SNOW

Becky Treymore lived with Mama and Daddy on a very nice horse ranch in western Oregon. She loved to stare out her bedroom window into the field behind the house where a great many of her daddy’s horses ran loose.

When she grew older, her daddy let her stand outside the fence near the barn where the horses were trained. Every time she went there she picked out her favorite horse. Once it was a beautiful brown horse Daddy told her was a stallion. He walked around the ring with his head held high and his tail bouncing behind. He was shiny, and the same beautiful brown as Mama’s hair. In her head, Becky called him Chocolate since he made her think of her favorite ice cream flavor.

Once the horse she picked as her favorite was lame, and limped all around the ring. But Becky thought he was proud, and ignored whatever was causing him to limp. This horse, a gelding Daddy said, was speckled gray and white. His mane and tail were dark gray. She called him Spider because he made her think of a grey spider Daddy had caught in the barn and brought outside. She hoped it had found its way to a better place.

When she was nine, Daddy told her one of the mares was going to have a baby. She knew that a mare was a female horse, and the baby would be a very small copy of the mare. It wouldn’t be little and pink and bawling like Frankie’s baby sister. Frankie lived on the next farm down the road. Every time Mama took her there to play with Frankie, his little sister never seemed to stop bawling.

But the new baby horse, Daddy told her, was going to be hers.

“Mine?” she asked, amazed that one of those beautiful creatures she always admired might be hers. “Will it be a boy horse or a girl horse?” she asked. “I will need to know before I name it.”

Daddy laughed. “Yes,” he said, “you need to know if it’ll be a colt or a filly. A colt is a boy horse and a filly is a girl horse.”

“Then I want a filly,” Becky said. “And I think I’ll name her Belle.”

“Well,” Daddy said, mussing up her hair, “we won’t know whether it’s a filly until it’s born. You wouldn’t want to name your boy horse Belle, would you?”

Becky giggled. “No,” she said, shaking her head.  “When will the baby horse be born?”

“In just six more months,” Daddy said. “Its mother is Nightingale, the white horse just outside the barn there.”

Becky looked over at Nightingale. She was a beautiful white horse, and just at that very moment, she nickered as she looked over at Becky.

“Oh,” she cried, “Nightingale is talking to me. She’s telling me she knows her baby will be mine.”