December Story Contest

Pumpkin The Lonely horse
by Scoutgirl Age 12

 Once upon a time there was a farmer, named Billy who lived on a farm and had a big group of horses. Their names were:
Scotty, a beautiful, sweet, jumpy, young dark brown horse;   Count, a stubborn, western, brown horse with a white dot called a “snip” on his nose;  Ginger, an old 22 year old great competition horse;  Jackie, a strong, fast, good horse;  Maverick, a horse who could be good, impatient, and sometimes even lazy;  Sonic, an old, slow, obedient horse;  Red Hawk, Sonics brother; a lazy, kind of old, but yet still good horse; Izzy, a beautiful, fast, strong, hard to ride horse;  Cooper, who was a red, gray, brown and white - all mixed together to form a color called strawberry roan. He was a Tennessee walker; a kind of horse that doesn’t trot but walks quickly;  Tamara was a beautiful white horse who got very dirty quickly but every one still loved her.  Then there was Pumpkin, a dirty horse, which lived outdoors, wasn’t ridden very often, and wasn’t taken care of very well.

Every week all the horses got together in the pasture to have a party and play games together.  They had races, jumping contests, and eating contests to see who the fastest eater was. 

One time Pumpkin went to the party and all the other horses stared at him. Izzy said ‘why are you here? You’re not pretty and no one likes you!” That made Pumpkin very sad. She wanted to play games like normal horses do.  She knew she would never be able to unless someone loved her.  So Pumpkin walked slowly away.  Pumpkin soon came to the end of the field where the fence was.  “I wish I could be a wild horse then no one would care how I looked!” mumbled Pumpkin.

Later that day Pumpkin was in her stall when she thought of a great idea!  “I’ll run away! Then I’ll hide so no one ever finds me!”  So all week she kept thinking of ways she could get out of the field to run away.  “I could go along the fence and try to find a place that’s broken, or if I can’t find one I could break it myself by kicking at it until it does break!  Then I’ll run away during the night so no one can ever find me!”

Billy was going to a horse show that week so he had left a stable hand named Joey in charge.  Billy and Joey loaded all of the horses up in trailers. 

Ginger, Maverick, Sonic, Red Hawk, Izzy, and Jackie were all loaded in one trailer, and Scotty, Count, Cooper and Tamara in another, along with the saddles, bridles, and bits.

 All the horses were so excited, even Pumpkin.  Pumpkin wasn’t going, because no one rides him, but with everyone gone he could escape!

Each day Joey was told to feed and water Pumpkin, wait for her to finish eating, then put her in the pasture.  So when she was done eating he put on her halter hooked it to a lead rope and led her to the pasture.

 When Pumpkin was in the pasture she went over to a place under a tree where the fence was weaker, from the wind, and started kicking at it with all her strength, several minutes ticked by before she heard a snap! She stopped kicking and looked at the fence. Only one of the rails was broken so she kept kicking until she heard two more snaps and there was nothing to kick so she stopped turned around and realized the fence was broken.

 She was so happy but before she ran away she wanted to eat and sleep.  If she did that now then she wouldn’t know where to go in the morning; so she went on the other side of the fence.  Pumpkin wandered around, she found an apple tree a ways off so she walked over to it and ate an apple off the ground.  Then she heard the whistle which meant it was time to go in. 

If she didn’t come, Joey would come for her. So Pumpkin ran in to the gate where Joey was waiting with a lead rope to hook on to her halter and lead her back to her stall. 

When they reached the stall Joey had already fed and watered her again.  He brushed her, cleaned out her hooves and put her blanket on her back.  He locked the stall said goodbye and left to go back home to take care of his horses, Buddy and   Muffin.

The next day Joey got a phone call from Billy that Scotty had hurt his leg during a horse show and that they were coming home tomorrow. 
Joey was surprised that they would be coming home four days early!  He knew he had to keep taking care of Pumpkin until they got home so he went out and once again fed and watered Pumpkin.  Then once again he waited until she was done, brushed her, took off her blanket, and let her out to the pasture just like the other day.

Once Pumpkin was in the pasture she ran as fast as she could to where she broke the fence yesterday and ran right through the opening.  Once through she kept running behind the trees, out of sight. 

When she was far enough away from the farm, she slowed down to a walk and started to look around.  Pumpkin thought to herself, “Where am I? I don’t see the farm anywhere!  Well I guess it’s time to become a wild horse! No one is around to find me anyway!”

Pumpkin kept walking.  She was getting kind of hungry so she started to look for some hay.  She smelled some food but it wasn’t hay, so she followed the smell to a big apple tree.  She ate several apples, and then closed her eyes to take a short little nap.

 When she woke up she thought she heard a whistle.  She knew that it meant it was time to come in.  She didn’t want to go back to the ranch so she started running leaving the apple tree behind. 

She ran for what seemed like a half an hour but was only five minutes.  Now she was exhausted, didn’t know where she was and was thirsty too.  She looked around, trying to see if she could find a place with water, when she spotted a river in the distance, not far from where she was now.  Pumpkin started toward the river hoping it wouldn’t take long.

Soon she was at the river, where she was able to see how deep it was and how fast it was moving.  It made her kind of scared.  Forgetting about her thirst and how fast and deep the river was, Pumpkin looked up and saw a delicious looking patch of grass.  She wanted to eat the grass really bad. 

It was almost dinner time anyway and she was getting hungry. So she looked to see if there was anywhere to cross besides the river.  Not finding a place to cross, she decided to swim across.  Slowly and carefully she stepped into the river, and took a step, and then another but on the third step her hoof slipped and she fell into the swirling river!

Will pumpkin ever find a home? Will she get out of the river? To find out what happens to pumpkin please vote for part 1 and read the rest of the story next time thanks for voting!