Winter Run Read Online Free PDF

been warned, so he wasn’t surprised when Charlie wanted to jump in. And as it turned out, Charlie was a help. He could hold the lines off to the side so George was free to handle the peavey hook with both hands. Charlie knew the commands, and after the second log he could see what needed to happen next. After a while the horses listened to him and he became a part of the crew.
    The horses were endlessly interesting to Charlie. The first few days he would walk around them looking at their bodies, trying to understand better how they were put together. He also liked to look at their eyes, which were much bigger than Bat’s one eye. He discovered that a horse’s eye has a tiny thing like a sea urchin floating in the middle of the pupil. Charlie had never noticed it before. He asked George what the little things were. George said he didn’t know, but allhorses had them, so he reckoned they were there for some good reason.
    Charlie didn’t miss a day for the first two weeks of work. He even got Gretchen to pack him a lunch so he could eat with the men, sitting in the shade at the edge of the woods while the horses ate a couple of ears of corn each and dozed. The men ate crackers and canned meat, which Gretchen thought looked rotten, or little wieners, and drank Pepsi-Colas. Charlie had a sandwich and water. Gretchen absolutely refused to buy the canned meat or the wieners or have Charlie drinking what she called soda pop at noon.
    At the end of the day, when they were back at the barn and George and Richie had left, Charlie fed the horses their corn. Then he climbed up on Jim’s back and felt the movement of the big horse’s body as he chewed and swallowed. For the first week, when the horse was finished, Charlie would ride him around the barnyard a few times before turning him and Bill loose in the big pasture for the night. This became a major bone of contention. Matthew didn’t approve, and after his admonition appeared not to work, he told Gretchen who told Charlie’s father that weekend when he returned from Philadelphia.
    At first their conversation did not go well.
    “You must stop riding Jim around, Charlie. Surely you understand that. You watch that horse work hard every day. Can’t you see he is tired in the evening and needs to rest.”
    “Yes, but—” This was Charlie’s thing, the “but.”
    “No buts to it,” said his father, after they had been around and around a few times. “Just don’t ride him. That’s all”—at which point Charlie, uncharacteristically, burst into tears. Mr. Lewis was surprised and later told Gretchen and Matthew, when they had a meeting on the subject, that he had suddenly realized there was more to this than just one of Charlie’s whims.
    Charlie sobbed and Charles comforted him and then it all came out.
    “I want a horse! One that is just mine. To take care of and ride over the whole farm any time I want. And have a saddle and a real bridle, not just an old work bridle. I want Jim. But maybe I want a pony that’s easy to get on to. Oh, I don’t know … I just want a
horse!
I know Jim needs to rest, but I want a horse.” This time softly, with more tears.
    “I see now,” said his father as he hugged Charlie. “We’ll talk about it, Charlie. Be patient. Be patient.”
    Of course, that was a mistake because for Charlie “We’ll talk about it” was equal to “Yes we will.” His father knew it. But Charlie’s anguish had moved him. And without thought he had made a decision.
    The three of them—Charles, Gretchen, and Matthew—talked it over. Matthew said fall would be the best time to buy because people would be thinking of the coming winter. Also by that time they might have Charlie convinced that a workhorse was not what he needed. Since he had mentioned a pony, it might even be easy.
    Charlie, in part because he was so wrapped up in the logging, readily agreed once the concession was made that he could sit on Jim while the big horse ate his dinner. For