The Horse Incident

I cannot tell you when this happened, but there was a horse incident.  I was in elementary school, at least 3rd or 4th grade, probably.  A good friend from church, Diana, asked me to spend the night at her house on Vine St. in south Euless.  We did not go to school together, just Sunday School.  Anyway, at the time, at the end of Vine was some street, Pipeline? maybe.  Don't know but there was pasture there with horses owned by an older couple from church.  Apparently, Diana, her sister Donna, and their friends were allowed to play on the property as long as the couple knew they were there.

Much to my dismay, Mother had me pack shorts and sandals for the overnight instead of jeans and tennis shoes.  I was definitely prissy looking and uncomfortable in the sandals.  We got up Saturday morning with the intention of playing in this pasture at the end of her street.  I was in shorts and sandals!  We walked there and the fence was what you think of on a ranch, wooden with three rails between the posts.  So we just slithered between the rails as we were skinny little things.  On the property was a wagon, I guess like the bottom of a buckboard wagon with real wagon wheels.  We had been playing around it or near it or something when the horses on the property wandered near.

I had, at this point in my life, zero experience with horses which means I was terrified of them.  I don't remember verbatim what was said but we ran to the wagon from where we were playing and climbed aboard for safety so the horse wouldn't get me.  At this point there is only one horse hanging around.  Well, I am ready to get out of there.  I would guess it was around fifty yards or so back to the fence from the wagon with one tree between the wagon and the fence.  While the horse is not paying attention to us, we run for the fence.  But we scramble up the tree for some reason.  Safety is what my head is thinking.  Now I can climb the tree, no problem but I am wearing sandals!!  And because I am in sandals I cannot seem to get higher in the tree than the lowest branch.  My feet are sweaty and sliding around in the sandals and I am scared out of my wits.

Then the horse parks his hind end right beneath the branch I am trying to stay on with sweaty slippery sandals on my feet. I am squatting on the branch in the sandals looking down at the horse when one of us notices a hornet land on the horse's hind end just beneath my feet!!

Pretty sure I am crying by now and scared to death that if the hornet bites him, he will buck and kick me out of that tree.  Had I dangled my feet, I could have stood on the horse's rump as he was that close!  We decide to jump and hightail it to the fence before that can happen.  And so we did and made it through the fence and walked back to Diana's house.  My feet were all nasty with a bit of pasture dirt and sweat.  I remember great relief to be on solid ground and out of that pasture.  Probably still crying, too.  However, I was not invited back to Diana's for a sleepover.  I was too much of a scaredy-cat, I guess.  We remained friends and I keep up with her on Facebook.  Wonder if she remembers the horse incident?