Chapter 15
GRANDPA MAKES A DEAL
Dr. Finney was a big man, outwardly calm, but his face looked as if it knew patience and pain.
"What do you think, sir?" Paul asked as they stood with Misty in the paddock.
"Well, to be frank, she's a little too heavy, Paul. That is, for one so fine-boned. And that's never good at a time like this. But we'll pull her through."
Misty shouldered her way into the center of the group, ears listening and questing, as if she were part of the conference instead of the cause.
The doctor put a gentle hand on Paul's shoulder. "Misty won't be lonesome here," he said. "In the next stall she can neighbor with Trineda, a well-bred trotter. And my boy David can comfort her and take your place—for the time being," he added quickly.
Just then Dr. Finney's son came racing out of the house. Paul almost hated the boy on sight, for Misty trotted right up to him, sniffing curiously.
"Doctor Finney," Paul said urgently, "couldn't I stay here? Please?"
Grandpa answered before the doctor had finished clearing his throat. "If ye could be of help, me and Doc'd both say yes. But ye're needed over to Chincoteague. Lots o' moppin' up to be done, and ye volunteered as an able-bodied man. Recomember?"
Still Paul could not bring himself to go. He slid his hand under Misty's mane, scruffing his fingers along. "Doctor Finney," he asked, "would it be a good idea for us to get a nanny goat just in case...?"
The doctor was about to say it wouldn't be necessary. Then he saw the troubled look on the boy's face. Better, he thought, to keep him busy instead of worrying. "It wouldn't hurt at all, Paul. Many breeding stables keep a goat for that very purpose. By the way," he turned now to Grandpa, "you must know Buck Jackson from Chincoteague."
Grandpa flinched. "Yup, I know him. Sells goat's milk."
"Well, he's delivering a flock of goats to Girdletree today, and I'm to give them a health certificate. If you'd like to buy a nanny, I'll ask Buck if he can spare one. But you'd have to keep her at Pony Ranch, because I'm short of space."
Grandpa shrugged helplessly. "Allus it's me against the world," he said, half joking, half in earnest. Then he stared down the highway in amazement.
A shining white truck was barreling along toward them. Now it was slowing, and in big black letters on its side Grandpa made out the words:
BUCK JACKSON DELIVERY—GOAT'S MILK.
With a screeching of tires the truck turned into the driveway and came to a stop. A big-shouldered man jumped down from the cab and opened the tailgate. "Hi, Paul and David," he called. "Hi, Doc. Hi, Mr. Beebe. Hi, Misty. Heavens-to-Betsy, I didn't expect a welcoming committee!"
Misty and Paul and David were first to peer inside. The two boys were suddenly friends, buyers, judging an odd assortment of goats.
Grandpa stuck his nose into the truck and sniffed noisily. "I jes' don't like 'em," he insisted. "They smell from here to Kingdom Come. To me, a polecat smells purtier."
But Paul was ecstatic. "They can't help it, Grandpa. And besides, Misty needs someone to play with, now that Skipper's gone."
"She'll have her colt," Grandpa reminded.
Paul was not listening. "I like that brown nanny with the little white kid."
"So do I," David agreed. "And if I was your Grandpa, I'd let you have the whole truckload," he offered generously.
"Who says I want to sell any?" Buck Jackson asked.
That did it. Grandpa was a born trader. "Buck," he said, "there's lots o' goats over to Chincoteague. Some nicer'n yours. Cy Eustace has a hull flock, and Ben Sykes has...."
"Not any more they don't. They're drowned."
Grandpa ignored the interruption. "But since my grandson has took a fancy to that brown one and her kid, what'll ye take for the pair?"
Buck winked at Dr. Finney. "I'll take Misty and her unborn."
Now Grandpa's blood was up. "Quit yer jokin'!"
"Who says I'm jokin'?"
In the waiting silence Misty poked her head inside the truck and the brown goat gave her a friendly butt. Misty came right back, asking for more.
"I give up!" Grandpa sighed. He pulled out his ancient leather purse and began fumbling inside, transferring bits of string and wire to a pocket. At last he held out a much-folded five-dollar bill. "This may seem mighty little to ye, but hoss-keepin' ain't what ye'd call profitable. Here, take it."
