"Hey Big Mac!", Applejack hollered from a hill a little further away, "How are things looking up on your side? I'm almost done over here!"
"Forty trees", Big McIntosh answered.
"Well we don't have all day! I'll move on to your part when I'm finished."
With that, she hammered her hind legs against yet another tree, stripping it completely of its fruit in a single blow.
Not that Big Mac didn't have the strength to do the same. In his case, it was a question of the right application of strength.
CRACKs.
"I heard that!", Applejack cried out, "that better not be Mrs Fallobst! Her trunk is brittle enough as it is."
He quickly examined the tree. There seemed to be no substantial damage.
After a few more minutes, Applejack came over, sweaty and nearly out of breath, but with glittering eyes and a grin on her face. She moved on to a tree next to the one Big Mac was about to strike, and he could hear the apples rain into the baskets before he had even lifted his leg.
"Remember when we used to split the orchard 40/60?", Applejack laughed, "I reckon if it goes on like this, we done and come full circle."
Big McIntosh smiled. "Eeeyup. Just don't you push yourself too hard. And hydrate yourself, that's important."
"You don't have to tell me! I already sent Apple Bloom to the kitchen earlier on to fetch me cold lemonade. Now that Granny showed me how to make it myself, I can have as much as I want!" She chuckled. "I can't believe you're still drinking from that darn old trough behind the house."
"Wouldn't want to take lemonade away from little fillies."
"Mhm. For the record, this little filly is about to finish your side of the orchard. Aaand... it's done. From AJ with love. Hehe."
She took off her stetson for a moment and contemplated her work while she rubbed the sweat off her forehead.
"Whoo-ee...! All in a day's work, I guess. I wanna check on Apple Bloom, see if she got rid of them bad weeds on the east field like I told her. You coming? If she ain't done yet, we might as well lend her a hoof."
Big McIntosh nodded.
-
The east field was a patch of vegetables close to the new barn.
"Well I shall be... Big Mac, what am I looking at?"
There were nails and pieces of wood laying around all over the place. At the side of the field, Apple Bloom had installed a primitive work bench. The foal was currently busy adjusting a metal joint between two wooden parts. She tried the mechanism out, then shook her head and threw it onto a pile of previous attempts.
"Nah... I need a bigger angle..."
"Apple Bloom!", Applejack exclaimed, "What in tarnation do you think you're doing?"
"Oh hi Applejack! Hi Big Mac!"
She waved at them and invited them to come closer.
"See, I figured, why waste a perfectly good afternoon with your face down in the dirt to pull bad weeds with your hooves and teeth? So I am building the Weed-A-Tron 3000!" She pointed to a small wooden platform with a seat on it, standing close to the work bench. "We don't need none of them FlimFlams to modernize our farm, nosir!"
"Apple Bloom, how many times do I have to tell you, I don't want you to waste time with your crazy doohickeys when there's work to be done!"
"No, see, that's the whole point!"
Apple Bloom leaped onto the seat on the platform and pulled a lever. Her siblings almost jumped out of their horseshoes when the contraption unfolded three long, wooden arms with a pretty near sickening number of joints, all the while making a noise similar to when Granny Smith was strangling gophers. They had a variety of garden tools for fingers, making them look as if they had metal claws. All along the length of the arms, there was a complicated arrangement of little mirrors, ultimately projecting the image of the things just beneath the claws onto a mirror in front of Apple Bloom.
"It can reach all the way to the other side of the field! I don't even have to go there myself! And with just the pull of a lever... well, several levers actually... here we go...!"
One of the claws plunged into the soil and pulled out a plant. As the wooden arm was retracted, Apple Bloom could present the prize to her older siblings.
"Ta-daa!"
"That there is a cabbage, missus. And it wasn't even ready for harvestin'."
"Oups. Hehe. Guess the mirrors need a little adjustment..."
"You know what else needs a little adjustment round here? Your attitude." Applejack sighed. "You do realize that in the time you got your little doomsday machine up and going, you could have easily finished the actual chore I gave you. At least three times over and one for the glory."
