The Black Stallion by Walter Farley Page A

pasture. He turned to the gate hoping to find his uncle there, and he was not disappointed.
    He waited until the colt had finished nursing, then unclipped the rope from the halter, and led the Queen to the gate.
    "You could help me now, Uncle Wilmer," he shouted. "I'd like you to lead the mare to the barn while I take the colt."
    Nodding, Uncle Wilmer opened the gate while Tom held the Queen. The boy released her when his uncle had hold of her halter, and then turned to the colt. He snapped the rope on to the ring of the colt's halter.
    Uncle Wilmer led the mare through the gate and walked toward the barn. The colt followed quickly in the shadow of his mother, while Tom walked beside him. On the way, Uncle Wilmer turned several times to look at them. And always there would be a wondering, almost incredulous light in his gray eyes when he saw the colt walking quietly beside Tom, and making no effort to break away.

The Fair
8
    For a long while that night, Tom lay in bed reading a voluminous book entitled
The American Trotter
. He read again of the horses which had etched their names among the immortals of harness racing, the great sires and dams, and the stories of famous races. And he thought of the colt now sleeping beside the Queen, and wondered if some day he, too, would be recorded among the famed.
    Finally he put the book to one side and reached for the copies of
Hoof Beats
, a racing magazine, which Jimmy Creech had been sending him. He found the June and July issues, but the copy for August was missing. He remembered having read it while in the kitchen the day before. He had probably left it there.
    The radio was playing softly below and the kitchen lights were still on. Someone must be there, although he had heard no voices for some time.
    Getting out of bed, Tom went down the stairs. His aunt wasn't there, but Uncle Wilmer sat reading in the big leather chair. He hadn't heard Tom.
    Without moving, the boy stood in the doorway, his eyes on the August issue of
Hoof Beats
, which his uncle was reading so intently. Smiling, Tom was about to go back upstairs when his uncle raised his head. Seeing the boy, he quickly put
Hoof Beats
to one side and picked up his
Farm Journal
.
    Tom was going up the stairs when his uncle called to him. "You can have it. It don't interest me none. I was jus' lookin' at the pictures." He buried his head in the
Farm Journal
and looked up again only as Tom's footsteps began ascending the stairs. "Your aunt will be throwin' it out, all right, if you leave it here," he shouted after the boy.
    Tom continued up the stairs and climbed into bed once more. He put out his light and lay in the darkness. But it was a long time before he went to sleep, for the light from the kitchen came through the cracks in the floor of his room. Occasionally too, he heard his uncle turning pages, and the sound was not that of the light newsprint upon which the
Farm Journal
was printed, but the slick heavy-coated stock of
Hoof Beats
.
    During the remaining weeks of August, Uncle Wilmer's interest in harness racing grew and his knowledge of the sport along with it. For Tom never failed to leave an issue of
Hoof Beats
in the kitchen, and in time he kept his book,
The American Trotter
, on the kitchen shelf. And although his uncle never admitted reading them, he made remarks that could be attributed only to them. But he spoke with the casualness that implied he had always known that "They'll have to go some to beat Greyhound's record for the mile of one fifty-five and a quarter. Greyhound is a big horse, Tom. You know that, don't you? Big all right—he stands sixteen hands one and a quarter inches at the withers."
    Tom recalled his uncle's saying, the day the Queen arrived at the farm, that "the best ones are small"; but he hadn't reminded him. He didn't want to do anything to discourage Uncle Wilmer's new interest in harness racing. For not only did he enjoy talking to his uncle of records and bloodlines, but he needed his