Carrie Willis stood at the wooden fence surrounding the pasture,
and brushed the flowing blonde mane of her palomino mare, Lady. Her large eyes
filled with tears as she said good bye to the horse she had raised from a colt.
"Oh, Lady, I'm going to miss you so much. Any minute someone will come and
take you away and I may never see you again."
Carrie still remembered the pain she felt when her father first
told her they had to sell Lady. "Winter will be coming soon," he had
said, "and we cannot afford to buy hay and grain this year. I wish there
was some
other
way, Carrie. But I am afraid we must sell her."
She tried talking her father out of it. She even offered to get
a job after school to help buy Lady's feed. But her father would not hear of
it. So the next week, Lady was sold to the Lion's Club. They were going to give
her away as a prize at the annual Labor Day horse show.
So, engrossed in her thoughts, Carrie did not hear the truck and
trailer pull into the driveway. Only when the doors of the truck slammed shut did she awaken to
see two men walking toward her.
"Hello there, miss," said the tallest man. "Is
this the horse that is going to the fair grounds?"
Carried nodded.
"She sure is a beauty," said the other man, busily tying a rope into a lasso. "I
would like to win her myself."