"But look at the greater picture! When my Weed-A-Tron is completed, weeding will never be the same again..!"
While she was flailing her arms, she accidentally hit one of the levers.
She was able to jump off the machine just in time before it unrooted itself. Like a giant, misshapen spider creature, the contraption darted away into the hills, chasing an unfortunate sheep for several yards until the machine finally took a left turn, ran into a fence and exploded.
"Dang", Apple Bloom whispered, "I've got to work on the explosion..."
Applejack was shaking her head.
"Look, I appreciate your... creative input, I do, but please, for the love of the land, do leave that sort of thing to your spare time, will ya?"
Apple Bloom sighed. "Yes, AJ."
"And you will fix that fence later on, are we clear on that?"
"Yes, AJ."
"Golly. Now let's get to work, it's not the only chore left on our plate. And I still have to do the gosh-darned taxes. Urrgh... Say, you couldn't possibly invent something for making tax declarations?"
Apple Bloom grinned from one ear to the other. "As a matter of fact..."
"AFTER we're done here, missus."
"Awww."
Applejack couldn't resist to ruffle her little sister's mane.
-
Big McIntosh opened the armored locker where the Apple family kept all of their most important documents.
Behind him, he could hear Apple Bloom, Applejack and Granny Smith move about, from the kitchen to the living room, from the porch to the front yard and back, carrying and re-arranging things, arguing with one another, laughing together.
All the way on top of the locker, there was a metal box. Big Mac opened the box as well and retrieved the thin folder that was inside. He opened the folder. It contained the will of his parents. He quickly skimmed through the document, but it wasn't the thing he was truly interested in this evening.
In the same folder as the will, there was a letter. Big McIntosh opened the envelope and let his eyes wander yet again over these words which had become so familiar to him over the years.
"My dear son,
It should come as no surprise to you that I want you to take over Sweet Apple Acres in its entirety. You are my firstborn son. You are the rightful head of the family. I am not eager to climb into the wooden box just yet, but I am glad to know that when I do one day, you will be there to take my place.
Sometimes I worry about you. You seem so reclusive, so easily discouraged when it comes to taking on the challenges of this world. You let yourself be pushed around, dragged along, used as little more than a harvesting machine while you let your mind wander off to odd-knows-where. Your sister Applejack is so energetic, so passionate, so eager to take over responsibilities... But at the end of the day, she is just a mare. She is not my son. She'll never be as important as you are, no matter what she does.
You should never forget that. You are the one to lead. You are the one to shine. This is your destiny as my firstborn son. Live up to it.
I'm writing this shortly after the birth of your sister Apple Bloom. As much as I would have loved to have another son, having you is all I need to know that our family's legacy will be carried on. You are the only one who really matters. Take care of your sisters, and take care of the farm.
All of this belongs to you, and only to you."
He slowly folded the letter again and carefully stowed it away.
He walked out onto the front porch, staring out into the night sky.
There was this boring feeling at the back of his mind. This pulling behind his eyeballs. This heavy weight in his chest.
Sometimes, Big McIntosh would fantasize what it would be like if someone cut off his head. Would he continue to move, like a decapitated chicken, his body continuing to perform all these tasks it had grown so accustomed to over the years? He pictured his headless body wander through the orchard, bucking apples, performing minor repairs, his sisters pouring food paste and water into his open esophagus. It was a soothing thought.
But Big McIntosh decided there was no time to waste on idle fantasms this evening. No, there was a more pressing matter at hoof. Something that needed to be clarified once for all.
-
Apple Bloom had just put on her night gown when she heard someone knocking at the door.
"I was just going to bed! It's not THAT late. Sheesh, AJ, sometimes it feels like you want to micromanage everything..."
She was genuinely surprised when instead of Applejack's nagging, she heard the soft, deep voice of her brother.
"Apple Bloom. It's me. Can I come in?"
"Big Mac...? Sure."
