Giorgio listened with only half his mind. He wondered how he was going to handle the curious visitors and get his work done, too. But the novelty soon wore off. For everyone, that is, except Giorgio.
Each time he opened the door to her stable he felt the same inward excitement as on the first day he had seen her. And each time he held the water bucket for her to drink, or felt her head scratching against his shoulder, the joy was so deep the whole world seemed different. It wasn't exactly a fatherly feeling he had; it was stronger, more fantastic, as though he lived in ancient times and some oracle had said: "Fate has given her to you. You, Giorgio Terni, are all to her—master, teacher, god. Now prepare her for the great battle of the Palio."
Never before had Giorgio paid much attention to calendars; he had enjoyed the pictures on them and noticed the holidays. But now, suddenly, the pages of the months flashed and signaled importantly.
Hanging on a nail in Gaudenzia's barn, beside the bunches of drying anise-seed, were several dusty old calendars. The top two were 1948 and 1949, but they would do. He tore off the first eight months of 1948 and wrote on the bottom of the page marked Settembre, "Rest her."
On Ottobre he wrote, "Walk her four kilometers."
On Novembre, "Walk three, jog one."
On Dicembre, "Walk two, jog two."
On the 1949 calendar, for Gennaio he wrote, "Walk one, jog three, gallop one."
On Febbraio, "Two-two-two."
On Marzo, "Walk one, trot two, gallop three."