said, “are we going to do with all those pigs?”

They were all following, quietly and tamely, dozens and dozens of thin black pigs with sad pleading eyes.

“Do you suppose all those pigs were boys once?”

“Maybe some of them,” Ponyboy answered. “But some were probably animals. The Pig Woman’s song worked on animals, too. Some of them might even be girls. Her song didn’t work on girl things, but she might have caught them some other way.”

“Oh, the poor things,” Pamela cried. “Won’t they ever change back?”

“I don’t know,” Ponyboy answered. “But they can’t follow me around forever. The ponies wouldn’t like it.”

Pamela was so tired that they had to rest many times on their way across the swamp, so it was almost evening again before they reached the other side where the pony herd was waiting.

The ponies crowded around them wild with joy. They pushed and shoved as each tried to get closest to the children. But when they saw the pigs, they snorted and shied. Ponyboy had to lead them away before he was able to calm them.

When they reached the meadow, they all stopped to drink from the spring and eat some food. By then Pamela was so tired and sleepy she could hardly move.

“You might as well sleep a little while,” Ponyboy said. “You’re so late now, a few more hours won’t matter.”

So they lay down in the soft warm grass, each with a pony for a pillow, and fell fast asleep. All around the meadow the poor ugly pigs lay down and slept, too.

Pamela awakened first. She sat up and stretched and rubbed her eyes. Then she stared in shocked surprise. The ugly black pigs were gone, and all around the clearing were sleeping animals and boys, lovely spotted fawns, wooly bear cubs, lambs and colts, and perhaps a dozen real live boys.

Just then Ponyboy woke up, too. When he saw the boys and animals, he grinned and motioned for Pamela to be quiet. Silently they roused the ponies and rode away from the clearing.

When they were well into the forest, Pamela asked, “Why didn’t you want to wake them?”

“There you go again, asking questions.” Ponyboy grinned. “They won’t have any trouble finding their way back to where they came from now. They don’t need us any more, and besides—they might ask questions. And you know how I feel about that!”

As they drew nearer and nearer to Oak Farm, Pamela became more and more worried. She was quite sure that Aunt Sarah would never accept so simple an explanation of where she had been as the one Ponyboy suggested. After all, she couldn’t get lost in the forest for a whole day and part of a night (and in her nightdress, too) and expect people not to ask how and why.

Pamela felt odd as the pony herd crowded around her to say good-by in the little grove behind the barn.

She supposed it was because she was so tired.

Ponyboy was having trouble holding Cirro, who seemed unusually nervous. “Good-by, Girl,” he said hastily. “We’ve got to get out of here. Some of them must be out of the house.” Then as Cirro danced sideways toward the safety of the woods, calling to the mares softly through quivering nostrils, Ponyboy called, “Thanks, Girl. Thanks for all of us! And don’t forget—” Cirro reared and whirled away. But the words drifted back. “Don’t—forget—your—song.”

The mares followed reluctantly, looking back at Pamela with velvet eyes. Last to leave was Nimbus. She touched Pamela’s cheek with her soft gray nose as she had done so often before. Then she turned away. At the edge of the woods she turned once more, though the rest of the herd had disappeared. She nickered softly, tossing her fine head and pawing the earth with one forefoot, as though begging Pamela to come, too. Then Cirro called again, and Nimbus bounded away into the shadows.

While she was still waving, Pamela noticed that her face felt very hot and her head seemed strangely heavy. She had felt that way only once or twice before. It had been—yes, it had been when she was sick. She was just thinking that if she got really sick, Aunt Sarah wouldn’t ask so many questions, when she began to feel so bad she forgot all about Aunt Sarah.

The walk through the barn and across the farmyard was a painful haze. Afterwards Pamela could only remember farm buildings spinning past crazily and her feet becoming heavier and heavier. She seemed to hear Aunt Elsie’s voice calling her from somewhere far away, but she saw no one as she slowly and carefully climbed the backstairs. The upstairs hall seemed a mile long and the door of her room seemed to keep moving away from her.

