My Friend Flicka
by Mary O'Hara
(HarperCollins, 2003)
It seemed like a personage come to visit; appearing all of a sudden over the dark bank of clouds in the east, coming up over the edge of it smiling; bowing right and let; lighting up the whole world so that everything smiled back.
Page 3.
He was hatless, and the wind made a tousled mop of his soft straight brown hair, and whipped color into his thin cheeks that had not yet lost the whiteness of winter school-days. His face was beautiful with the young look of wildness and freedom, and his dark blue dreaming eyes.
Page 5.
He and Howard had to say Yes, sir, and No, sir, to their father because he had been an Army officer before he had the ranch, and believed in respect and discipline.
Pages 5-6.
Every time he asked his father for a colt, McLaughlin said, “I’ll give you one when you deserve one - not before.”
Page 10.
Ken was unformed, his face sometimes falling into lines of poetic wistfulness and beauty, sometimes like something accidentally assembled - of doubtful promise.
Page 12.
“Oh, Mother, it isn’t just the riding. I want a colt to be friends with me. I want him to be mine - all my own, Mother.”
Page 22.
Here, in her world of men, husband and sons, hired men, haying crew, horse buyers, to be the Missus meant to be that before which they could remove their hats, and bend their heads. In the cities a woman could turn into a driving machine, or hrden herself to meet difficulties, but the Missus on a farm or ranch, though she might be milker or cows or trainer of horses, must be more and not less woman for all of that, or she would rob the men around her of something which was as sweet to them as the sugar in their coffee.
Page 24.
To get into another world you had to make yourself the same size, in you mind. … It was one of the most exciting things, to get into another world than your own regular world, especially at a time when the regular world or the things you had to do in it bored you.
Page 26.
Ken loved his room. The walls were white-washed, and there was a big window opening out front over the terrace and the Green. He could see everything from it. Sunshine poured in.
Best of all, Ken loved his little walnut bed, because that was really home. Everything was home in a way except school. The United States of America was home and he could feel it when they sang The Star-Spangled Banner. And the ranch was home. The house was home. But most particularly the bed was home. It was like friendly arms close around him every night when he got into it.
Page 27.
What he was always hoping for was to be friends with his father.
Page 39.
“There’s a responsibility we have towards, animals,” said his father. “We shut them up, keep their natural food and water away from them; that means we have to feed and water them. Take their freedom away, rope them, harness them, that means we have to supply a different sort of safety for them. Once I’ve put a rope on a horse, or taken away its ability to take care of itself, then I’ve got to take care of it.”
Pages 46-47.
The East is cozy. There is never the distance, the far, empty distances - the wide loneliness. Miles and miles before you come to another house just animals. Grass and animals and sky. You can smell the loneliness. No - it’s the emptiness you can smell. Of course, you can smell that. It is empty. Other places, the land is full of houses and factories and towns and people and people’s doings. But this is almost a desert. And it has the sweet, fresh, singing wildness - you can breathe it in, the very moment you wake in the morning. And it lifts you. You could just float out the window into the blue of the sky, young, and new like the country.
Page 48.
He had a sharp consciousness of change and new importance. Things had begun at last. Things could be real now.
Page 76.
He felt the sense of loss which every dreamer feels when the dream moves up, comes close, and at last is concrete.
Page 77.
“Take the bad with the good. That’s the way grown-up people do.”
Page 90.
“People grow up that way,” said Nell. “In spurts. All of a sudden, they are years older.”
Page 90.
It rained every day out of one big purple cloud which drifted away at night, so that the mornings came in hot and clear, but by noon it was over the ranch again, and would start to rumble, then shiver and crack with lightning; then the downpour of rain, while the horizons all around were calm and blue, with fleecy white clouds motionless upon the hills.
Page 115.
