“Daisy’s having her baby. Dad got called in to work at five this morning, I can’t get a hold of any of my brothers, and I don’t know what to do.” I realized I was spilling words out every which way, and Samuel looked a little alarmed.

“Daisy?” He queried slowly.

“Our mare!” I shouted at him.

Samuel turned off the ignition, pulled his other leg out of the truck, slammed the door, and started walking down the road towards my house. I watched him blankly until I realized he was going to help me. I clumped along after him until I reached his side.

“Nice sweater.” Samuel didn’t even look at me as we walked, and my eyes flew down to my chest. Antlers and a shiny red nose poked their way out of my unbuttoned jacket. I groaned inwardly. Where was Samuel Yates last night when I was ready to be seen up close and personal? God must really have a sense of humor, I thought morosely. He’d answered my Christmas prayer – just in his own time. Ha, ha, ha, very funny. And why did I have to display my Christmas spirit this morning? Why hadn’t I thrown this stupid sweatshirt in the compost pile where it belonged? My hands flew to my hair. I could feel loose curls bouncing in sunny disarray.

“Thank you,” I replied stiffly. I might have imagined it, but I think Samuel’s lips twitched.

“Have you ever helped birth a foal?” I asked anxiously, as we rounded the house and headed back to the barn.

“Lots of lambs, only one foal,” Samuel replied shortly. “I don’t think there’s too much variation. But I guess we’ll find out. Isn’t there a vet we can call?”

“There’s a vet that covers the county, and I called his pager number, but I don’t know if he’ll get back to me and I’m not going to wait by the phone. Dad says he doesn’t know his ass from his head anyway.” Realizing that the vocabulary that I had worked so hard to build and that I so prided myself on had completely abandoned me in my flustered state, I clamped my mouth shut and swore I wouldn’t say another word until I was in better control of my tongue.

Samuel didn’t respond to my dad’s opinion of the vet, and I led the way into the barn. Daisy still laid quietly, her only movement in the rise and fall of her breathing. Quickly Samuel shucked his coat and rolled up his sleeves as far as they would go. Samuel knelt above her, stroking her head with his right hand. He sat waiting as her big body suddenly tightened up, a contraction causing her flanks to quiver with strain. As the tightening began to visibly ease, Samuel, speaking quietly and soothing her with his right hand, snaked his left hand between her rear flanks. Daisy’s legs stiffened and she tossed her head, but she didn’t fight him as he inserted his arm inside her all the way up to his shoulder. Yuck. I was so glad Samuel was with me I felt lightheaded with relief. After a few moments of concentrated groping he spoke.

“I think I can feel the head and the forelegs, so that’s good. The baby is facing the right direction. At this point, your mare will do all the work. If all is as it should be, there’s not a whole lot we can do. Let’s go inside, and I’ll wash up and you see if you can reach your Dad again. It won’t be long now.”

I hadn’t turned Handel off when I went to feed the horses. The entire production of his ‘Messiah’ had played out to an empty kitchen, and the Hallelujah chorus was reverberating joyfully throughout the house as we entered through the back door. My boots were muddy and I didn’t want to take the time away from Daisy to pull them off and back on, so walking though the house to turn the music off in the family room wasn’t going to happen; it would just have to play to the end. I ran to the phone and tried the power plant again, with no luck. I hung up with an impatient sigh.

“My dad is going to be fit to be tied when he gets home.”

“Isn’t this what you played last night?” Samuel questioned from the sink, his back to me. My mind jumped from the failed phone call back to Handel’s music pouring out of the family room.

“Oh. Uh, yes. It’s Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. It’s pretty wonderful with a full orchestra, isn’t it?

“It was pretty wonderful last night with just the piano, too.” Samuel replied seriously, and turned his head to look at me as he dried his hands and unrolled his sleeves. Pleasure washed over me at his words, and I tried to stop myself from beaming like an idiot as we left the kitchen and headed back out to the barn.

There seemed to be no change as Samuel and I squatted down next to the laboring mare. She huffed and groaned a little with the next contraction, but didn’t seem unduly stressed. I prayed silently that Daisy would be alright and that the birth would go well.

The quiet in the barn became more drawn out as we held our vigil, and I searched my mind for something to say. Samuel certainly didn’t seem to feel the need to talk.

“Handel composed all three parts of his ‘Messiah’, including the orchestration, in a little more than three weeks. Two hundred and sixty pages of music in just 24 days. No other composer has accomplished anything like that in the history of music. He described it as an out of body experience.” I sounded like a tour guide, and my voice faded off uncertainly as Samuel failed to even lift his head. When he didn’t respond after several long seconds, I bit my tongue to keep from trying to continue to fill the embarrassing lull. When he did speak several minutes later his voice made me jump.

“Why did everyone stand last night when you started to play?”