The Christmas Pony Read Online Free PDF Page A

don’t usually have our guests out here.” Mama pressed her lips together as she smoothed the front of her old apron.
    â€œI’m sorry to intrude.” George stepped back as if he were feeling uncomfortable. “I was just out for a walk, and it looked like Lucy needed a hand.”
    â€œGeorge said you’re enterprising ,” Lucy told Mama, trying out her new word and hoping to put things more at ease. Why was Mama acting so contrary today?
    â€œEnterprising is one way of putting it.” Mama was using a tight-sounding voice. “I just do what needs to be done.” She turned her attention back to where she was ironing a man’s white shirt. “So if you will kindly excuse me.”
    â€œSorry to bother you, ma’am.” George tipped his hat, then made a quick exit.
    â€œMama.” Lucy went over by the ironing board after the door was closed. “Why are you being rude to our guests today?”
    Mama used the back of her hand to push a wisp of hair off her damp forehead. “Was I being rude?”
    â€œIt seemed like it to me.” Lucy peered curiously at her.
    Mama sighed. “I suppose it’s because I don’t completely approve of our guests, Lucy. I don’t like the idea of a man letting his wife run off to Hollywood to become a movie actress. It just doesn’t sit well with me, and I think—”
    â€œBut Veronica’s not his wife,” Lucy clarified.
    Mama looked at her with startled eyes. “What?”
    â€œGeorge just told me that they met on the road. They’re not married at all.” Lucy thought that this should fix everything in Mama’s mind.
    â€œThey’re not married?” Mama set her iron down with a thud.
    â€œNo, Mama.”
    â€œWell!” And just like that, without even moving the iron from the shirt it was still resting on, Mama stormed out of the barn without even bothering to close the door.
    Feeling alarmed and somewhat responsible for whatever was about to happen, Lucy set the heavy iron upright, then trailed after her angry mother. “What’s wrong, Mama?” she called, but Mama was walking fast, and in a moment they were in the kitchen where Mama was talking quickly to Grandma, using words like morals and scruples and conscience and ethics and saying how nobody seemed to have them anymore and what was the world coming to anyway.
    Mama threw her hands up in the air. “They are not even married,” she proclaimed as if it were a crime.
    â€œOh my!” Grandma looked alarmed now. “What are you going to do about it, Miriam?”
    Mama was pacing back and forth in the kitchen now, wringing her hands and shaking her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
    â€œYou could throw them out,” Grandma said.
    Lucy bit her lip. “Throw them out?” she repeated. “Why would we throw them out?”
    Mama’s frown lines deepened. “They are a bad influence on you, Lucy. As your mama, I can’t let them stay here like this.”
    â€œWhy?” Lucy asked. “Is it because Veronica wants to be a movie actress?”
    Mama knelt down now, looking Lucy directly in the eyes. “No, that’s not the reason. Oh, I don’t really approve of that exactly, and certainly not under these circumstances. But it’s not a reason to throw them out.”
    â€œThen why , Mama?” Lucy felt close to tears now. “I prayed for boarders, just like you said, and God sent them to us. Why would you throw them out?”
    Still down at Lucy’s level, Mama pressed her lips together and looked up at Grandma, as if she thought she might have the answer.
    â€œIt’s complicated, Lucy,” Grandma said slowly. “Your mama and I don’t approve of a couple sharing a room together if they’re not married, and it’s just—”
    â€œBut George and Veronica aren’t sharing a room together,”