Fwd: A Christmas Fable

[cberto@juno.com (connie B Berto)]

This Fable is too good not to share.   Happy Holidays to All, and Happy
1999.   Cheers (;-),   Connie B  (CA)

>A Christmas Fable
>
>        The old gray horse sidled up to the pasture fence with little
>dancing steps.  The place seemed familiar, yet somehow strange.  The
>grass was greener than any grass he'd ever seen, and when he looked
>closely at the white paddock gate it had a kind of pearly sheen.  and
>there was another funny thing.  A big, black cloud hovered just inside
>the gate. The cloud wasn't up in the sky where it properly belonged.  It
>was like a great puff of black smoke rising from the grass.
>
>        Suddenly the cloud dissolved and revealed a horse.  He was a
>small chestnut with a blunt head and one white stocking and brownish
>hairs in his tail and mane.  The gray horse thought he had a kind of old
>timey look to him.
>
>        "Hello, old gray horse," the chestnut from the black cloud said.
>
>        "Hey, that's a real good trick!" the gray horse exclaimed.
>"Where'd you learn it?"
>
>        The chestnut disappeared into the cloud again, but emerged
>immediately.  "Learned it the day I was born," he replied, with a whinny
>that sounded like a chuckle.  "You see, I was born on April Fool's Day
>and there was a total eclipse of the sun.  So they named me Eclipse.  I
>was always playing tricks on people too.  Used to kick my grooms and try
>to throw my riders and I bit the auctioneer that sold me."
>
>        "My name is..." the old gray horse started to say politely, but
>the tricky chestnut ducked in and out of his cloud and interrupted
>rudely.
>        "Native Dancer," he said.  "I ought to know you.  I'm your
>great-great-great-great-great - I always lose count of the 'greats' -
>but anyway, you're a descendant of mine.  Almost everybody is, in fact.
>The Thoroughbreds, that is."
>
>        "Are you the gatekeeper?" Native Dancer asked.
>
>        "Mostly," Eclipse replied.  "I'm on duty whenever one of my
>descendants is coming up.  That's mostly so far as the Thouroughbreds
>go.  Old Matchem has a few left and he takes over when one's due.  And
>poor old Herod, he's posted here occasionally, but there's not many of
>his male line that aren't here already."
>
>        "What is this place" Native Dancer asked.  "I guess I'm kind of
>lost."
>
>        "The Green Place," Eclipse replied.  "That's what it's called.
>The Green Place.  Most of the horses that get lost, come here.  We have
>to send some back of course."
>
>        "Why?" the Dancer asked.
>
>        "Because they don't belong here, that's why.  Long before I came
>up there was this fellow Bayard, for instance.  He was a devil-horse.
>Belonged to an old necromancer named Malagigi and he did the devil's
>work.  Helped that villain Aymon of Dordogne to triumph over 
Charlemagne,
> they say.  And a wizard named Michael Scott had a big black beast who
used to >stomp his feet and set all the bells of Paris ringing. He even
caused the towers
> of the palace to fall down one day.     The Big Guy doesn't want that
kind here. 
>But we have Jesse James's horse, and Dick Turpin's too.  The Big Guy
says they did > nothing wrong themselves. The were just faithful to their
masters, and The Big Guy > thinks that's a virtue."
>
>        "Who's the Big Guy?" Native Dancer asked.
>
>        "You'll find out!"  Eclipse answered airily.  He lowered his
>muzzle and pushed the gate open.
>
>        "You might as well come in.  You understand you're on probation
>though.  The Big Guy makes his decisions about new arrivals every
>Christmas.   Let's see, it's November 16, the way you figure things down
>there.  So you won't have long to wait anyway."
>
>        "I'll bet The Big Guy is Man O' War," Native Dancer said as he
>moved inside and gazed over the emerald green expanses that seemed to
>stretch into infinity.
>
>        Eclipse snorted.  "Don't get smart, boy" he said.  Then he added
>maliciously, "You'd lose your bet too.    The way a lot of people lost
>their bets on you at Churchill Downs one day."
>
>        Native Dancer felt hurt, for his ancestor had touched a raw
>nerve.  His lip tremble a bit as he replied defensively, "That Derby was
>the only race I ever lost."
>
>        "I never lost even one race," Eclipse said unsympathetically.
>"So don't get smart up here.  The Big Guy doesn't want any smart-alecks
>in the Green Place.  Remember that."
>
>        Native Dancer was a sensitive sort.  He felt as if his eyes were
>teary and he hoped Eclipse didn't notice.  "I won 21 out of 22, and Man
>O' War only won 20 out of 21" he declared.  "And my son Kauai King won
>the Kentucky Derby."
>
>        "My sons won three Derbys at Epsom" Eclipse said.  "Young
>Eclipse took the second running and Saltram won the fourth and Sergeant
