Pride Makes a Kingdom

by scrimgee

Rating: everyone
Tags: Drama, Slice of Life
Length: 6081

The Princess of Friendship helps the McColts and Hooffields overcome their problems, but how do they fare when she's not around anymore?

Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy are sent to the Smokey Mountains to prove their fluency in friendship. They are successful once again, but how long can the cease fire last between the families that have only known distaste for one another? Big Daddy McColt undergoes a massive strike to his ego several months after Princess Twilight and her friend completed their duty when his sister comes for a visit and sees for herself what has been happening to him all this time.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2015-11-20 23:19:37 UTC

Pride Makes a Kingdom

The Smokey Mountains was once a place of transient peace, broken only by the hustle and bustle of the wind amongst the many trees and bushes and the rippling water of a stream weaving through a valley created by two magnificent hills. All amplified by the knowledge that life was teeming. Few eyes ever fell on this gate to heaven, for some of the first never left. The hill to the West was owned by the McColts, a stoic family that could fashion a barn from branches, and the other to the East was owned by the Hooffields, a conservative family whose worst crops could earn a blue ribbon at the highest level of competition. Like any settler, their only goal was a better life. Each family had taken claim to the beautiful picture and in due time, the two stalwart families strode blind through the rotting fields below their respective hilltops, too busy to notice through the liquefying glass of misunderstanding. The Hooffields wanted lush greenery with barely a space to sleep while the McColts were accustomed to large and unsavory houses. After some generations, both families, ready to fight henceforth, found themselves in the midst of a pony built upon understanding alongside her friend, whose will to correct the families surpassed the valley’s potential. The princess of friendship had come, holding books, snacks, and a requirement of success.  The princess did nothing but open the families eyes to the effects of the long-standing feud. In so doing, the princess created a hole, a place of neutrality allowing Ma Hooffield and Big Daddy McColt to breach their stupidity and begin restoration, with a new goal: to achieve a happier life. It did not take long for that hole to close, however.

Two arduous months after the princess of friendship and her aid went through the valley spreading mindfulness, there laid a shack by the stream that flowed once again, intersecting the land between the two hilltops and standing within the Hooffield’s border. Such a shack had no purpose being there; foreboding, rotting wood was used throughout its recent construction, the corner closest to the stream, approximately 6 feet away, sank lower with each passing day due to the improperly balanced roof and poor foundation, and nails had been bent and used again. The purpose of the shack had quickly been dismissed by the builders. They were not blind to their efforts. It was an ambitious construction that would house any walking critters with beds, a food supply, and easy access to the stream in the lower 4 feet, and a multitude of bird’s nests in the upper 3. With improper measurements, the pair of Hooffield builders never found the time to complete the project. The shack itself was finished, as far-fetched as it seems, but the interior was bare and most of the holes for the birds were too small or unsafe for passage.

Big Daddy McColt took a liking to monitoring the valley every evening from a watchtower that had been fashioned from the unnecessary wall around the McColts buildings. The wall used to make up an impenetrable fort which protected them from the Hooffields, but now only served to be in the way. Big Daddy oversaw the two builders make good headway for the first day, but saw no changes to the shack for the next two. He had not seen it up close and was interested to see what they had planned for it. He was never going to ask them directly, however. They were Hooffields and he was a McColt. He had his own to look after and the valley to care for, nothing more, nothing less.

Big Daddy is a small, but large pony: his head is level with an average pony’s torso, but his presence is large enough to tame a lion. He enjoys wearing a large, grey, Stetson that equals his height, ruined by years of labor, but still functional as a hat. His garment of choice is more often than not a small set of repaired, blue overalls hung about his forelegs with stained purple cloth straps. His tail is short while his beard and moustache are dense, providing some dark grey contrast to his light teal coat. He commands with a tone that matches a guitar’s fifth string at a sea-worthy volume through a mouth nestled in a rough landscape of dozens of sand dunes to the East and West, shadowed by mild waves to the North and overcome by the unyielding central mountain.

