Star of Wonder Read Online Free PDF

the intermittent moos of a lonely calf, and the occasional
     menacing growls of Finnegan as he stared out the stable door at nothing in particular. Mary and Jody spent most of the night
     sitting up in their sleeping bags with their arms linked, asking each other, “What was that?” every five minutes. By the time
     they finally laid down in exhaustion, the sun was beginning to peek through the dusty windows of Lucky Foot Stable.

5
    Lady’s Tears

    SUNLIGHT WAS STREAMING into Lucky Foot Stable later that morning when Willie finished the milking and hobbled silently in
     to check on Mary and Jody. Even Finnegan’s yip of greeting and Star’s nicker as Willie entered the stable door didn’t awaken
     the sleeping girls, as exhausted as they were from their night of adventure. Willie stood for a moment, looking from the girl’s
     still forms to the lifeless rat on the clay floor to Star pacing restlessly in his stall. Finnegan followed as Willie walked
     over and spoke softly to the handsome colt.
    “Well, I reckon it’s time to turn you out, fella, and it looks like these girls ain’t ready to get up and do it,” he said.
     “Come on, then, out in the paddock you go, and no hollerin’ this mornin.’ I’ll get you some hay and a little grain, and you
     best be quiet.”
    So out in the paddock he went, and he was quiet, eating his grain with more enthusiasm than the day before and taking a long
     drink of the water Willie offered him.
    “You’ll be all right in a week or two,” Willie said kindly, scratching Star on the special spot high on his shoulder. “Now
     finish the grain, and then that hay should keep you busy ’til the girls wake up. Come on, dog, time to round up the heifers.”
    But the girls didn’t wake up until the sun had risen high enough to cast a beam of light directly onto Mary’s face, causing
     her to try and brush away the heat with her hand. She turned drowsily on her side and slowly opened her eyes.
    “Aaaagghh!” she screeched, as the first sight to greet her was the bloody dead rat, lying about a foot from her head.
    “What is the matter with you?” Jody cried, rolling over and adding her own screech to Mary’s when she spied the rat. The girls
     turned and looked at each other and burst out laughing at the same instant.
    “We’ve got to get rid of that thing,” Jody said with a grimace. “Maybe we should get Willie.”
    “Nonsense!” Mary replied bravely. “It’s dead, and it can’t bite. Out the window it goes!”
    And she picked up the rat by the tail, carried it gingerly to the open window, and threw it out into the paddock.
    “Mare! You can’t just throw it out there! We’ve got to bury it, or it will smell up the whole stable! And Star won’t want
     to share his paddock with a dead rat. Will you, Staa . . .”
    Jody jumped up from her sleeping bag before she could finish her sentence, and Mary followed her gaze to the empty stall where
     Star was supposed to be.
    “Star?” Mary said to the vacant space. “Star?” she repeated. “Where are you?”
    “Oh, no, he must’ve broken out of his stall and ran out . . .”
    “. . . the back of the stable and out to the pasture to be with Lady!” Mary finished Jody’s sentence as they both tore out
     of the stable and ran toward the big pasture in pursuit of Star, who all the while was munching contentedly on his hay in
     the paddock with the dead rat for company.
    In one frantic glance as they rounded the corner of the big white dairy barn, the girls saw Willie opening the gate of the
     pasture, Gypsy grazing under the weeping willow tree, a cow and her newborn calf in the middle of the pasture, and Lady standing
     near the cow, stomping her foot and shaking her head up and down in agitation. But they didn’t see Star anywhere.
    “Willie!” Mary yelled breathlessly as she and Jody squeezed through the gate after him. “Have you seen Star? Is he out here?
     He’s not in the stable! He got out of his stall