I woke up then, sat up, and stretched. Frey, who was standing right beside me, resting as I had been, nickered softly.
“That was a crazy dream,” I told my horse. “Like you would permit a cat to ride on you. I bet that would spook you worse than the time Mrs. Parson’s goat got loose and decided to nibble on your tail.”
I laughed at the memory. Poor Frey had probably been drifting off, standing in front of the Mrs. Parson’s house while I weeded the woman’s front yard. I was reaching down to clean out a patch of nasty weeds from between the rose bushes when Frey let out a scream and started bucking.
Frey was wearing a saddle, and I was afraid he’d break the girth holding it on. I sprang up and rushed over to soothe him, but he’d already figured out that there was no mountain lion or coyote attacking, but only a bleating goat, who’d already run off.
Mrs. Parson had come running out of her house about then and saw her precious goat fleeing. “What did you do to my Bonnie?” she’d demanded, her face the blotched red of enraged fury.
I’d tried to explain, but Mrs. Parson was beyond listening. She blamed Frey and me for Bonnie escaping from her pen. Although I spent an hour catching and returning the escaped goat, Mrs. Parson never forgave us, and my services in her garden were at an end. That, in itself was not a bad thing since it wasn’t a job I got paid for, and although most of the villagers offered me a meal, Mrs. Parson never had, figuring that I was only doing what was owed to her for the six months I’d spent in her house when I was seven.