Brown Sunshine of Sawdust Valley by Marguerite Henry, Bonnie Shields

CHAPTER 1
ALL I WANT TO DO IS RIDE
September 1
    Dear Diary,
    I get a sick feeling whenever I look at a person riding a horse and acting so smug and happy at being up there. I just want to crawl under a rock and cry.
    That’s why I detest Freddy Westover. Besides owning show horses, he’s the fastest forward and the highest scorer on our soccer team. And in school parades he gets to lead the band. But worst of all, he wins the blue ribbons at the horse shows on a big Tennessee walking horse named Strolling Joe.

    Me? In soccer they call me P.F., for personal fouls, because I forget to trap or kick the ball. I use my hands instead, so the other team is always getting free kicks. And the only time I get to ride a horse is when Freddy lets me—but it’s never on Strolling Joe. It’s always on his old mare, Della, who can hardly move because of arthritis.
    And he acts like a king granting a favor to his lowest subject. “Molly,” he says, “you can ride once around the field on Della. Then you can muck out her stall and clean Joe’s tack.”
    Funny thing is, I do exactly what Freddy says, because I just want to ride. It’s all I ever think about. Even now when I’m writing in my diary I get all choked up, like I have an allergy or something.
    The only good thing about Freddy is his big blue weimaraner dog, Smokestack. He spendsmore time with me than he does with Freddy, and I think that makes Freddy mad.
    One good person in my life is our librarian, Elizabeth Potts. She puts aside horse books for me. I read two a week, even though they’re mostly about horse-sick kids who always get a horse at the end of the story. Not like me! And here I live in Tennessee—practically the horse capital of the whole world.
    I can’t talk to my parents. They have enough to worry about. I hear them talking serious at night about “making ends meet” and wishing they could buy me this or that. But they never mention a horse.

    Mom just put on her new CD of “Lights Out.” Guess whenever I hear it, I’ll fall right asleep wherever I am.
    *   *   *
    With a tiny brass key, Molly locked her diary, tucked it under her pillow, and curled up in bed. But she didn’t fall right asleep. She pretended she was a famous author and had just sold a book to the movies for a million dollars. Without a second thought, she knew what to do with the money. She’d buy a horse ranch. There’d be a stallion for every mare. There’d be two colts, a suckling and a weanling, tagging at each mare’s heels. And kids who didn’t have horses could come and ride. Nobody would be kept out except Freddy Westover. Or if he ever did show up, he’d have to ride the oldest, slowest horse in the bunch.
    For almost a month Molly made no entry in her diary. Then on October first she started a fresh page.

CHAPTER 2
MY TENTH BIRTHDAY
October 1

    Dear Diary,
    It’s a miracle! It’s going to happen! Tomorrow is my tenth birthday and Pops is taking me to a horse sale at Lawton’s Stock Farm on Duck River near Williamsport. He just sold his old tractor for twice its value to an antique dealer who was passing by and spotted it as a great find. If there is a young horse, not too expensive, he’s mine. Just like that!

    I’ve got one all pictured in my mind. He’s young and strong. I don’t care whether it’s a filly or a boy colt, just so long as it’s faster than Della. A weanling would be about perfect. And it doesn’t matter if he’s a Tennessee walking horse or an American saddlebred or a big Clydesdale with feathers on his feet. I don’t care about colorbecause Freddy says a good horse can NEVER be a bad color. I guess the only particulars are that he has to be young and able to move . . . fast. I can train him so he’ll be absolutely gentle and true blue and will leave his stall for a cross-country jaunt