As the moon began to draw its cloak over the hills, the head of the McColts climbed down the steps of the watchtower and headed for the kitchen. His family was hungry, they had worked all day planning and practicing to build a type of building they had not thought to make before. It was the first project with the Hooffields that the families were working on together. It wasn’t as much of a building as it was plants and trees, but nopony had seen a garden quite like it. The plan was set to make a fenced garden surrounding a roofless enclosure where a small selection of the best flowers the Hooffields could grow would be displayed. At least, that’s how it was for the current week. The gazebo would grant six feet of space in all directions to an admirer, before any sculptures or flowers were in place. The McColts never previously had a need for any non-quadrilateral buildings, so they were working off guess work, which did not sit well with them. The lack of a roof confounded them simply for the reason that roofs keep the interior safe from the effects of weather. They were not thrilled when they fantasized of a rainstorm filling the gazebo to the brim.

Big Daddy McColt navigated the dark semi-fortress and followed the aroma of his wife’s best tomato and pumpkin soup to find all but two members of his family seated. “That ol’ hunk of wood the Hooffields got goin’ in the valley ain’t ever gettin’ finished” he complained. “How’re we supposed to build that darn tube-in-a-garden thing of theirs if they wanna build on the same spot?”

“I thought we was buildin’ it down the stream a ways” corrected a seated member.

“Naw, we all said up the stream” clarified another.

“Hey, now wait a minute, weren’t it at the bottom of the hill?” wondered a third.

“Why would the Hooffields want it by their hill?” asked the second.

“No, our hill, dummy!” said the third, beginning a discussion that would quickly evolve into a shouting match.

Just before maps of the area were pulled out and shown to one another, food was served. Big Daddy’s wife and her helper came from a doorway opposite where Big Daddy entered. They were carrying two bowls as large as their heads filled with a brown-and-pumpkin-colored pasty soup on their backs and waded through a river of verbal impatience to set them on either end of the oblong table. The wife sat across from Big Daddy, each owning an end of the table, with the kitchen helper off to her left. With them joining, the entire ten member family was complete. The sturdy table strained as the six available spoons went to the six hungriest members who fought their way into the bowls and withdrew only after their own, smaller bowls were filled.  Without a thought, the pony sitting to Big Daddy’s left took Big Daddy’s bowl and filled it just shy of the brim for him and then continued to fill his own bowl. Big Daddy was too short to do it himself without climbing on the table and his pride was too demanding to allow the question to arise. The family had grown used to working around the sturdy barriers of their father.

While the family helped themselves to the bottom of the two large bowls, Big Daddy spoke up, interrupting the cacophony of spoons and bowls as everypony halted to listen, “I seen the Hooffields workin’ on that closet down the hill. I wanna see what kinda plans they got goin’ for it so I’m goin’ down there tomorrow and seein’ what they done. I haven’t seen them work on it for two days, anyone of you been around it?”

The question was followed by a quick response from the unofficial bowl-filler, “I ain’t seen too much, but when I went and got some water a few days ago, I saw them Hooffields are keepin’ food in there. I think they’re tryin’ to trap some critters and watch in them holes at the top. I never seen them havin’ a pet, they must’a figured havin’ a few would be fun.” The mare across from him scoffed at the insinuation that the Hooffields were heartless enough to think of that.

She followed through with a thought, “If they’re keepin’ animals in there, why is there no door?”

“Cuz there won’t be a door! They’re lockin’ ‘em in there for good!”

The mare chuckled having been faced with an unworthy discussion and allowed someone else a chance to calm the excitable colt down.

“Just think about it! They wanna make the valley nice-like for everypony to see so they’re trappin’ some critters to see what they eat best. They just wanna make the valley purdy.”

Big Daddy wanted to test the waters of this youth’s argument. He began, “So the Hooffields are trappin’ little critters and forcin’ them to live in a new house just so they have pets and can run all kinds of experiments on them.”

“Yeah! It’s just the start! They’re learnin’ how to build, soon they’re gonna take us real ponies and see how we eat best!”