It was almost comical to watch the big, red stallion squeeze through ordinary doors. Apple Bloom couldn't even remember when Big McIntosh had been in her room for the last time.
"What's the matter?" Apple Bloom asked.
Big Mac sat down on the carpet. "Apple Bloom... Have I ever told you that I'm proud of you?"
Apple Bloom grinned. "Of course you have!" She threw her front legs around his massive neck. "I love you, Big Mac."
"I love you too, sis. But listen..."
He gently loosened her grip and held her at an arm's length from his face. He looked her firmly in the eyes.
"You are like no Apple has ever been before. These crazy inventions you dream up...?"
Apple Bloom blushed and looked down. "I'm sorry, I..."
"No!" Big McIntosh resisted the urge to shake her. "Don't be sorry! Be proud! That's who YOU are. That's what you DO. That what Apple Bloom does. You don't need to be like anyone else. Your sister and I, we are very proud of you BECAUSE you are different. Even if she scolds you sometimes."
Apple Bloom looked at her brother with big, round eyes. She wasn't sure she had ever heard him speak so many words in a row.
"Sure you make mistakes. Sure you are fooling around. You are not perfect. But you are YOU. You are Apple Bloom. And that's the most important thing of all.
You may not have found your path in life yet, but you will. You will build it with yor own sweat and tears, your own mistakes, and it will be yours. And no matter what happens, you can be proud of the work of your own muscles and mind. And so will I."
Apple Bloom had tears in her eyes by then. She buried her face in her brother's mane.
-
Applejack was still in the kitchen, sorting through documents under a glowworm lamp, a colorful abacus by her side, the little reading glasses on her nose.
"Can I talk to you for a moment?", Big McIntosh asked, standing at the kitchen door.
Applejack yawned. "Sure. Why not. I don't think I can get any more mathematics done this evening anyway, nosir. I'm beat."
She went to the fridge to pour herself another glass of lemonade. "You want some?"
"Thank you." His throat was still dry from his talk with Apple Bloom.
After a few gulps, Applejack sighed and let herself fall into her favorite chair in the living room.
"So what brings you to these parts, big guy?"
"I have read our parent's will again."
"The one where they leave all of the farm to you?" Applejack asked with a strange grin. Almost as if she was shocked by her own words, she added: "Sorry. Go on?"
"I don't know if you remember, but father also left a letter for me... Applejack, how well do you remember father?"
"What kind of question is that?"
She pointed at her stetson. "The old man is with me every day."
Big McIntosh took a deep breath. "Applejack... I just wanted to tell you that I am proud of you."
Applejack raised an eyebrow.
"You are the very hearts and brains of this farm. Nothing would get done without you. You are a better role model to Apple Bloom than I could ever be... Hay, If it weren't for you and your friends, we probably wouldn't even have a planet left for this old farm to stand on."
Applejack remained silent, staring at her brother with tired, half-closed eyes, but her ears stood up as if they were being pulled by invisible claws.
"What I am trying to say is... You can be proud of who you are. You have become a great mare..."
"But I'm not Pappy's 'First Born', am I now", Applejack finally said.
Big McIntosh flinched.
"Applejack, no matter what our father used to say... You are important. You are just as important as I am. No, you are MORE important. Everything you have, you earned for yourself. You have proven yourself."
Applejack gave him a blank stare. "Oh, I have proven myself, have I?"
"The way father used to talk about you and Apple Bloom... He loved you both, he really did, but it wasn't fair. It was not fair! You have turned out twice the pony I have."
"I know", Applejack said.
Now it was Big McIntosh who was staring at her. Not just silent the way he usually was. Speechless.
The orange mare emptied her glass in one final gulp.
"The truth is, Big Mac", she said as she returned to the kitchen to put away her glass, "I pity you."
The big red stallion lowered his head.
"I have decided to sign the farm over to you."
"Don't bother." With tears in her eyes, but with a voice that was dry and steady, she added: "I know my place."
And with that, she went upstairs.
Big McIntosh turned off the lamp, and stood alone in the darkness.
