"Here's a real short one," Grandma said cheerily, "and it says:
"If I owned Misty, I would name her colt 'Stormy.'"
Paul's eyes met Maureen's and held. Then he leaped up from his chair, stood on his head, and cried, "Yahoo!" In an instant he was right side up again. He shouted the name, "STORMY!" Then he whispered it very softly, "Stormy."
Maureen clapped her hands. "Why, it sounds good both ways!"
Promptly Mr. Conant wrote it down. "I'll give this one two stars," he said.
And still there were more letters and more names—Gale Winds and Rip Tide and Sea Wings and Ocean Mist and Misty's Shadow and Mini Mist and Foggy and Cloudy—until at last they were down to one letter.
Grandpa loosened his suspenders, yawning and stretching. "Out with that last one, Idy. Sandman's workin' on me, both barrels."
Grandma's face lighted with pleasure. "Why, it's signed by a whole bunch of school children over to Reistertown, Maryland." She adjusted her spectacles and began:
"Our class read the book about Misty. Now we are reading about the awful storm that flooded your island. We are glad Misty was not drowned. As soon as we heard the news about her colt, we decided to write you. We think you should name her 'Stormy' because she was born in a storm. Would you like that? We would. We had a secret ballot, and 'Stormy' won first place with twenty votes."
Paul drew in his breath. "That does it!" he said. "Remember, Maureen? Sometimes they name 'em for markings, sometimes for ancestors, and the third way is for natural phenom ... happenings of Nature."