“Why can’t they do that on their own? Just siddown and be quiet or you’re buildin’ the guest house on your own.” It was a fact of life that every one of the bi-weekly visits to a nearby town was done partially to retrieve the equally frequent letters from Big Daddy’s blood relatives, specifically Oiled Canvas, Big Daddy’s sister, reminding him of the necessity of contact between the two pieces of the larger family. He did not have the time to worry about the extra beds and mouths while under constant bombardment from the Hooffields before the princess’ intervention and became too preoccupied making amends to the valley afterwards. A plan for a guest house was made, but never acted upon. “We’re buildin’ that house tomorrow either way, soon as I get back from lookin’ at that shack,” he glared at the colt to his left “and seein’ if we’re gonna volunteer you for first pickin’s.”

Morning slithered across the large patches of grass in the valley as Big Daddy neglected his hat for the day. He knew the Hooffields wouldn’t notice him either way whether they came down the mountain or not, but his non-confrontational policy against the Hooffields told him to err on the side of caution. He boldly trotted down the McColt hill and easily saw the shack being lit up by the sun. As he hopped over the stream, the bang of a hammer from inside the shack masked his landing. His muscles became brittle as he hoped his old ears tricked him and his family had started on the guest house early. A defeated sigh emanated from the shack a handful of seconds later. With his hopes answered, Big Daddy retreated back over the stream, jumping too hastily. His hoof slipped down the miniature bank and crashed through the water’s surface. Immediately, a pony with a curly, brown mane and a caramel face poked her head out of the shack, hoping her tired ears had deceived her. The young Hooffield mare was met with the head of the McColt family and became shocked, but was overrun with embarrassment as she had been associated with the shanty.  She avoided the topic with anything she had at her disposal and said, “Uh, hello, Mr. McColt. Did you come down for a drink?”

Big Daddy seemed preoccupied cleaning his hoof from the mud, not knowing what to say. He realized she had given him a scapegoat and promptly took to it, replying, “Yes, I like having a fresh drink b‘fore workin’.” He thought for a second, then began examining the shack with a more critical eye and continued the conversation. “Been buildin’ a shack? Looks… p-pretty good,” he said, unintentionally piling on more embarrassment for the Hooffield mare.

She stepped out of the shanty. “Y-yeah, been workin’ on it for a few days now. It’s got a ways to go, but so far so good,” she said, softly kicking a log in the front wall with her closest hoof. The log leaned inward under the pressure and made the roof twist toward the front of the shack while the Hooffield mare bolted at least ten feet from the scene before coming to her senses. She repeated, mumbling under her breath, “So far so good.”

“I see you… nailed the logs to the roof. How far’d you dig those logs?”

“Well we didn’t have nothing more than a spade so we dug as deep as we could.”

Big Daddy took notice of the cutie mark, a spade, and asked again, “How deep?” He already knew the answer.

She hesitated, furiously thinking of any topic to save her. She found none. “’Bout a foot.”

Big Daddy thought they were building close to an established source of water, but to nestle individual logs with one foot of soft dirt for stability was absurd. “You put one foot under that shack!? How’d you think that was gonna go? This is the softest dirt I’ve ever seen and you put one foot under it?”

“I didn’t know how deep to go! The spade couldn’t reach any further and we thought it was far enough—“

Big Daddy didn’t notice that a Hooffield colt had come down the hill and was in a hurried trot to arrive. He also caught a glimpse of a duck flying low overhead and realized animals of all sorts had begun gathering. The colt said “Mr. McColt . Can’t say I expected to see you here. What brings you by?”

“I… I came for some water n’ saw this here shack. Thought I’d ask if ya’ll wanted us to do it, get it finished nice n’ quick,” explained Big Daddy, sparking a glimmer of hope in the mare’s eyes.

“That’s mighty kind of you, but we ain’t gonna learn how to build if you’re always buildin’ for us,” retorted the colt.

“Mind tellin’ me why you’re buildin’ a shack down here then?”

“Yeah. We wanted a spot for all the critters to be out of the way when it’s blowin’ somethin’ fierce. We put some food for the land critters,” he pointed to the bottom level of the shack, “and nests for the flyin’ ones,” he said pointing to the top of the shack. “And we don’t need no help, we can do it just fine.”