Buck Jackson chewed on a toothpick, thinking. "If I didn't say yes," he said at last, "even Misty here'd hate me. It's a deal, Clarence, and I'll throw in a bale of hay besides."
The transaction was quickly completed. But even with the nanny and her kid in the pickup, Paul didn't find it easier to say good-bye to Misty. "Don't ride her," he cautioned David. "She's going to have a colt."
"I know she is," David replied in disgust. "Everybody knows that."
Dr. Finney held onto Misty's halter. "Don't you worry, Paul. I'll sleep in the stall next to her, and I'll stay within sight and sound during her foaling period."
"You promise?"
"I promise."
It was almost dark when Grandpa and Paul crossed the state line back into Virginia.
"Tradin' whets my appetite," Grandpa confided to Paul. "What d'ye say we stop by Wallops Station and have some nice hot Red Cross food with Grandma and Maureen?"
"What about our goats? Shouldn't we hurry home and put them in the hay house with Billy Blaze and Watch Eyes? They got to get used to being with horses."
Grandpa wasn't listening. A flicker of a smile crossed his face. "Don't interrupt me, son. My mind's turnin' over important thoughts."
The refugee room looked much the same, except for more cots and more people. And it still smelled of old rubber and leather and steamy woolen socks.
As the family sat down at the long table, Paul whispered to Maureen, "I like the smell of goats better'n people, and we got two—a nanny and a kid."
"Oh, Paul, how beautiful!"
"They're not beautiful; they're really kind of funny-looking with their eyes so different from horses'."
"I know. They're bluey-yellow, and they look glassy, like marbles."
Paul and Maureen could hardly eat for all they had to say to each other.
"Misty's at Doctor Finney's, Maureen. She can't keep on postponing forever and she can't go on living in Grandma's kitchen. Ain't healthy and airy for her. And besides...."
"Besides what?"
"I overheard the doctor say there could be complications."
Grandma and Grandpa were deep in conversation, too. Grandpa seemed to have forgotten he was hungry. "Idy," he said, "Pony Ranch is now the owners of a nanny goat and her kid. A billy-kid, at that! It's got whiskers as long as yer sea-captain pa."
"Clarence Beebe! Don't you talk like that. I'll not have ye comparin' my father to a billy goat!"
"Oh, come now, Idy. I'm jes' bein' jokey. Besides, yer father smelled real good—of tobaccy and things. By the way," he asked, trying to appear casual, "you and Maureen had yer arms scratched against the typhoid?"
Grandma nodded.
"Good! I'm turribly glad."
"Why? Is the typhoid raging?"
"No, but I need ye at home, Idy, to perten me up for what I got to do."
"What's that?" Grandma asked in alarm.
"I got to see that all my dead ponies is taken off'n Chincoteague, and the dead ones on Assateague, too."
"Oh ... oh, how dreadful! But they say wimmenfolk can't go home now. Regardless."
"I know they say so." Grandpa's eyes crinkled with his secret. "But I say the Lord helps them as helps theirselves."
Grandma looked at him questioningly.
"Idy, how'd ye like to...?"
"Like to what?"
Grandpa sopped up some tomato gravy with a chunk of bread and ate it slowly, enjoying Grandma's impatience. Then he leaned close to her ear. "How'd ye and Maureen like to be smuggled back home? Right now!"
Grandma beamed. "Be ye serious?"
"Serious as a cow at milkin' time."
"Why, mercy me, I'd feel young and chipper doin' a thing like that."
"Ye would?"
"Yes, I would."
"Even if ye had to hide in the back o' a truck under a bundle o' hay with goats eatin' through to ye?"
"Even if!" Grandma hurriedly left the table, motioning Maureen and Paul to follow. "Don't ask any questions," she said. "Just slip into your jackets and come along, and leave our blankets on the cots."
The people nearby looked up in surprise as the Beebe family put on their wraps.
"My husband has got some goats down in the truck he wants us to see," Grandma explained.
"But it's raining, Mrs. Beebe."
"I know. That's why we're bundling up." Grandma blushed. "Y'see, my husband's like a little boy whenever he's got a new pet to show me."