McLaughlin never allowed anyone to show, or even to feel any grief about the death of the animals. It was an unwritten law to take death as the animals take it, all in the day’s work, something natural and not too important; forget it. Close as they were to the animals, making such friends of them, if they let themselves mourn them, there would be too much mourning. Death was all around them - they did not shed tears.
Pages 117-118.
The water loitered in winding runlets, and at last joined to make a little stream, and the stream made a bed of moist earth for a copse of cottonwoods and aspen, and the shade and moisture made food and cover for a thicket of raspberry and gooseberry bushes and wildflowers; bluebells with yard-long stems as fine s hairs, white Mariposa lilies with pansy dark hearts, and the wild forget-me-not blossoms like tiny seeds of turquoise, and the larkspur - pink, white, and blue - death to cattle and horses.
Page 120.
In the real world just about everything had an unhappy ending or tripped him up somehow.
Page 123.
Going out in the early morning was almost like going into the underwater world, or the world of a picture, or in a dream.
Page 123.
Ken had been a night wanderer ever since he had learned to walk alone and to climb over the edge of his crib.
Page 123.
Sometimes, Ken thought, as he cantered toward the Country Road gate, the names his mother gave the colts in their first summer didn’t stick, because the colts changed so.
Page 126.
The filly fled past Ken. He saw frightened eyes in a tangle of streaming hair and slim legs, and a pang went through him. For a fraction of a second she had looked at him, and it was like an appeal.
Pages 128-129.
Rocket was cantering away again with Banner close beside her and before the curve of a hill shut them from view, Ken saw her come to a stop, and the great body of the stallion rear over her. For a moment the two of them, twisted into one shape, were sculptured against the story sky.
Page 129.
Ken rode down the mountain in a daze of happiness. No dream he had ever had, no imagination of adventure or triumph could touch this moment. He felt as if he had burst out of his old self and was something entirely new - and that the world had burst into something new too. So this was it - this was what being alive meant - Oh, my filly, my filly, my beautiful - .
Pages 128-130.
Under the eye of a human being an unbroken horse is in terror.
Page 138.
She seemed to Ken a fairy horse. She was simply nothing like any of the others.
Page 142.
“Yee whiz! Luk at de little flicka!” said Gus.
“What does flicka mean, Gus?”
“Swedish for little gurl, Ken.”
Page 143.
Her speed and her delicate curving lines made him think of a greyhound he had seen running once, but really she was more like just a little girl than anything - the way her face looked, the way her blond hair blew - a little girl.
Page 143.
Was he going to get the filly? She was his. No one had questioned that - but would they be able to get her? Would there perhaps be several more efforts like this morning’s, and then would they give up, and would his filly be forever out there on the range? Wild, alone, free - not friends with him at all? And his father not friends either?
Pages 149-159.
There was a magical clear light over the world that seemed to emanate from the soft indigo of the sky. Right over the Hill opposite the Green was one golden star. It twinkled coquettishly, and not very far off in the sky a single, coiled mass of white cloud winked back. The cloud was full of lightning, and went on and off like an electric light. For as long as ten seconds it would flash into illumination, filled through and through with rose and gold light, then would blink a few times and go out, rumbling softly. The star twinkled merrily back. Nothing else in all the twilight world moved; it was as if everything watched the little play between the star and the cloud.
Page 159.
Children love to hear the conversation of their elders.
Page 176.
There were many air-tight compartments in Ken’s mind. Rocket - now that she had come to a bad end - had conveniently gone into one of them.
Page 195.
He felt a passion of possession. Sick and half destroyed as she was, she was his own, and his heart was bursting with love of her.
Page 197.
A single, sharp, yapping bark broke the silence. Another answered, then another and another - tentative, questioning cries that presently became long quavering howls. The sharp pixie faces of a pack of coyotes pointed at the moon, and the howls trembled up through their long, tight-stretched throats and open, pulsating jaws. Each little prairie-wolf was allowed a solo, at first timid and wondering then gathering force and impudence. Then they joined with each other and at last the troop was in full, yammering chorus, capering and malicious and thumbing hoses and filling the air with sounds that raise the hair on human heads and put every animal on the alert.