“Alright then, don’t need to repeat yourself. But if you’re goin’ to build it there, can you tell me where we’re supposed to build the big garden house ya’ll told us to make?”

“What? What garden house?”

Big Daddy sighed and rolled his eyes while getting ready to leave. “The garden house we McColts promised to build if you ever gave us the spot for it.”

“You mean the windmill? I guess it could be in a garden. Why would we want it in the valley? No wind goes here, save some storms.”

Big Daddy was hit by a wave of disbelief as the colt said that. His patience had expired and he began to be more and more irritated. “Know what? You just tell Ma Hooffield that we’re buildin’ it up the stream,” barely able to compose himself any longer, he stamped back up to his dismantled castle. The large crowd of animals on the outskirts of the conversation had begun dispersing as the situation was diffused.

He arrived in a better mood. The walk musta’ done me good, he thought. His family had just woken up and was assembling for breakfast. He forgot about his hunger due to the widespread miscommunication that was finally coming to fruition. He met with them in the McColt cafeteria and thought of the plans for the day. He had his fill of the watermelon slices, but waited for his family to graduate from the morning grogginess into real ponies again before speaking. “We’ve got the guest house to build and the Hooffield house in the valley to make. I figure you bunch,” he pointed to the four ponies sitting at the left side of the table, his wife across from him, her kitchen helper, and the colt next to her, “can start on the guest house while us other ones’ll do the one in the valley. We all know what to do, so it shouldn’t take long to finish.”

Breakfast was finished with mild conversations and the two groups went their separate ways. With the strongest colt in the family, the mare that was most handy with a hammer, and Big Daddy supervising, the gazebo was going to be knocked out before snack time. The colt dragged a cart with the logs to build from and the mare carried the tools. On the way down the hill, Big Daddy looked at the shack again. The log that was leaning inwards had been pushed so that it fell outwards, taking most of the roof with it and digging up the ground, rendering that spot virtually useless for building in that style. He was not at all surprised at the shack, but did raise an eyebrow to see the ponies still working on fixing it. He felt it was an unusual sight to see Hooffields continue to work on such a futile project.

From the bottom of the hill, they walked straight out alongside the stream. Once Big Daddy was comfortable with the placement of a garden, roughly a hundred feet from their hill, he stopped his company and they set to work. Beginning with the gazebo, they built the premise of the garden quickly. They dug holes that would support the logs they had chosen, a slightly thicker variant than the type they used for their own houses, and stuck small sticks in the ground to act as the fence around the garden.

As they masterfully worked with the logs, the famed Ma Hooffield was walking up to them with the colt that had been building the shack beside her. She came up to the gazebo as the third log was being set in the ground, making the beginnings of a corner, and called out for Big Daddy’s attention. Big Daddy was startled after being too engrossed in the matter at hand to greet the guests. He responded, “Ma? What do you want?”

“My sons been tryin’ to build somethin’ by the river, but it ain’t goin’ too good for him. He wants to know if you’d lend a hoof.” The Hooffield colt stood still, a blank expression on his face as he stared into the distance.

“He said to me earlier today he could do it himself.”

“Well he gave it a good shot, stayed up all night with his sister gettin’ it done, but it’s goin’ nowhere in a hurry.”

“Sure thing, Ma, we’ll be back later to see what we can do. By the way, what kind of flowers you got planned for this garden of yours?”

“Our garden? I thought this was gonna be a restin’ place for ponies travellin’ by. I guess it could be both. We didn’t have anythin’ planned. We could grow some, but it’ll take weeks. Didn’t we say we didn’t wanna wait weeks to get it done?”

“Nopony told us anything. We’re building’ this garden-house-spot-to-rest, whatever it is, and you’re puttin’ flowers in it, like we were told last week.”

“Oh kay, then,” she said, beginning to be rubbed the wrong way by the unchanging tone of Big Daddy. “We’ll get somethin’ ready. It won’t do a thing for your house there, it’s like you’re preparin’ a shelter out here, even got farmin’ space n’ all.”