>won the fifth, and I'd have won the bloomin' race myself, only they
>didn't run it in my time.  So quit bragging.  Somebody's coming and they
>might overhear you and tell The Big Guy, and that would be a mark
>against you."
>
>        A bay horse who seemed even more old-timey than Eclipse ambled
>up.  "Is it my time now?" he asked eagerly.
>
>        "Not yet, Herod," Eclipse answered in a kindly fashion.  "Old
>Fig's on duty now.  One of his is on the way."
>
>        "Who's Old Fig?" Native Dancer asked.  "I never heard of that
>one."
>
>        "There's a lot of things you never heard of, boy," Eclipse
>replied.   "His real name is Figure, but down there they called him
>Justin Morgan, after his owner.  Here he is now."
>
>        A very small, dark bay horse with a round barrel, shiny feet,
and
>furry fetlocks came bustling up to the gate.  "OK, OK, I'll take over,"
>he said busily.  "Where is that boy?  Can't stand tardiness.  I've got
>things to do.  A load to pull, a field to plough, a race to run, a trot
>to trot.  No time to waste.  Where is that boy?"
>
>        In the weeks that followed, The Dancer met hundreds, maybe
>thousands, of horses.  Some of them were famous, and some of them were
>his ancestors and a few of them were his own sons and daughters.
>
>        He met a snorting white stallion named Bucephalus who had been
>approved for the Green Place by The Big Guy even though he was rumored
>by some that he was cursed by the deadly sin of pride because he had
>carried a conqueror named Alexander.  He met another gray horse who
>limped because he had stepped on a rusty nail back home just before he
>became lost forever.  His name was Traveller, and he was a war-horse
>too, in the days when a man named General Lee had owned him.  There were
>other soldier steeds, two of them descendants of the bustling little
>stallion they called Old Fig up here.  One was Phil Sheridan's black
>Rienzi and the other horse called both Fancy and Little Sorrel who had
>been the mount of Stonewall Jackson.
>
>        Native Dancer found Man O' War an amiable sort despite his proud
>aristocratic bearing, and he grew especially fond of a bony old fellow
>named Exterminator, who patiently answered all but one of his
>questions.  He asked the question of everyone:  "Who is The Big Guy?"
>And the answer was always the same:  "Wait til Christmas."
>
>        He met Messenger and Hambletonian and Hindoo.  He met horses
>that had dared the dreadful fences of the Grand National.  He met a
>horse who stared blindly into the emerald darkness.  His name was
>Lexington.  He met horses who had pulled circus wagons and horses who
>had pulled brewers' trucks and horses who had drawn man's ploughs over
>the fields of earth, and he met others who had been the mounts of kings
>and captains.
>
>        Always the answer to his question was the same:  "Wait til
>Christmas."
>
>        Eclipse fussed over him and kept a watchful eye on his behavior
>and  said he neighed too much and asked too many questions.  Eclipse
>could not stand the thought of The Big Guy banishing one of his
>descendants from the Green Place.
>
>        And Native Dancer did not wish to leave.  He doubted he could
>ever find his way to Maryland again if The Big Guy disapproved of him.
>And the Green Place was very pleasant in all respects.  The grass was
>lush and he met so many interesting horses.  Back home he had sometimes
>been troubled by nightmares, for a Dark Star haunted his dreams, but now
>he slept peacefully and rarely remembered the Derby he had lost.
>
>        He became nervous though, as the weeks went by and the stars
>grew brighter.
>
>        And finally it was time.  On a night when the skies burned with
>starlight all the horses gathered as near as possible to a little
>hillock of the vast paddock.  There were hundreds, thousands, maybe
>millions of them, a murmuring and expectant throng that seemed to
>stretch over the emerald grass beneath the diamonds in the heavens.
>
>        Eclipse was very tense.  He hovered over Native Dancer,
>whispering, "Look your best now.  Be quiet and humble.  The Big Guy will
>be here any minute."
>
>        Suddenly the vast throng was as silent as the stars themselves.
>
>        The Big Guy stood on the hillock in a blinding blaze of
>starlight, and Native Dancer could barely contain himself.  He choked
>back a whinny of derision and whispered to Eclipse, "Is he The Big Guy?
>He's so little!  And he's not even a horse!  What did he ever do?"
>
>        Eclipse whispered, "He's a donkey.  He carried a woman heavy
>with child to a small town on another night when the stars were bright.
>It was a long, long time ago."

--------- End forwarded message ----------

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