Horses and Tomatoes

Paul Mallow's five horses live behind his mysterious system of gates. Usually we see them far up on the side of the hill or spot them in the high grass in front of the barn. No one rides them or even approaches them. The gates constitute a complex system, with details that are largely invisible to us. It is supposed to work without the big gate on Mauzy Road, which is never closed.

Haying has led to many comings and goings over the past ten days, and Wednesday morning there was a gate failure. We found the five horses drifting through the early-morning mist in our yard. Though the grass is dry and crispy, decidedly not greener than the grass on the other side of the fence, evidently it was alluring. Or perhaps the horses were still asleep and dreaming in a generally downhill direction.

I telephoned all the contact numbers we have for Paul, adding 911 for good measure, because undoubtedly someone will know how to find him, while Jim kept an eye on the herd. Long before any skilled intervention was called for or could have arrived, Jim recognized that they were drifting back toward their own side of the road. He followed and closed the big orange gate behind them.

For our efforts, which consisted largely of cranking out suburban levels of anxiety, we received a dozen tomatoes, two cabbages, and one cabbage worm. One visible cabbage worm. Hence there is a stuffed cabbage in our near future. Now if only it would rain.