Page 200.
It comforted Ken to think that Flicka was close by even when he couldn’t be with her.
Page 203.
Why should one, at a certain moment, be held in the stress and ceaseless striving and wanting? And the next be almost swooning in desireless bliss - open, drinking basking.
Page 212.
Ken turned over on his back and looked up at the sky. It was close, it was a deep blue, but not opaque; it looked as if you could go into it, farther and farther. … Thinking this way, just drifting, he began to feel better. There were well-trodden paths in his mind that led out and away from the real, and on and into limitless worlds of fancy. He stopped thinking about Flicka. Stopped thinking about anything real. In that other world of fancy, there were colts and fillies too. He wanted the make-believe colt that couldn’t hurt itself, that could fly over six-foot fences, that needn’t be broken and trained, that couldn’t be loco, that would carry him on its back as easily as a bird carries one of its own fathers … He began to feel comfortable and free … this was the way … this was the way.
Pages 213-214.
He sat down before her on the grass clasped his arms around his knees, and made his vows to her.
Page 215.
“You’re my responsibility. That’s what Dad said. I pulled you in from the range where you were free and wild and could take care of yourself, and I’ve made you so you can’t; so you’re my responsibility to take care of.”
Page 215.
It was an irritating habit of Rob’s to be satisfied with outward obedience.
Page 218.
McLaughlin turned to Ken, surprised, and the boy looked back at his father. Rarely had he been able to face those hard eyes for so long a minute. He did it now for Flicka. If she was a Lone Wolf, then he was a Lone Wolf too. He had to fight her battles. He was with her, the same as her - and it gave him courage.
Page 219.
“A wounded or sick animal always stays alone.”
Page 220.
“When you take away everything, freedom, friends, home, habits, happiness, from a living creature, almost life itself, it will turn in sheer need and desperation, to the one thing that is left. And that’s you.”
“Me.” Ken had never felt so important.
“Yes. You are her whole world. Make her like it.”
Page 224.
“Flicka has been frightened. Only one thing will ever thoroughly overcome that, and that is, if she comes to trust you.”
Page 224.“
“Make her grow so dependent on you, so used to your coning and going, always with sone good thing for her - hay oats, fresh water, or just talk and friendship - that she can’t help turning to you.”
Page 225.
“A horse can tell you a lot of things, if you watch, and expect it to be sensible and intelligent. Pay attention to all the little signs - the way it moves its body, the ears, the eyes, the little whinnies - that’s its way of talking. There is the neigh of terror, the scream of rage, and the whinny of nervous impatience (that’s a very funny sound), the nicker of longing or hunger or friendliness or delight or recognition. She’ll talk to you, and it’s for you to understand her. You’ll learn her language, and she’ll learn yours - never forget that they can understand everything you say to them.”
Pages 225-226.
Ken knew she was heartsick for the freedom she had lost … it was the Neigh of Longing.
Page 227.
Her statue-like pose, the graceful turn of her neck, the delicate, pointed ears, and every line of her body, instinct with life and intelligence, exerted on Ken the fascination that horses have always exerted upon human beings. He had fallen under her spell - a classic spell.
Page 236.
When a horse wants to get up, it rolls over on its belly, straightens the forelegs, pushes against them and against the right hind leg, and so gains its feet.
Page 237.
She was his, because she had given herself to him.
Page 251.
She loved his hands, his touch, his caresses. She loved to have him stand at her head, facing her, his hands lightly holding her cheeks. They looked into each other’s eyes as lovers look. He spent all the time with her that he could.
Page 251.
This was what he had always dreamed of. That he should have a horse of his own that would come at his call and follow him of its own accord.
Page 252.
The air was sweet with the perfume of wild roses. In the sunset there were long horizontal bands of deep rose and golden pink with dark blue sky in between. There was a mass of mauve and violet cloud above. A sickle moon rode int eh midst of the color with one star drawn close.
