Pit Pony (7 page)

Willie bowed to his audience and went back to his place. Then old Charley took the floor.

“I have a story to tell,” he said.

Everybody listened.

“It's the story of a young lad whose father and brother were hurt in a mining accident. He was a boy who didn't want to be a miner, but when there was no wage earner in the family he went down into the mine to work as a trapper. This boy had a great love of horses. There was a pit pony in the mine — a Sable Island horse — which he loved above all others. A day came when he was able to be a driver. He was happy to drive the pit pony he loved. Then one day there was a bump — an explosion — in the seam where he worked. He might have run for his life but he heard someone call for help. He went back, and saved another boy's life.

“That night a strange thing happened. His pit pony gave birth to a foal. Although she died soon after the birthing, it was a kind of miracle. Such a thing had never happened in a mine before. What could the Company do with a foal?

“Let me tell you that this boy had many friends. One of his friends was a farmer. He offered to buy the foal and keep it on his farm. But the Company decided to give the foal to the boy, with the understanding that the farmer would agree to keep it on his farm — for the time being.”

Old Charley paused. The room was so quiet, Willie thought everybody could hear his heart pounding for joy.

“Come out on the floor, Wee Willie. I have a paper for you, signed by the Mine Manager. It says the foal — name of ‘Sandy' — will be registered in your name.”

Willie stepped out, smiling so hard it hurt his face. Charley gave him the paper and a light slap on the back. Everybody clapped.

Then Freddie the Fiddler began to play a farewell tune. People shouted and sang as they prepared to go home. Soon, everyone had gone except Charley. He would sleep on the couch by the stove that night.

“I wish Pa could have been here,” said Willie.

“That reminds me,” said Charley. “I stopped by to tell your dad about this. You know he'll be home for Christmas. But he sent word that as soon as John goes back to work, you can go back to school, if you want.”

Willie looked around for a chair and sat down with a plunk. His mind was in a whirl. He didn't know what to say or think.

“You don't have to decide right now, Willie. Pa said it's up to you,” said John.

“It would seem awful queer to be a kid in school again,” said Willie.

Grandma stopped rocking back and forth.

“You're a bright bairn, laddie. You'll be sorry when you get older if you miss the chance to get a wee bit of education.”

Then Willie remembered his mother's words.
If you study hard you can be anything you want to be
….

He heard Charley say, “And there's Sandy. I'll need somebody to come and help me on the farm during school holidays. I'll need somebody to help me train that colt.”

Willie gave a low whistle. “There ain't no choice. Where are my books?” he demanded.

And everybody laughed.

Afterword

Sable Island is famous for shipwrecks, seabirds, seals and wild horses. The island is located far out in the North Atlantic Ocean, more than 150 kilometres off the coast of Nova Scotia. It is roughly 45 kilometres long, and 1.5 kilometres wide. Sable is shaped like a long thin smile; some people think it looks more like the crescent of a new moon. Sable is an island of sand and grass — there are no rocks and no trees.

During the last 500 years, a variety of animals have lived on the island. Cattle, pigs, rabbits, rats and mice arrived on Sable with fishermen, explorers and settlers. Although it is often said that the wild horses are descendants of shipwreck survivors, the original horses were, like cattle and rabbits, deliberately brought to the island by people. Sable's wide fields of beach grass were fine pastures for grazing. There was no need to build fences, and there were no predators on the island. So in the 1700s, horses were put on Sable. They were left to graze undisturbed, and then later they would be rounded up and taken back for sale on the mainland. The pigs, rats and other introduced animals are long gone. But the descendants of those first horses remain.

The horses share their island home with birds and seals. There are no snakes or amphibians, but Sable Island has plenty of insects — including spiders, ants, beetles, moths, mites and flies. Although it is surrounded by waves and wind, the island can be a very pleasant home for the horses. In summer, the dunes are covered with nutritious beach grass and pea; the hollows are filled with cranberries, orchids and freshwater pools. In winter, the wind is strong and storms often sweep across the landscape. When the winds are fierce, the horses gather in the shelter of the dunes and valleys.

Sable horses drink from ponds and water holes. If they are far from a pond, the horses dig down into the sand to find fresh water. When there has been a lot of rain, water is available just a few centimetres below the sand surface. At other times, during drier seasons, the horses have to dig through 40 to 50 centimetres of sand to reach water.

The island's horses have solid-coloured coats: chestnut, bay (a reddish-brown colour), dark brown and black. There are no greys, roans or spotted horses. Bay, brown and black horses have black manes and tails; but among chestnuts there are a variety of mane and tail colours. Some chestnut horses have manes that look like a mix of grey, red and yellow locks; others have manes and tails that are entirely blonde and pale golden in colour.