Big Daddy didn’t take into account what the area looked like, only that it was suitable to build there. He took another look around and saw dirt with no grass at all around the up-and-coming garden. The logs still had the dark-brown bark on them, making a very uneven wall that was rough to the touch. It didn’t fit well with the beauty of flowers. He addressed Ma after the realization, “if we’d known where we were buildin’, maybe ya’ll could’a made it a garden before we did!”

“We wouldn’t have to if your eyes worked right!”

“You can forget about your shack! I wanna see what your eyes come up with!”

“Fine! I only asked for your sake anyways.” With the final word being said, Ma turned and started at a brisk pace back towards her hill, the Hooffield colt in tow.

Finally able to get back to work, Big Daddy’s crew finished up the gazebo. After all was said and done, it was a circular building of thick logs, making a seven foot open area from wall to wall. The tops of the logs were flat and uneven, and the bark made it feel like it was a prison. It was much smaller than they had planned, but the interruption by Ma had stirred Big Daddy enough to make him shorten the project and get to working on more important things. Without a second look, the trio gathered the excess wood and tools and went on to their next project.

The guest house’s foundation was completed when Big Daddy got back. His companions had gone to deposit the supplies and to rest for a few minutes. The guest house was located behind the ruined castle; the logs that made up the wall had been cleared and set aside for use. There was nothing unusual about the process, execution, or product, but Big Daddy simply couldn’t forget his argument with Ma. Ever since he took a real look at the area he built the gazebo, he had been doing the same to his home. It was almost always grey and brown from the mono-chromatic logs making up the entire construct and reflecting light onto the trampled and upturned dirt. While building the guest house, he caught himself glancing at the sky at regular intervals. It was a stunningly clear day, not one cloud could be seen and the forest in the distance swayed harmonically to the brisk morning wind.

The guest house took two days to complete and furnish. Big Daddy took it upon himself to inform Oiled Canvas, his sister, via mail the same week. He sent it with the family’s strongest member on the bi-weekly trip to town, luckily catching the morning shipment of mail.

Eight hours later, after the sun had lazily watched the McColts do their daily chores for most of the day, a plain stagecoach was sitting at the McColt’s doorstep and two hired ponies were carrying three suitcases of luggage into the guest house.

“It’s so nice of you to have built this wonderful little cottage! You didn’t have to go through all that work just for me. A parade would have been more than enough!” Oiled Canvas joked. She had a soft blue coat and an orderly mane of light orange. Her cutie mark resembled an easel and canvas, but no matter how hard Big Daddy tried, he could never determine what was drawn on the canvas. As soon as she entered the guest house, Canvas asked, “I don’t mean to pry, but where did all those flowers and paintings I sent you go?”

Big Daddy forgot he had received a number of paintings with flowers attached over the last few months. He counted six paintings in total and never gave them any thought. The flowers had long since rotted away, but the paintings lay in the storage shack just behind the kitchen. His spine began freezing and he gave her an inquisitive look while saying “I didn’t think you wanted us to put em up. I thought they were for special things.”

“But this is a special occasion! We’re seeing each other after so long. How long has it even been? Two, three years?”

“Five months by my count.”

“Oh, where does the time go! I simply can’t wait to share everything that’s happened. But first, let’s get those paintings out. These walls are scarier than a ball with no hor-d’oeuvres! Ha!”

The pair walked to the storage shed in between the excited reintroductions with every family member they came across. Big Daddy opened the shed and stepped inside to find out where he had put the paintings. They were lying stacked in the corner, next to the tools he had used days before to build the gazebo. Six hand-drawn and signed paintings in Oiled Canvas’ style would finally see the light of day again. Oiled Canvas stepped in and gave a shriek as soon as she noticed the paintings on the ground. “What have you done!? Put them up quickly!” she said, starting to lean the paintings upright on the walls around. “What were you thinking? These paintings are fragile! Stacking them in a small shanty hut like this could have ruined all of them!”

“Shanty hut, is it? This shed is the safest place this side of the Evergreen Forest. Ain’t nothin’ gettin’ in.”