Page 256.
The air smelled different. It was said that when hay was cut in Wyoming, the perfume of it was on the wind for hundred of miles.
Page 257.
Ken lay face down on the springboard which jutted out over the deep end of the pool. The sun beat down on his small, wet, brown body. It felt delicious. Everything was delicious - outside and inside him. Nothing to dread any more - no doors closed in his mind against thoughts and fears that made him sicken and tremble - it was all good, the sun, the water, Flicka, his father.”
Page 260.
Every so often the turmoil of life quieted down. Tings that, it seemed, could never turn out right, unaccountably did. Things got done. Worries faded away.
Page 261.
“If you find love - if a person or an animal finds love - it’s the same as finding safely.
Page 263.
By the time the harvest moon, as yellow as saffron, rose over the dark sky-line of the eastern horizon, and hung there, trembling, behind the pulsations of the atmosphere, there was the smell of autumn on the wind and a blanket of dazzling fresh snow on the Neversummer Range. When the breeze veered to the south, the smell of it blew over the ranch, alien and challenging like the startle of unexpected fingers tapping at the door.
Page 268.
The proximity of the two towns, Cheyenne to the east, and Laramie to the west, made the men restless. They could her the transcontinental buses out on the Lincoln Highway; and the moment they had a few dollars in their pockets, they were in a fever to spend them.
Page 269.
Storms were gathering all around Sherman Hill, great banks of clouds accumulated and compressed until, driven into themselves, they were formed into coils that were ready to explode in cloudbursts and sheets of flame if they once reached the freedom of the higher areas. When the wind died down at sunset, the edges of these cloud banks could be seen pushing up over the horizon, and during the night they hurried their pace and spread halfway over the sky, gathering themselves for attack, only to be dispersed by the bright strong wind that came with the dawn.
Pages 271-272.
She never felt that she had quite completed an experience until she had shared it with Rob.
Page 287.
If the mind of a living being - man or beast - is clear, there are forewarnings of the approach of death. The body gets ready. One by one the active functions cease, till, at last, the currents of living force become inverted in a down-whirling spiral into which the creature is drawn, spinning faster ad faster toward the vortex.
Page 294.
Animals call to each other as friends, in passing; or as sentries challenge, Who goes there? - and the answer announced a friend or foe.
Page 295.
At the moment when Ken drew her into his arms and cried her name, the spring of the down-whirling spiral was broken. Flicka was released and not once again did she feel it. The life-currents in her body turned, and in weak and wavering fashion, flowed upward. A power went into her form Ken; all his youth and strength and magnetism given her freely and abundantly on the stream of his love - from his ardent eyes to hers.
Page 299.
Masses of purplish black clouds exploded in deafening crashes, or thundered in long, rolling barrages. Glowing balls of electricity ran along the steel tracks of the railroad and the barbed wire fences; swords of lighting slashed down to the ground, one right after the other. It was as if creatures of terrible size and impossible grandeur were struggling in the upper air, and the earth was spattered with the spent shot and flame.
Page 318.
“A dreamer - you know - it’s a mind that looks over the edges of things - the way Ken can do what he calls ‘getting into other worlds’; gets into a picture; gets into a drop of water; gets into a star - anything.”
Page 336.
“It’s you that have changed, dear - that makes everything look different.”
Page 340.
It’s really a pretty serious business - making a practical thinker and performer out of a day-dreamer.
Pahe 341.
Day-dreaming is as potent and seductive as morphine. Once you’ve got the habit, it’s got you.
Page 341.
The slamming of the ranch door caught her attention and she trotted questioningly toward the corral.
Ken’s quick feet thudded across the Green, the gate rattled; and when the boy came running down the path, crying, “Oh, Flicka! Flicka!”, the neigh that rang out on the cold air was a sound the filly had never made before.
Page 346.