Josephine Barkley felt like a pollywog in a goldfish pond.

Jo ran slender fingers through her hair and tried to quell the queasiness in her stomach. She looked up and down the rows of desks. Not one familiar face met her gaze in this 7th and 8th grade class at Rock School in the fall of 1936. Never before had she been in a school room of total strangers. The only other red hair belonged to the teacher, Mr. Murphy. His nose reminded Jo of a clown she'd seen in a circus back home.

“Josephine Barkley?”

Jo jumped at the sound of Mr. Murphy's booming voice. “Yes, sir.”

“Come to the desk, please.”

She stood and smoothed the back of her flowered cotton dress. The clunk of her shoes on the oiled wood floor barely drowned out the thudding of her heart as she walked to the front of the room. 

“Let me see your report card.” Mr. Murphy glared at her from behind bushy, red eyebrows. His bulk more than filled the chair behind the desk.

“I don't have one.” Jo felt thirty-five pairs of eyes bore into her back.

“Bring it tomorrow, then.”

“I can't. It got lost.” Jo’s knees shook, but she kept her voice clear and strong.

A titter rippled across the room. Jo turned to see a girl with ebony-hued hair and light bronze skin whispering to the blond in front of her.

“That will be enough, Kate,” Mr. Murphy said. Kate straightened in her seat with a toss of her neat curls, so black they reminded Jo of crows she’d seen on fence posts back home. She smiled at Jo, but her green eyes were anything but friendly. Jo ran her fingers through her tangle of curls and wished for a trap door to drop her into the basement.

“You may go sit down, Josephine,” Mr. Murphy said.

Jo’s face burned as she clumped back down the aisle and slid into her seat. She caught a faint smell of barnyard above the smell of oiled floors. Her stomach knotted and she thought of her pony. Would she ever see Prince again? She traced the barnyard smell to a pair of boots under the desk to her right. They belonged to a husky farm boy in jeans and blue work shirt. He had a scar on his left cheek and brown hair slicked back in a pompadour. Jo managed a weak smile. Teasing lurked in the dark brown eyes that smiled back at her.

When the bell rang for recess, Jo stayed in to explain to Mr. Murphy about her report card. She went up and stood by his desk.

“Did you need something?” He fumbled with a stack of papers. Jo thought she'd never seen such big hands. For all their size, they didn't look strong like Dad's, and somehow she knew they wouldn't be gentle like Grandpa's.

“It's about my report card.” Her voice sounded hollow in the empty classroom.

“Yes?” Mr. Murphy looked up from his papers.

“It's probably in a box somewhere. You see, we lived in our trailer house all summer and—”

“Well, bring it when you find it. Now go on out and get some fresh air.” Mr. Murphy turned his attention back to his desk.

On the back steps of the schoolhouse, Jo paused to look over the playground. Older kids chased a soccer ball around on the baseball field. When it spurted out from the mob, they all ran after it squealing and kicking. It reminded Jo of the time she put iron filings on a piece of paper and moved a magnet around underneath. The younger children ran helter-skelter trying to catch each other. Jo had to laugh when one boy with a garter snake chased a group of girls right through a hopscotch game. They ran screaming into the girls' outhouse to escape.

Over by the pump house, a boy in striped bib overalls sat with his back against the low building. Nearby Kate stood talking to the big boy who sat across from Jo in the classroom. A few others had gathered around to listen. Jo walked over to the boy in the bib overalls.

“Hi,” she said. “I'm Jo. What's your name?”

“Egbert.” He held a small notebook and a stub of a pencil.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, nothin’. Just scribbling in my notebook.”

“Why aren't you with the others?”

“They don't want me.”

“Guess that makes two of us. Nobody invited me to play.” She sat down beside Egbert.

The voices from the group of boys and girls got louder. Jo heard the big boy say, “I think we should ask her.”

“You ask her, then,” Kate said. “I want nothing to do with her.”

Jo stood up as the two of them came over. She caught the familiar smell of barnyard.

“Hi, I'm Alvin,” he said. “We're planning a horse back ride on Saturday. Wanna come?”

“I don't have a horse.” Jo fought back a wave of nausea as she thought of the pony she had to leave in Utah with Grandpa and Grandma.

