Chisel Creek: The Adventures of Stripe and Brady

Brady's New Life

Over the next few days, Stripe had been going about his life and farm chores as usual, only now there was a stray kitty underfoot.
"Why do you do that? What is that thing? When do you have to do that again? Where are you going?" The questions poured out of Brady's mouth like a flooding river. Stripe almost always had an answer. Brady would sometimes help out with the farm work too! Though he'd sometimes mess up. Stripe had asked Brady to harvest a bell pepper plant, and he'd uprooted the whole thing by mistake, ruining it. When asked to clean Pocahontas' stall, Brady threw out the dirty bedding along with the clean, wasting many wheelbarrows of good bedding. When Stripe asked Brady for help to sweep the porch, Brady tried to sweep the dust under the welcome mat, but instead ended up sweeping all the dust inside the house through the open door.
If it wasn't for the fact that Brady looked genuinely remorseful when he messed up a task, Stripe might have thought he was doing things badly on purpose so that maybe he could get out of doing chores. Despite messing up a lot, Brady was thrilled to be helping out! Even when Stripe tried to tell Brady to take a break, he would still insist upon having more to do. By the end of the day, every chore at the farm had been taken care of, but some areas looked worse than before.
"Brady," Stripe took his new friend aside, "You know you don't have to do all these chores."
"But I want to! I wanna learn how!" Brady pleaded.
Stripe sighed, trying to think of something, anything, he could let Brady do that he couldn't possibly mess up.
"Okay," Stripe continued, "maybe the stuff I've been having you do is a little too hard. You aren't used to having to do chores. So let's start with little things in the house."
Stripe took Brady's paw and led him up the hill to his house. They went into the kitchen as Stripe gave Brady his instructions, "This is the kitchen. I have some dishes that need to be washed. All you do is put soap on the sponge, scrub the dishes until there's no grease or food on them, rinse, and then dry them with a towel. After that, place the dishes in the proper cabinets! Can you do that while I go outside and put bedding back in Pocca's stall?"
"Yeah! Brady cheered, running over to the sink."
Stripe smiled and walked out to the barn.
Neiiigh, phbbbt!
Pocahontas neighed and snorted, annoyed.
"I know, I'm sorry," Stripe sighed as he grabbed a pitchfork and a wheelbarrow, "he's just super new to this. He'll catch on. I'm gonna put some more straw in there real quick. That ought to make it more comfortable. Until then," Stripe opened her stall door, "just go free-roam and eat some grass. You deserve it!"
Pocahontas snorted happily and trotted just outside of the barn. She immediately put her head down to eat, but her meal was interrupted by the sound of gasping and glass shattering.
It was Brady.
"STRIPE, OH NO! YOUR HORSE HAS ESCAPED! DON'T WORRY, I'LL GET HER!"
Brady, after having dropped and broken a glass cup, came careening at full speed down the hill towards Pocahontas.
Stripe poked his head out of the barn, "Brady, no!"
It was too late though. By the time the words escaped Stripe's mouth, Brady had already whammed his whole body into Pocahontas' shoulder. He latched his arms around her neck and tried pulling her back to the barn. Startled, Pocahontas reeled herself away from Brady, accidentally flinging him on the ground!
Stripe ran over to pick Brady up. Pocahontas had calmed down and was standing still.
"Brady," Stripe groaned, "first of all, are you hurt?"
"No," Brady replied weakly.
"Okay. Second of all," Stripe helped Brady up, "You can't run at a horse full speed like that. You'll scare them! Pocca is a good girl, but had it been some other horse, you could've scared it into galloping off, or you could've gotten kicked. Third, Pocca is allowed to free graze sometimes, even when she's outside of a fence. She is really good about not going anywhere unless she's told it's okay. Besides, if you don't let a horse out if it's stall to graze and play outside, it'll go stir-crazy."
"Okay, I'm sorry," Brady replied.
"It's okay. Did you finish the dishes?"
"Yeah! Only broke five things! A cup, two plates, and two bowls!" Brady smiled proudly.
"Brady!" Stripe groaned, "You shouldn't be breaking anything!"
"Well maybe if the dishes weren't so slippery, I would've been able to not break them!" Brady pouted.
Stripe sighed, reminding himself in his head that Brady wasn't used to doing chores, so his first few times would be harder for him. Then, Stripe had an idea.
"Okay Brady, I'll make you a deal. Every day that you go without breaking a plate, wasting good bedding, and ruining an entire plant to harvest something, I'll let you take a ride on Pocca! But, if you do break or waste something, you can't ride Pocca at all. Do you want to ride the horsey?"
Brady's eyes lit up and he jumped up and down, "YES YES YES!!!"
"Shhh!" Stripe hissed at a whisper, "You cannot shout around horses. That scares them too!"
"Oh, okay!" Brady said, matching Stripe's pitch, "yes, I wanna ride the horsey!"

Brady's next day went by a lot smoother. He was very careful not to break a dish, so much so that whenever he had to wash something glass, he set it on the floor to wash it.
"Brady!" Stripe began to correct him.
"Whaaat?" Brady argued back, "it can't fall any further if it's on the floor already!"
When Brady cleaned Pocahontas' stall, he did it ever so carefully. So careful in fact, that every time he made a scoop, he picked through to make sure he didn't accidentally get any clean straw.
"Ewww, Brady!" Stripe tried to correct again.
"But you said not to waste even a single bit of good straw!" Brady replied.
"Okay but that's very nasty," Stripe took the pitchfork from Brady, "go wash your paws and don't pick through that stuff. It's okay if you get a tiny bit of good straw in a scoop. Just don't scoop out all of the good straw!"
Finally, when it was time to look through the crop garden and harvest any ripe plants, Brady brought a pair of scissors from inside the house to make sure he wouldn't pull up anything other than the fruit or vegetable.
"Brady! Oh, wait..." Stripe paused before shouting anymore, "that's actually a good idea! Good job!"
It was about four in the afternoon once Brady finished all of his chores. Stripe had gotten finished with his hours ago and was sitting and reading his newspaper.
Hmm, interesting, Stripe thought while reading, I'll have to go check that out later and—
"Stripe, Stripe!" Brady bounded up to the deck and jumped on Stripe's newspaper, crumpling it up.
Stripe groaned, "Yes, Brady?"
"Can I ride the horsey now? Can I? Can I?"
"It's may I ride the horsey now, and yes. Just don't ruin my newspaper again."
"Yaaay!!" Brady cheered, jumping off of the porch and heading to the barn.
Once they arrived at Pocahontas' stall, Stripe hoisted his new little friend onto the back of his steady mare. While leading Brady around at a calm walk, he couldn't help but become a little distracted by some happy thoughts.
Finally, I think I have enough money saved up! I'm going to get a stallion friend for Pocahontas and be able to start my breeding farm!