OLD GABE

ON my thirteenth birthday, Father gave me a pony. To be sure she was old, but she was gentle to ride and she was mine. 1 rode her when I brought the cows from their prairie grazing grounds, and I rode her to school, and any where else that I went. I called her Gabe — or "Old Gabe" because she was old.

Now, Old Gabe had not had a colt in all the years we owned her. But one spring, some years after Father had given her to me, we found that Gabe was to have her wish gratified. She was to become a mother too. Now the other mares on the place could no longer look down on her. But like so many others who have dreamed of, and wished for, a certain thing, Gabe was doomed to disappointment. One day I rode out into the Big Pasture (a stretch of land consisting of about a thous acres belonging to several families) and found poor old Gabe, standing over the lifeless form of her tiny baby colt. Other horses would come near, and Gabe ran alter them, striking and biting. She would then run back to stand over her (lead baby. Such a sad, dejected mother she was! Grief showed in every line of her body and tears came to my eyes. But the mother was instinctively strong in Gabe.

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There was a young filly in the pasture, who was having her first colt that spring. The colt caine, but like many other young mothers, the filly could not be tied down with caring for a baby. It was more fun to race over the prairies with the other young horses, manes and tails flying in the spring wind. She couldn he slowed down to a baby pace. So she neglected her child.

Old Gabe watched her chance. She ran between the filly and the baby colt. She nuzzled the little thing close to her side, while the filly ran in the sunshine and kicked up her heels. You could almost imagine Old Gabe, rocking that baby to sleep! There was still warm, life giving milk in her aching udder, while the filly colt starved because of its mother inattention. Someway, Gabe got that baby colt to nursing her. Days went by, and Gabe cared for the baby more and more often, while the filly played. Soon the adoption was complete. Gabe took entire care of the baby; the baby loved Gabe, and the real mother, the filly, was free to run and play and live her own life, unhampered by a clinging, staggering, long-legged colt.

Gabe's happiness was complete. She roamed the Big Pasture, nursed her baby, hit it playfully, nuzzled it to her, and fairly oozed contentment. When the colt was three or four years old, we had a hard winter with very deep snow. Some of the stock was caught some distance from the barn, and it was hard to travel through the snow. Revvie and Wallie went out to look after the stock, and they insisted they found that colt pawing the snow from the tall grass, then walking away and allowing Gabe to eat what he had uncovered.

I hope this statement is true. It would make such a sweet ending to a story of such love and devotion!