“But what about water! Humidity destroys such paintings!”

“If I ever let one drop of rain in my house, it’d be the biggest flood the world’s ever seen. Walls like these aren’t made where you’re from, but I tell you, nothin’ is gettin’ through, not any animal, not any water, nothin’.”

“Regardless, you shouldn’t have been so careless. I put my soul into these. Have you even looked at them?”

“Yeh, I have. They looked real good.”

“Oh, bother, what would you know about art. Oh well, no harm, no foul, I suppose. Here, we’ll take them and hang them up all over the place. It’s time to put some love in this happy home of yours!” They proceeded to put the paintings in spots that only Oiled Canvas approved of, Big Daddy’s own bedroom, the kitchen, and the guest house were the first spots Canvas directed them to. “Ah, isn’t that much better?” They stood in the guest house, two paintings found no wall fitting of their “immaculate strokes.”

Big Daddy wished he could have been doing chores around the hilltop, but couldn’t muster the strength to leave the paintings alone. “Seems good to me. I think supper’s comin’ up, we can head over now and you can meet everypony.”

“Oh, yes! That sounds splendid! Did you have any ideas about what we can do for me stay or should I come up with a few?”

“Hm… well, I guess we could go to the garden. We built it a few days ago and the Hooffields planted their flowers, too.” He had assumed the Hooffields had completed their half of the garden. He did not look back after the final log was placed.

“A garden!? Why didn’t you say so sooner! That’s a perfect way to spend a day!”

Dinner was a very eventful time for the McColts. Oiled Canvas filled the air with wonderful stories of living in a bustling town, stories that anypony in any town would find dull and reminiscent of daily life. At one point or another, everypony laughed, Oiled Canvas most of all. After dinner, Canvas turned in for the night and the McColts took to their nightly duties. It wasn’t long, however, until the camp was still with silence.

In the morning, Canvas and Big Daddy went to the garden he had almost entirely forgotten about. He only remembered that it was there. Oiled Canvas wore a scarf to ward off the early morning’s greed for warmth. They reached the bottom of the hill and walked the same path Big Daddy took to build the gazebo. Canvas would have loved to see the Hooffield’s shack, but they had disassembled it, likely to use the wood for their fires. They continued to the garden that now had several baskets of flowers sitting around the gazebo. Big Daddy almost could not believe his eyes as he went to war with his past self over the outcome of the building itself. Its entrance was simply two logs that were not placed; the holes in the ground were still evident from where they would have stood.

Canvas looked questioningly at her surroundings and asked, “Why have we stopped? What’s this memorial for?”

“This… ain’t no memorial. You’re standin’ in the garden.”

Canvas took another look around, trying to see from which angle the term “garden” applied. It couldn’t have been possible that a pony like Big Daddy, with so many magnificent feats of building prowess under his belt, stuck sticks in the ground and called it a garden house. “Do you mean to tell me this… abomination is your doing?”

He cringed at the painful truth of her words and nodded.

“How in all of Equestria did you, a proud McColt builder, not take the time and dedication in the most important project in the whole valley?”

“It wasn’t our garden.”

“So you built it as heathens in a church? Shame on you Mr. McColt. Shame on your inability to do what’s right. This was meant to make somepony happy. Gardens are a wonderful place, places where you lose yourself in the splendor of the best nature has to offer. I should be able to dance and fall to the ground without a care in the world, but I can hardly move my eyes away from the disgust because it’s following me. I’m going back to my room, I can’t stand this ugly sight any longer.” Oiled Canvas left, leaving behind the greatest disappointment she had ever felt on Big Daddy’s shoulders. He stood a while and woefully thought, wishing it wasn’t as bad as it seemed and that his sister was going to turn around and apologize, like she did for so many things. She kept her pace back to the hill and locked herself in her room for the duration of the stay.