“So, Copper Top doesn't have a horse and she doesn't have a report card.” Kate flashed that fake smile of hers. “She better go back where she came from.”

Jo felt the heat rise up the back of her neck. She doubled up her fists and took a step toward Kate.

“Don't you lay your grubby hands on me.” Kate's green eyes flashed.

“I'd punch you in the nose, if you weren't such a sissy,” Jo said.

Just then the bell rang and everyone dashed for the school building. Everyone, that is, except Egbert. He limped along behind the others. Jo turned to wait for him and noticed he had a short left leg that dragged as he walked.

Jo thought that first day at Rock School would never end. She and Egbert sat beside the pump house during the noon hour and afternoon recess, and Egbert explained how things were at Rock School.

“You'll never make friends here if you don't get on the good side of Kate.”

“I doubt she has a good side.” Jo picked up a pebble and threw it at an ant.

“Her dad’s on the school board. She thinks that makes her something special. Besides, old Quigley’s afraid he’ll lose his job if he crosses her.”

“Who’s old Quigley?”

“Oh, that’s Mr. Murphy. His first name’s Quigley and he hates it. Just don’t let him hear you call him that. He’ll get madder ‘n a wet hen.” Egbert grinned, but it didn’t take the sadness from his eyes. “Kate hates me,” he added. “That's why none of the others will play with me.” 

“That's not fair!” Jo felt the familiar heat rise up the back of her neck.

“Nothin’s fair, Jo. You just gotta get used to it.” Egbert shrugged and turned back to his notebook.

When four o'clock finally came, Jo was glad to get on the bus and head for home, but a pain hit in the pit of her stomach when no dog greeted her at the bus stop. Tippy had always waited for her at the gate back home. She thought of her friend, Bobby, and wondered if he missed her. They had played together ever since she could remember.

As Jo walked down the driveway, she watched a flock of small birds flitting about the field on her right. She didn't remember seeing that kind before. An irrigation ditch ran along the other side of the driveway. Down a little hill on the next farm, a flock of noisy blackbirds gathered in a willow patch.

Jo stopped beneath the mulberry tree. She'd sampled the berries yesterday so she knew how blah they were, but she picked one anyway. She plopped it into her mouth and thought it tasted just like her day.

As she walked on toward the house, she caught a familiar smell that made her stomach growl. In the kitchen Mom was cutting turnips into a stew pot. Jo smelled sagebrush burning in the wood cook stove, and for a moment she forgot about school. Her thoughts flipped back to the Rollicking River Canyon and cookouts with her brother, Clyde. This first summer in Idaho had been mostly work, but a few times they’d been able to get away to explore the canyon. When they went on these outings, Jo loved to hear Clyde play the harmonica he bought with some of his summer wages.

“I'm starved, Mom.” Jo tossed her arithmetic book on the table in the middle of the room and went to stand by her mother. “That stew sure smells good. May I have some?” She started to reach for a bowl in the cupboard above the worktable.

“It's for supper.”

“Aw, Mom, I’m gonna cave in before supper.”

“I'm almost out of wood.” Mom wiped her hands on her apron and put a few more sticks in the stove. “This sagebrush burns like paper."

“Okay. I'll go chop some.” Jo headed for the door.

“First wash your hands while I get you a glass of milk and a cookie.”

Jo stopped in mid stride and turned to look at her mother. “Did you bake today?”

“Your favorites.” Mom smiled.

“Oh, yum. Oatmeal cookies.” Jo went to the washstand by the back door. She washed her hands and threw the water out in the yard.

“How was school?” Mom joined Jo at the table.

“Okay.” Jo shrugged as she bit into her cookie. Mom would worry if she told how it really went. “Where are Dad and Clyde?”

“They haven't come home from work yet.” Mom pushed a stray lock of hair back into her graying waves.

“How long is Clyde gonna have to work before he goes to school?”

“Until this job's finished at least. I hope it doesn’t put him so far behind he can’t graduate this year.” Mom sat twisting the corner of her apron. “He thinks he can keep up by studying at night. He got registered and bought his books this morning.”

“Don't worry, Mom. Clyde's smart. He'll do all right.” Jo shoved the last of her cookie into her mouth.

“I suppose. Well, change your clothes. Your father wants you to help him plow the garden when he gets home.”

