third attempt

Monday's focus at camp will be the Percheron breed, with spiritual emphasis on the traits of willingness and obedience. I finally squeezed out a rough draft for the story:


The morning had already been exhausting. Bess lowered her head to the trough and drew a
long, cold drink of water. It was getting toward the hottest part of the day, and the old
farmer still had half the field to plow. The aging man couldn't work as fast as he used to; they
had started at sunrise and he had stopped several times to rest.

Bess looked over at him. He sat leaning back against a bale of hay, hat over his face, dozing.
She knew he would sleep a few more minutes, as he had done often recently. Bess turned her
strong neck to see the pasture beyond the field..the other horses leisurely grazing, scattered
over the hills, some lying in the shade out of the searing heat.

Bess had always known she was different; she was bigger than they were, much stronger.

The children would put saddles on them once in a while, and they would run about inside a

fence or get in trailers and leave for days at a time. The children did not put a saddle on Bess;

and every morning while the other horses lounged in the pasture, Bess would stand at the

fence closest to the house and wait for the old farmer.

She was not sad that she wasn't small and spirited like the saddle horses. She did not mind staying back when they left in trailers with the children. The old farmer was kind to her, and he needed her. She knew she had a special job helping him...

The old man woke from his slumber and, rising stiffly, brushed some hay off his shirt before
walking over to adjust Bess' harness. "Let's go back to work, girl", he said as he patted her
broad shoulder. "Good Bess."

Forgetting her fatigue, she turned the plow toward the field and walked out into the heat of
the afternoon with the farmer behind her.