Big Daddy eventually started to head back as well, but an idea manifested in him as soon as he saw Ma Hooffield at the bottom of the Hooffield hill with the same two pony builders. He heard her voice on the way back, but only heard that she was not happy at the novice builders. He began to get excited over his idea and started trotting faster and faster until he was able to get Ma’s attention. He nearly shouted, “Ma! Ma Hooffield! Get your flowers and some seeds and meet me by the garden! We’re gonna make this valley shine!” His voice carried just as much excitement as he was using to fuel his legs.

Ma answered back with a question, “what? We already put our flowers there.”

Big Daddy chuckled, “and it looks terrible! I’ll meet ya there!” He continued to run up the hill to his home and, as quickly as he could, gathered the two ponies who built the gazebo with him. Together, they picked the tools out and took with them all the twigs they could find, in the building materials storeroom and along the way. Big Daddy kept rushing as he wanted to find better and better twigs all the way down the hill and to the gazebo. They reached it after a moment and Ma was waiting with more flowers and a selection of seeds.

She then asked at her earliest convenience, “What in the world are you doin’?”

He slowed down and told his workers to remove all but four logs to make a square around an admiring pony. They began to pull the logs out as Big Daddy turned to Ma and said, “I’ve been a fool. I stopped caring about the garden a long time ago, I didn’t care if it got done or not. I thought ya’ll wanted it done for yourselves and I didn’t see what was actually important. The valley can survive on its own, it doesn’t need help with that. It was doin’ just fine before. But we can make the valley more than a survivin’ valley, we can make it, all of it, a home. My sister came by yesterday and I got to showin’ her this here garden. I have never been so disappointed in myself my entire life, to show my family this. But it was just what I needed to see that a good plan goes farther than just building the best house you can. You gotta take care of the house, more than just buildin’ it. No one likes a house you live in, they like homes you’re proud of.”

Ma didn’t expect such a confounding realization from her neighbor. At the back of her mind, she knew she should have been better about placing the garden, watermill, windmill, archway, any one of her ideas. She didn’t place enough importance in the project because she knew the McColts would subtly rub it in the Hooffield’s faces that they couldn’t build half as well. She took a second look at the garden in its current state and thought for a moment. “Well… maybe we were a little unprepared,” she said, beginning to see Big Daddy’s point.

Big Daddy told the Hooffields to plant any grass seeds around the garden and let them get to work placing the masses of flowers that were now found in the area. He went along with his idea and grabbed some of the twigs he took with him, specifically long ones that could reach between the pillars of the gazebo that were being exposed. He nailed the twigs to the top of each pillar and bent it over to another, nailing it again. He had to use both of the ponies he brought with him as a ladder and, even with the mare leaning her front hooves on the pillar and standing on the colt’s back, could Big Daddy barely reach the top of the pillars. He used small nails to attach twigs to the sticks around the circumference of the garden in the same way he did with the pillars, tying them together. Ma began tying flowers around the twigs or attaching the heads of flowers wherever she could fit them until both Ma and Big Daddy were satisfied.

Big Daddy told the McColt mare to run back and fetch Oiled Canvas as fast as she could. As she departed, Big Daddy imagined the impact the new garden would have on her, proving that he was not too prideful a pony as he showed himself to be.

Oiled Canvas arrived minutes later to behold the sight of the true garden. She immediately burst out laughing, unable to keep her balance and stumbling to the ground. Big Daddy was bewildered and Ma was unsure if there was some sort of joke she was not included in. After a few seconds of hilarity existing thickly in the air, Big Daddy took another look at the garden. Once again, he saw the area for what it really was. The ground was bare and filled with spots of upturned soil, twigs were lying sparsely throughout the garden, flowers were all over the ground, some managed to stand up, but most were laying still, and any flowers that stayed on the twigs were about to fall off. The four pillars were still a fairly striking sight in the center of the garden, but he knew it was greatly improved and felt exceptionally proud over the effort and, most importantly, to show it off.

Some of the humor was seeping into his face as his mouth’s corners began turning upward and soon let out a handful of chuckles. He walked over to help his struggling sister keep her balance as she recovered from the horde of laughs. Big Daddy asked after it ended, “Do you like it?” Canvas let out a fresh burst of laughs and only found the energy to nod.