Ivy Takes Care by Rosemary Wells Page B

outdoor pump. She carried it to the pasture and sloshed it, bucket by bucket, into the old bathtub that was the water trough. Before pouring new water, she had to break up any ice that had formed. She pitchforked the ice pieces out onto the grass. The bathtub took an easy twenty buckets, but she stopped at ten.
    After the watering, Ivy climbed into the hayloft and kicked a new hay bale down on the stable floor with a thump. She put five big flakes of hay into a wheelbarrow and wheeled it out to the near pasture, where the horses were waiting for her. Then she fed the rabbits and cleaned their cage, and scattered handfuls of cracked corn in the chicken yard, where there were a dozen Rhode Island Red hens. Ivy collected the day’s eggs in a small basket.
    Ivy’s last chores were sweeping the barn, wheeling out Andromeda’s old bedding, forking it into the manure pile, then feeding and watering the barn cat, Striper. She made sure Andromeda needed nothing.
    Most days that followed were just the same. Ivy could only fit in a short half hour in the paddock on Andromeda’s back, with Ruben leading her, before the dark came and Ruben had to catch the bus to his job. Ruben knew exactly where Ivy was, and exactly where the horse was, as if he could see.
    “You are a good rider,” said Ruben. “I can hear it and feel it.”
    Each night Ivy said good night to Andromeda before switching off the lights and closing the stable door. Carrying her book bag, Ivy whistled as she walked down the drive to the mailboxes. There she waited in the night wind to flag down the mail carrier on his last run of the day. Ivy worried that the mailman wouldn’t linger if she wasn’t out there promptly.
    Weekends meant going over the mountain, Ivy on Mirabel and Billy Joe on Texas.
    “I am going to make a fortune on Spooner Summit,” Billy Joe crowed to her on their first morning out.
    Ivy was tempted to call Billy Joe a birdbrain, but she didn’t, because he would start on back calling her Miss Climbing Vine.
    Ivy did notice that on one side of Texas’s saddle, Billy Joe had strapped a big ax and a shovel and on the other side, a large empty leather bag from the woodpile.
    “What’s that ax for?” Ivy asked him while they saddled up for the trip.
    “That’s a state secret!” said Billy Joe.
    On Saturdays and Sundays, Ruben gave Andromeda her full workout. This included a walk, a trot, and a canter on the flat and sandy trail that ran around the Montgomery ranch. But before Ruben allowed Andromeda to set a hoof on it, he had Ivy check the entire track. How fast Andromeda could go was something that Ivy would likely never know.
    “Take that trail horse of yourn,” said Ruben. “Ride around this half-mile track. Use your sharp little eyes and make sure there’s no new holes to trip up our girl.”
    A mild Saturday came, and Ruben decided he would let Ivy ride one circuit at a trot on his precious Andromeda’s back. Every moment Ivy sat up on the big, graceful horse felt like a moment in another world. While trotting her perfectly around the well-inspected half mile took only two minutes, she knew those two minutes would stay with her a long time.
    Riding Thoroughbreds is Annie’s life now, Ivy reminded herself, dismounting and giving the reins to Ruben. Annie gets to do this three times a week and go over jumps, too, with that hard hat and those boots. Ivy had found the price of Annie’s paddock boots in one of the Montgomerys’ tack-room catalogs. They cost more than all the silver dollars in her university envelope.
    Billy Joe leaned on the paddock fence and watched. He chewed his bubble gum slowly and snapped it loudly.
    “She don’t like your chewing gum, boy,” said Ruben to Billy Joe. “See how she steps to the side when you’re in the picture? She don’t like that snapping noise you make.”
    “I’ve been riding horses just as long as Ivy here,” Billy Joe argued.
    “Yeah, but this one don’t want you near her,”