Business as Usual
Every morning the sun would rise above the mountains and coat the valley below in its warm glow. In the summer months, the morning dew would slowly evaporate off the grass due to the steadily rising temperature. With few clouds in the sky, the small town of Ponyville would be almost completely shined down upon by the majesty of Celestia’s sun. Ponies began to arise to start their day as the various shops and other businesses were exposed to the rising sun.
On the outskirts of town sat a large pole barn. The faded red paint did not compromise the building’s actual structural integrity, but only revealed the age of the barn. The barn consisted of two levels. The top level was where the living quarters were at whilst the bottom was where various work related tasks were carried out. The windows on the upper level had curtains drawn to keep most of the intruding sunlight out.
Inside one of the upper rooms, an earth pony mare slept snugly under her covers. A very light snore escaped her mouth as she breathed out. She was not the earliest riser of the town’s population, but she was not the last. She lay on her side facing the window as she slept peacefully.
Her serene slumber was soon brought to an end as the sunlight had found a gap between the curtains. A narrow strip of golden light fell straight upon the mare’s face and gradually brought her to the waking world.
“Nuuuuhhh, just five more minutes,” the mare groggily mumbled. She rolled over to prevent the sunlight from hitting her face. It proved fruitless as the light and movement of her body was sufficient enough to rouse her from sleep. She attempted to sleep a few minutes longer, but sleep had evaded her.
The mare finally relented and sat up to gain her bearings. Her long, cream white mane fell messily in every direction from the result of bed head. Some of her mane fell over her face, but it was soon brushed away by a dark red hoof. With a grunt, she tossed the covers back and stepped out of her bed. Her long tail drug along the floor behind her as she headed down the hall to the bathroom. The mare looked at herself in the mirror. Her sleepy reflection looked back at her.
“Alright Axel Rose, you’ve got this! The day is yours!” after her self-motivation speech, Axle washed her face off with cold water to get the last of the sleep out of her eyes. She did her mane up into a bun, and then did her tail into a braid. This kept both her mane and tail out of the way when she worked. After doing her business in the bathroom, Axel went down to the kitchen area. There she prepared a mug of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar. The last of her tiredness disappeared now that she had some food in her belly.
Axel went over to the door on the side of her barn and undid the deadbolt. She then went over to the large double doors and unlocked one of two bigger deadbolts that held the doors shut. This was so she could open the doors easier by only having to undo one deadbolt. She still kept the door shut most of the time to prevent others from entering without her knowing. The last thing she needed was someone sneaking up on her while she worked. Every once in a while though she would leave them open to let the breeze in when she wasn’t working. She had a bell that customers or visitors could ring to let her know when they were at the door.
After unbolting the front door, Axel turned around and looked at the work she had for the day. Her job and talent was a wagonwright and repairpony. This was shown in her covered wagon cutie mark on her flank. Her shop dominated a large portion of the lower level of her home. What wasn’t the kitchen or main working area was storage for various tools and other wagons that were to be repaired. At that time, she didn’t have a lot of work for the day. Two wagons were in the shop. One was in progress of being repaired.
Axel trotted over to the wagon and picked up the tools she left nearby from the last night. The left rear wheel was where Axel had started her work. The wheel bearings had failed and caused that wheel to seize up like a park brake. Despite the locked up wheel, the owner drug the wagon to Axel’s shop the day prior. Axel recognized the problem and decided to fix the wagon the next day.
The job was simple enough, but the broken parts had caused the actual work to be difficult and time consuming. With the bearings seized the wheel would not spin and became quite the task to be removed. Axel had to use a hammer and chisel to smash the bearings apart to free the wheel from the hub. With the wheel removed, new bearings were greased and placed into the bearing cups in the wheel. The wheel was placed back onto the hub and the center hub nut was screwed into place. Overall, Axel didn’t have too tough of a time with her work thanks to her earth pony strength and well-built body.
After Axel had finished placing the wagon to the side, she wondered how long she took to make the repair. Her answer came in the form of a single “cuckoo” from said cuckoo clock mounted on the wall going up the stairway to the upper level.
“Wow, one o’ clock already? Jeeze, that took a little longer than I thought,” she said out loud to herself. Initially, Axel was curious as to why no one came along with any broken wagons for her to fix. The spring and summer and fall time was when wagons or carts were being used to move supplies around to prepare for the coming winter. Those months were the most strenuous on the wheels and axles and other load bearing parts of the wagon. During the winter her workload decreased slightly as ponies didn’t use the wagons very often.
In the end, Axel just figured it was a slow day. That type of thing happened to her from time to time. She looked over at the other wagon sitting in the ready line. The owner of that wagon was scheduled to come pick it up at around two thirty that afternoon. In the meantime, Axel waited around for other customers with wagon related issues to come to her shop.
Axel very rarely left her shop. She only left to make supply runs for new tools or parts. The farthest she had ever traveled was to Canterlot for a special type of lumber that was made from the pine trees that grew on the upper half of the mountain face. Her other travels took her to smaller towns in between but that was it. Save for one or two customers, all of her clientele were here in Ponyville. Axel didn’t have to go very far for work.
Axel stepped outside to get a breath of fresh air and wait until the owner of the other wagon came along. She stopped and leaned against the front wall of her barn. There on the wall hung a sign with writing on it saying “Axel’s Wheels and Wagons: Wagon Building and Repair”. Below that was writing stating the days and hours when Axel was open for business.
Axel lounged around until the owner was scheduled to come pick up his wagon. As she relaxed, she looked at the sky and the clouds as they drifted lazily in the wind. A few of the clouds took on familiar shapes in Axel’s mind. She was taken out of her imagining as she heard the cuckoo clock call out from inside signifying that it was two o’ clock. A little while later the stallion that dropped off the wagon yesterday came trotting up to Axel’s barn.
“Oh, you’re a little early,” Axel said to him as he approached.
“Ah, yeah my job let me off a little early to come get the company wagon,” the stallion responded.
“Oh yeah, that’s right!” Axel thought to herself. Up until a few minutes ago, Axel remembered that the repair job was a next day guarantee as the wagon was company owned.
“Alright, c’mon inside and we can do the paperwork.”
The stallion followed Axel inside to fill out the invoice for the repair work order. After that was accomplished, the stallion hitched himself up to the wagon and departed from the shop.
After everything was said and done, Axel looked over at the other wagon. That was when she remembered that the owner never scheduled a pickup time for when the job was done. The job on that one was actually easy in both senses. All Axel had to do was grease the bearings as they had started squeak. The owner was in such a hurry to return to work that a pickup time was never discussed. Axel figured she could just deliver this one and give the invoice to the owner when she got there.
Axel finalized her decision by grabbing the invoice, hitching herself to the wagon, locking up her shop, and head over to where the owner lived to return the wagon in person. Axel looked down at the invoice to see the address of the wagon’s owner. The owner, one of Axel’s regulars, was one Applejack of Sweet Apple Acres. That place was simple enough to find as it stood on the outskirts on the other end of town. Axel tucked the invoice into her saddlebags and continued her leisurely trot through town on her way to the Apple family orchard.