The last thing she remembered was crawling gratefully onto her bed. She caught a glimpse of her bare feet and the hem of her nightdress still stained with mud from the swamp. “Oh dear,” she thought wearily, “I’ll have to clean up before I go to sleep.”

Then for a long, long time she had no thoughts at all.

An Unexpected Visitor

MUCH LATER THERE BEGAN to be something to remember again. She seemed to be floating just below the surface of something. Something dark and deep and endless. She remembered trying to reach the top where there were lights and movement and voices. If she could just get to the surface and stay there for a moment, she could find out—but then, just as it seemed close and the light was growing stronger, she would begin to sink again, with only a glimpse of something to hold onto as she sank down again into the deep, deep darkness.

Once it was a glimpse of Aunt Elsie’s worried face, another time it seemed to be her father’s. Again it was only sunlight on the faded wallpaper of her room, and once it was a strange man who leaned over her with something in his ears. “A doctor,” she thought drowsily just before she sank back again into the dark depths of unconsciousness.

But then she awoke one evening to find the darkness was gone. After having to struggle and strain for even a moment’s contact with what was going on around her, now suddenly, with no effort at all, she seemed to float up into the world of light. She opened her eyes slowly, and there was her room just as it had always been. Everything sat quietly in its accustomed place, looking unusually close and clear. Pamela felt weak and tired but quite comfortable and contented.

Something moved at the other end of the room, and for the first time she noticed that Aunt Elsie was sitting on the window seat, looking out the window. As she turned towards the bed, Pamela quickly shut her eyes. She wanted to rest and think just a little longer and get used to being awake.

Aunt Elsie came to stand beside the bed. Pamela could feel the gentle, worried eyes on her face. There was a deep troubled sigh, then footsteps, a door closing very softly, and Pamela was alone.

“Funny I don’t feel bad about fooling her,” Pamela mused. “I suppose that’s because I’ve been sick.”

She lay quietly for a time just enjoying being aware of everything around her; the smoothness of the sheets, the friendly familiarity of the dingy wallpaper, the softly stirring oaks outside the windows, and the soft glow of a shaded lamp on the dresser. It all seemed comfortingly familiar and yet, somehow, newly interesting.

Next, she tried to remember what had just been happening. Of her sickness there were only the few hazy snatches. One thing of importance though—her father was here. At least she was almost sure she had seen his face. She must have been awfully sick for Father to have come back so early. It would be wonderful to see him. It would be nice to tell him all about—”

And then she began to remember all of it—Ponyboy, the ponies, the summer of adventures, and of course the Pig Woman and the swamp. Then there had been the pigs who had slept away their enchantment, the ride home, and—what was it that Ponyboy had called just as Cirro bolted into the woods? “Don’t forget your song.” That was it! He must have meant the song she had sung on the Pig Woman’s island.

“I wonder why I mustn’t forget it. Let’s see, it went like ... But she couldn’t remember it at all. She had forgotten it already.

It was just at that moment Pamela became aware of a noise, a quiet sort of noise, but very close. Someone was opening her bedroom window. She raised herself weakly, in time to see a familiar figure step lightly over the sill.

“Ponyboy!”

“Shhh.” He tiptoed across the room with a finger to his lips. Opening the door, he looked up and down the hall, listening intently. Pamela watched in amazement. He seemed different somehow. His thin golden face, wild brown hair, and teasing tilted eyes had seemed so ordinary in the forest, but they looked quite remarkable in the stiff old room with its primly shabby furniture.

Apparently satisfied, he closed the door and sat down cross-legged on the foot of the bed. “Hello, Girl,” he said cheerfully.

“Hello,” Pamela whispered. “You shouldn’t be here. Someone might come in any minute.”

He shook his head. “They’re all downstairs now. We’ll hear Them coming up in time for me to get back out the window. I have to talk to you.”

