The mare all this while had been lying exhausted. She lifted her head now and let out a cry that was half squeal, half whinny. As if in answer, there was a gasp from her foal. Then a shallow cough, followed by a whimper.
When the farmer came rattling in with the wheelbarrow, he stopped in awe. "She does not go under!" he exclaimed. Then he laughed in relief. "The wheelbarrow—you don't need now?"
"Now I do!" Cheeks flushed in triumph, the doctor kept on pumping air into the filly's lungs and at the same time barking out directions: "Be quick! Fill a gunny sack with straw! Lay it flat on the wheelbarrow!"
The gasps were coming closer together. They were stronger. And stronger.
The doctor stopped pumping. He listened through his stethoscope and heaved a deep sigh. "Is greatest thing I ever see! The mare, she helped me just in time." Proudly, he lifted the newborn on top of the stuffed gunny sack. "We take her now into your kitchen and dry her by your fire."
"But why?" the farmer asked, more puzzled than before. "Why, when already she breathes?"
"Please to remember this, my friend. For eleven months she is living in a very warm place. Today is windly, and it blows cool into the barn."
Nodding, the farmer trundled the little creature past the stalls of cows and bullocks and through the door that led into the kitchen.
"Maria!" he called to his wife as he lifted the foal from the wheelbarrow and placed her beside the fire. "See what it is we bring!"
The farmer's wife, a plump, pleasant woman with eyes as shiny as olives, came running from another room. Politely she greeted the doctor, set out a bottle of her best wine and a glass on the table for him. Then in an instant she was on her knees cooing, "Ah, poor little one, poor dear one!" Without thinking, she had taken off her homespun apron and was rubbing the filly as if its ribs were a washboard.