The number of horses on Sable changes from year to year, but it is usually between 250 and 350. The population is divided into small social groups of two to fifteen horses. These groups are called bands. Family bands include males and females, some adults, some young. New foals are born mostly during May and June. They spend the summer growing, playing and exploring their island home. By late autumn the young horses have a warm woolly-bear look because of the long hair that replaces their summer coat in time for the cold winds of winter. Although the horses have to tolerate some difficult times when the weather is chilly and wet, and their only food consists of sand-blasted grasses, they are accustomed to their wild island life.

Many years ago horses were taken off Sable Island to be used for riding and for hauling carts, as well as being put to work as pit ponies in the coal mines. However, the Sable horses now live free and undisturbed by people. Since 1961, the Canadian government has provided legal protection for the horses. Also, in 2008, the government of Nova Scotia named them the official horse of the province. The horses can no longer be captured and taken back to the mainland; people are not allowed to bother them on the island. The horses roam their island home as they please, they gallop, graze and snooze, and they live their wild lives without risk of being rounded up and taken away on ships.

Although the days of capturing the horses for use on farms and in mines are long gone, the Sable Island horses are an important part of Nova Scotian and Canadian history. The story of Gem and her friend Willie helps us understand and appreciate those times.

Zoe Lucas, Sable Island

Glossary

bairn
(bern): a child

bobtail sheet:
pay envelope containing a statement of deductions from each miner's pay

ceann groppaig
(cown' gro' pik): a codfish head stuffed with rolled oats, flour, and cod livers

ceilidh
(kay' lee): an informal social gathering featuring traditional Scottish or Irish songs and dances

collier
(kol' yer): a coal miner

colliery
(kol' yer ee): a coal mine, its buildings, and equipment

Duan Na Calluinn
(dan' nuh cal' lin): ditty or song sung before a celebration

firedamp:
a mixture of poisonous and explosive gases, consisting mainly of methane, which seeps from displaced coal

Gaelic
(gay' lik): the Scottish Highlanders, or their language

Oidhche Na Calluinn
(eye' yuh nuh kal' lin): a Scottish custom of bringing food to a household in trouble

pithead:
the top of a mine shaft

Pit Pony
: Although the title of this book is
Pit Pony
, it is the story of a horse, not a pony. Why would Gem, a wild Sable Island horse, be called a “pony”?

Many of the miners who worked in the Cape Breton mines originally came from other countries, in particular Scotland. There it had long been the custom to use small working animals in narrow seams of coal, because it was cheaper to use small animals than to widen the seams. Ponies, mules, donkeys or small horses might be used, but all were referred to as “pit ponies.” This term was carried over to the mines of Cape Breton, so as soon as the little horse, Gem, began to work underground, she became known as a “pit pony.”

rake:
a string of cars that runs on rails inside a mine

seam:
a layer of coal

About the Author

Joyce Barkhouse, CM, ONS, is a former teacher whose father, Harold Killam, was a “horse and buggy doctor,” practicing medicine in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia during the first half of the last century. In those days, in that rural area, there were no hospitals, no snow-ploughs, no paved roads. When Dr. Killam began his practice in 1906, his little horse Gem took him wherever he needed to go, day or night, winter or summer, no matter what the weather. If the doctor fell asleep from exhaustion, Gem would take him safely home, right to the barn door. And so it was that Joyce Killam Barkhouse named the horse in her story “Gem.”

Although she had been writing for many years and had been published in periodicals, school textbooks and anthologies, Joyce Barkhouse was 61 when her first book,
The Little Giant: George Dawson
appeared in print. Since then she has won many awards for excellence in writing. In 2007 she was named to the Order of Nova Scotia, and in 2009 she was made a Member of the Order of Canada.

Joyce Barkhouse has two children, Murray and Janet, five grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. She lives in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia.

Acknowledgements

The author owes a debt of gratitude to many people for their interest and help with this work, especially to her friend and mentor, Janet Lunn; her son-in-law, Greg Howard; her two children, Murray and Janet, as well as to other members of her immediate family.

Thanks, also, to Hope Bridgewater of the Halifax Regional Library, to the staff of the Glace Bay Miners Museum, and to all those miners who shared their knowledge and experiences, including Miles McCabe, William Pittman and Eddie Pierog.

Thanks, too, for the hospitality and encouragement of her friends, Evelyn and Donald Sutherland of Sydney, Nova Scotia.

Copyright © 2010 by Joyce Barkhouse, afterword by Zoe Lucas
All rights reserved
First published in the United States in 2011.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

James Lorimer & Company Ltd. acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council. We acknowledge the support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the assistance of the OMDC Book Fund, and initiative of Ontario Media Development Corporation.

Illustrations by: Freyja Zazu
Cover photograph: Zoe Lucas

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Barkhouse, Joyce, 1913-

Pit pony / Joyce Barkhouse ; afterword by Zoe Lucas.

ISBN 978-0-88780-924-8 (paper)

ISBN 978-0-88780-962-0 (ebook)

1. Pit pony—Juvenile fiction. 2. Mine accidents—Nova Scotia—Cape Breton Island—Juvenile fiction. I. Title.

PS8553.A7625P5 2010 jC813'.54 C2010-902645-4

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