Pamela suddenly felt worried. Something about Ponyboy’s face as he said, “I have to talk to you,” made her feel she didn’t want to hear what he had to say. And yet she was curious. “What is it?” she asked reluctantly.

“Well, first, I’ve brought you something.” He leaned forward and dropped a small object into her hand. It was a ring, tightly and intricately braided of strands of hair, each tiny wisp firmly plaited and then rebraided into larger strands. And each one glowing with a different color. A tiny braid of dove gray woven into one of burnished gold. Gleaming white, smoky blue and dusky pink, the strands appeared and disappeared in a delicate pattern.

Pamela turned it slowly in her palm, filled with mixed emotions: pleasure in the beauty of the ring, and a growing fear of what it meant.

When she finally looked up, there was a question in her eyes.

Ponyboy wasn’t smiling now. He looked down quickly and began to trace the pattern of the quilt with one brown finger. “It’s from their manes,” he said. The finger moved more slowly. “To remember them by.”

Pamela knew that this was what she had expected—and feared. For a long time she didn’t say anything, and then in a very shaky voice she asked, “You’re going away?”

“Yes,” he said, “we have to go.”

But then Pamela remembered something. “But how can you go?” she asked. “I still have the—” Her hand went to her throat and she gasped, “—it’s gone!”

“Oh, you mean the amulet.” He jumped off the bed. “It’s not gone. It’s right here in your handkerchief box. Your Aunt Elsie put it there.” He dropped it into her hand and resumed his position at the foot of the bed.

Pamela had long ago stopped worrying about how he knew such things. She turned the amulet slowly in her hand. “I can keep it?” she asked.

He nodded.

“But then—I don’t understand exactly, but I know it brought you; and if I keep it, how can you go away?”

Ponyboy smiled, but this time it wasn’t a teasing smile. “Do you remember what it says?”

Pamela nodded. “Give the searching heart an eye, and magic fills a summer’s sky.”

“That’s right. So you see, it doesn’t mean you any more. You’ve found what you were looking for. And the summer is over.”

“No!” Pamela protested. “I don’t know what you mean. I haven’t found anything. Nothing has changed at Oak Farm.”

The teasing smile was back. “Oh yes it has—that is, it will if you just don’t forget what you found. And someday you’ll find someone else who needs the amulet, and you can give it away then. You’ll know when the time comes.”

He got up and went to the window. Part way out, he turned and saluted in the funny way he had, touching his tousled forelock. “Good-by, Girl. You were great—for a girl anyway. Even if you do ask questions.”

Then he was gone. In a few minutes Pamela heard once again the flute’s song, free and clear, but swiftly fading. Softer and softer, and then it was gone.

She lay back on the pillows. It was all over, the wonderful magic summer; but right now she was only very, very tired. In a moment she was fast asleep.

Old Questions Answered

WHEN PAMELA AWOKE, AUNT Elsie was sitting on the side of her bed feeling her forehead. She opened her eyes and said, “Hello, Aunt Elsie.”

Aunt Elsie gasped. “Oh, my dear!” she cried. “You’re awake. You’re finally awake!” She looked so terribly happy and excited that Pamela felt a pang of guilt because she hadn’t told her when she woke up before.

“I’m much better now,” she said. “How is everyone. Is Father here?”

Aunt Elsie was excitedly smoothing the pillow, tucking in the blankets, and in between patting Pamela’s hand. “Yes, dear, yes. We’re all fine, and your father is here. Aunt Sarah sent for him. But you mustn’t talk much, dear. You must just be very quiet and rest. You’ve been very sick, you know.” She got up suddenly and got a chair. “You must close your eyes and rest for a few minutes, and then if you’re feeling strong enough, I’ll call your father and Aunt Sarah.”

She sat down on the chair close to the bed and patted Pamela’s hand from time to time, her gentle blue eyes happy for once.

Pamela closed her eyes. After a moment she became aware that one hand was tightly clenched and something was in it. Quietly she moved her fingers. It was the amulet and ring.