“Is he gonna use Pete?” Jo jumped up from the table and swallowed the rest of her milk.

“Probably. I don’t know why your father bought that team of mules.” Mom fidgeted with the gold band on her ring finger. “I wish he’d bought a team of gentle horses.”

Jo reached over and patted Mom’s arm. “Pete and Molly are gonna be all right once they get used to us.”

“Well, I hope so. You be careful around them. You never know what a mule’s going to do.” Mom sighed and went back to the stove to tend her stew.

Jo went into the other room and pulled off her dress and long cotton stockings. She thought about Kate and wondered what her front room looked like. Probably not like this.

Mom and Dad's bed took up most of the space. A wood heating stove sat in one corner and Jo's cot in another. With Mom's sewing machine squeezed in, there was no room for Clyde's bed. Jo hoped he wouldn’t freeze sleeping out in the trailer house all winter.

She pulled on her jeans and shirt and went to chop wood. Mom was right; the load of sagebrush was almost gone. She tried to forget school, but every time she swung the axe down on a piece of sagebrush, she saw Kate's face with those cold green eyes and that icy smile.

Just as she finished filling the woodbox, Dad and Clyde drove into the yard. She ran out to meet them.

“Well, Jo, how was your first day at Rock School?” Dad's sky blue eyes twinkled as he smiled at Jo. Every inch of his tall frame was solid muscle from long hours of work in the field. Jo thought how different he was from Mr. Murphy.

“Oh, so-so. Which mule are we gonna use to plow the garden?”

“I thought we'd use Pete.”

“Can I go get him harnessed?”

“If you want. But be careful around his back end. I don't trust those hind feet of his.”

“Sure, Dad.”

Jo strode down the driveway toward the barn. She heard the coulee gurgle by and smelled the willows. This was so different from the dry alkali flat and greasewood back home.

Out by the corral, the coulee widened to form a pond. A frog leaped into the water. Jo watched the ripples spread across the pond and heard other frogs croak.

“At least you've got friends, Mr. Frog.” She picked up a flat rock and skipped it across the pond.

Jo got a halter from the shed. As she crawled through the pole fence into the corral, the female mule nuzzled her hair. She stood up and stroked the jenny's nose.

“You're a friendly soul.” She scratched Molly behind her long ears and patted her neck. “But Dad says we're gonna use Pete today. Besides, he and I need to get acquainted. I’ve gotta have a horse to ride. Wish I could ride you, but your hocks knock together and your gait’s too weird. Pete's no horse, but he's gonna have to do.”

When she approached Pete with the halter, he laid back his ears and trotted to the far corner of the corral.

“Okay. You wanna play, we'll play.” Jo began chasing him around the corral at a trot. When he slowed to a walk, she made him go faster. Then she stood still in the middle of the corral. Pete stopped and looked out over the corral fence. Jo continued to alternate chasing him and stopping until the mule turned to face her.

“Now that's more like it.” Jo kept her voice as soft as milkweed down. She held the halter in her right hand behind her back and reached out to Pete with her left. He stood his ground as she kept up a soothing babble and walked slowly up to him.

She rubbed his nose and scratched behind his ears. When she felt him relax, she slipped the lead rope around his neck. She barely got the halter on before Dad walked up to the corral fence.

“I have to admit, Jo, you do have a way with animals. But we won't get any field work done if we have to chase him around like that every morning.”

“This is just to train him. He'll let us walk right up to him when he finds out we're not gonna mistreat him.”

“That's sure not the way we used to do it.” 

“Guess you didn't learn from an Indian, Dad.” Jo thought of Buck Too Tall and the horse training methods she had learned from him at Uncle Clint's ranch last summer.

As she led Pete to the gate, Molly followed. Jo swung the end of the lead rope at her and managed to get Pete out and leave her in.

Dad threw a harness on Pete.

“We won't bother to rig up lines. You can ride him while I walk behind and guide the plow.” Dad led Pete to the garden plot and hitched him to the walking plow.

“Now I want you to pick out a landmark and head Pete right for it so we have nice straight furrows. Are you ready?”

“Sure.”

As Dad boosted Jo on, Pete laid back his ears. Before Jo could get settled, he humped his back and tossed her up in the air. She came down with a thud and lay motionless in the dirt.