It all came back then, and for the first time she realized how much she would miss them all: lovely Luna, proud Aurora, playful little Solsken, and gentle, faithful Nimbus. She felt her throat tighten and hot tears sprang up under her closed lids and began to trickle down her cheeks. They were so beautiful and wonderful, and she would never see them again.

“Why, Pamela, you’re crying. What is it, dear? What’s the matter?” Aunt Elsie was leaning over her.

Without opening her eyes, Pamela shook her head slowly from side to side. “The ponies, the ponies,” she sobbed. “They’re gone. They’re all gone.”

For a long minute Aunt Elsie didn’t say anything. Then, just as Pamela was thinking, “I shouldn’t have said that, she doesn’t know what I’m talking about,” she heard Aunt Elsie say, “Oh!!!” She said it in a tone of voice so very unlike herself that Pamela’s eyes flew open in astonishment.

Aunt Elsie jumped up and actually stomped. Her pale blue eyes were somehow darker. “Oh!” she said again. “I told her not to take them away. I knew you’d be upset if you woke up and they weren’t here.”

Pamela was astounded. She had never seen Aunt Elsie act like this, and she couldn’t imagine what she was talking about. But then she realized that Aunt Elsie was motioning toward the bookcase. It wasn’t until then that Pamela noticed that her collection of miniature horses was missing.

Aunt Elsie turned back to the bed and took both of Pamela’s hands in hers. “Don’t cry, dear. Please don’t cry any more. It’s not good for you when you’re so weak. We’ll—we’ll—do something about it. You see, when you were unconscious you kept muttering about ponies, and Aunt Sarah thought they were exciting you. But don’t worry, dear, I’ll—I’ll—” Aunt Elsie’s face flushed, and her little pointed chin suddenly looked firmer. “I’ll bring them back!” With that she rushed from the room.

Pamela stared after her in bewilderment. In a moment she was back with a box which she began unpacking. She was moving and talking quickly, as if she were trying to get through before she lost her courage. “They’re all right here, dear. I wrapped them very carefully so they wouldn’t be broken.” One by one the glass and wooden and metal ponies were returned to the shelf.

Pamela finally found her voice. “What will Aunt Sarah say?” she asked weakly.

Aunt Elsie gently put the last pony on the shelf and turned to the bed. Her voice had a firmness it never had before as she said, “It doesn’t matter, dear.”

She sat down and smiled at Pamela quite calmly. “It really doesn’t matter,” she repeated and her blue eyes were round with surprise. She sat quietly for a long time with the same surprised expression on her face, while Pamela lay and watched her wonderingly. Then she nodded her head sharply. “Yes,” she said. “I will.”

She leaned toward Pamela as if she were going to share a secret. “For a long time I’ve wanted to talk to you about your mother.”

Something inside Pamela gave a funny little jerk. “I’ve always wanted to,” Aunt Elsie went on. “Your Aunt Sarah never approved—And that’s why—Well, it happened this way. A long time ago your father’s company sent him to sell some special kind of trucks to a man who managed a circus. He had to go to the circus several times to arrange things, and while he was there he met a young woman.”

“My mother?” Pamela breathed.

“Yes,” Aunt Elsie nodded. “She was a beautiful girl. I saw her only once, but I’ll never forget her face and the way she moved—like a dancer.”

“You only saw her once?” Pamela asked wonderingly.

“Yes, just once. You see, your Aunt Sarah—well, she just couldn’t get used to the thought of a circus bareback rider in the family.”

“A bareback rider!” Pamela gasped in delight. “How wonderful! That’s why I always thought I remembered her all in white on a white horse. That must be why I’ve always loved horses so much.”

“I suppose it could be, dear,” Aunt Elsie said. “It always worried Sarah—your interest in horses.”

“Thank you so much for telling me,” Pamela sighed happily. “I think it’s wonderful. It’s exactly what I would have wanted her to be.”

Just at that moment there were footsteps in the hall, and Aunt Sarah and Father appeared in the doorway. Aunt Sarah was pleased and surprised to find Pamela so much improved. And for once she found nothing of which to disapprove, though Pamela saw her looking sharply at the miniature horses on the bookcase.

It was marvelous to see Father again. He sat down beside the bed, took Pamela’s hand in his big brown hands, and grinned at her in the old familiar way. “Well, Pam, honey.”

Suddenly Pamela felt very tired again, and she dropped off to sleep still holding her father’s hand.

In the next few days Pamela was very busy eating, sleeping, and getting stronger. While her body grew stronger, her mind was busy, too, for there was much to think about. She could not think of Ponyboy and the ponies without a sharp pang of sorrow, but there was pleasure and excitement in being able to talk about her mother.

After Pamela told her father what Aunt Elsie had already revealed, there was no longer any reason for him to be silent. Pamela never tired of asking questions about her mother now that, finally, she knew they would be answered.

One question brought some especially interesting information. “Did Mother ever ride in the circus after I was born?”

“Oh, yes,” Father answered. “Not regularly, of course; but whenever we happened to be close enough to the circus, she’d go back for a performance or two. I always liked to watch her.”

“Did I ever watch her ride?” Pamela asked.

“Watch her!” Father laughed. “Why, you used to ride with her. Almost from the time you learned to stand up. Of course, she was always very careful to see that you didn’t fall.”

“Well,” Pamela said, “that explains ...”

“What, Pam?”

“Oh, just something I wondered about,” she said hastily.

It wasn’t until several days after Pamela began to get better that it suddenly occurred to her that no one had asked a single question about where she had been on that night when she had gone to the swamp to rescue Ponyboy. It seemed curious that no one, not even Aunt Sarah, had any questions to ask.

That evening, while she and her father were playing checkers, she decided to search for the reason.

“Father, how did I get sick?”

“The doctor called it exposure. Your move, Pam.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you were out in the forest too long and got too cold and tired. Is that your move, or are you still deciding?”

“I’m deciding. My hand’s still on it. Did you say ‘out in the forest?’ ”

“The doctor guessed that you had walked in your sleep and gotten yourself lost in the forest. I wouldn’t put that man there if I were you. I don’t think you have your mind on the game, Pam.”

“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.

Endings and Beginnings

THE 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.

A Biography of Zilpha Keatley Snyder

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.

In 1967, her fourth novel, The Egypt Game, won the Newbery Honor for excellence in children’s literature. Snyder went on to win that honor two more times, for her novels The Headless Cupid and The Witches of Worm. The Headless Cupid introduced the Stanley family, a clan she revisited three more times over her career.

Snyder’s The Changeling (1970), in which two young girls invent a fantasy world dominated by trees, became the inspiration for her 1974 fantasy series, the Green Sky Trilogy. Snyder completed that series by writing a computer game sequel called Below the Root. The game went on to earn cult classic status.

Over the almost fifty years of her career, Snyder has written about topics as diverse as time-traveling ghosts, serenading gargoyles, and adoption at the turn of the twentieth century. Today, she lives with her husband in Mill Valley, California. When not writing, Snyder enjoys reading and traveling.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 1964 by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

978-1-4532-7195-7

This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media

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www.openroadmedia.com

EBOOKS BY ZILPHA KEATLEY SNYDER

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Table of Contents

- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- A Morning of Hope
- An Afternoon of Sorrow
- A Magic Evening
- Pamela Makes a Choice
- A Warning
- A Pale Pink Clue
- In a Forest Clearing
- A Glimpse of Fear
- On a Stormy Night
- In the Old Granary
- Shadow Glen
- Fear Comes Closer
- A Puzzling Surprise
- The Circus Game
- In the Pig Woman's Swamp
- The Pig Woman
- Back to Oak Farm
- An Unexpected Visitor
- Old Questions Answered
- Endings and Beginnings
- A Biography of Zilpha K. Snyder
- Copyright