It was a hot summer day on the orchard. Applejack was outside with her brother and her granny, trying to ignore the sweat tickling her nose as they waited near the gates to their home. It didn't help that there hadn't been any rain in the last several days, so all of the dirt and dust on the road leading up to them would kick up at the first touch of a breeze. Usually, she would be able to work the orchard for hours before calling it quits; now, though, with the heat and the dust and the gol-darn waiting, she felt ready for a bath and a snack. And it wasn't even time for lunch!
"It wasn't always like this!" Granny Smith declared. "Back in my day, we met indoors when discussin' new business deals! Ponies back then knew enough about hard work to know that ya can't always make it on time, so where's the point of wastin' time anywhere 'cept where it's comfortable?"
Her brother nodded, but he frowned as he did so, almost as if the simple act of nodding rubbed the dust on his body in a gross way.
Applejack shuffled on her hooves. "Ah can run back and get somethin' cool to drink, if y'all like!"
"Bah! And stand out here in the sun waitin' fer ya to fetch something from the nice cool celler? Why y'all'd probably just lollygag around down there for minutes more'n necessary! No can do, sugar seed, if we gotta burn up, you gotta burn up too!"
"But it ain't fair!" she protested. "Why should we wait out here in this blasting heat when our home is just a few minutes ahead? Can't we wait for them indoors? You just said..."
"Ayh know what Ayh said, Applejack!" her granny snapped. "It don't matter none! This trader said he wanted to meet the whole fam'ly, and Sweet Apple Acres is a fam'ly affair! We do this together, or not at all...and if we miss this trade, then we miss the harvests for the next two moons! So plant yer roots in the dirt and wait!"
Applejack turned to face the road, grumbling for a moment afterward. She didn't realize at the time, but her granny had totally missed her point. The trader could have met the whole family indoors just as easily as outdoors.
For several minutes, the three of them stood and waited. It eventually got so bad that Applejack began to see the waves of heat coming off of the road before them. She looked desperately at the sky for any patch of cloud. If only the local weather team would get its act together, they could enjoy just a little bit of shade.
To her side, Big Macintosh sneezed. "Eeyup," he said in defeat.
"Ayh think yer right, Big Mac," their granny said. "Somethin's gone sour. This is takin' too long."
Applejack took a step and scowled. "You're kiddin'! How can you tell that from him just sayin' one little word?"
Granny Smith shook her head, her graying mane bobbing with the motion. "Now, now, sugar seed, you'll learn all about it in due time. But fer now, we've got to change plans. Big Mac," she said with a tap on his shoulder, "grab yer tool bag. Ayh get the feelin' there's a problem down this road that can only be solved by a good whack!"
Great. The only thing worse than waiting in the heat was walking in the heat. Applejack had heard stories about ponies getting lost in deserts, and today felt like nothing less. Big Macintosh turned and began to trot back up the path to their home. She scowled some more, then started to pace back and forth as she waited again, this time for her brother to return. She couldn't help but feel a surge of jealousy: he would get some shade, at least for a minute.
"They'd better have a darn good reason for this!" she said with a firm kick to the dirt. Applejack instantly regretted that, as the dirt only flew around her and stuck to the sweat on her nose.
After a few minutes that might as well have been hours, Big Mac returned with his heaviest saddlebags. With barely a word, he started down the road at a steady pace. Applejack noticed that the sweat on his brow had lessened. The big red traitor probably grabbed a drink of water while he was there. She kept her thoughts to herself though, as she and her granny followed at his heels.
Turned out Granny Smith was right. It was a busted wagon wheel.
As soon as they saw the wagon, Big Mac put on a burst of speed. He closed the distance in a little over ten seconds, kicking up a bunch of fresh road dust for Applejack to breathe in. "Oh, horseapples!" she cried before sneezing.
Her granny walked up without so much as a sniffle. "Hellooooo?" she called. "Anypony 'round here? We can help y'all!"
"Nnnope," Big Mac answered. He gestured to the other side of the wagon, where—wouldn't ya know it?—an unmistakable trail of hoofprints was seen headed the other direction, back into town. They were alongside the ruts left by the wagon itself, where they all saw the point of failure. There were even some splinters from the spokes lodged in the dirt. In spite of losing a wheel, the wagon didn't suffer much damage at all. It just titled to one corner and rested there.
Applejack finished catching up. She stood next to her brother as he got to work. "Well ain't this peachy," she grumbled.
"Applejack!" her granny hissed. "Don't go 'round sayin' such vile things!"
She grimaced. In her family, the word 'peach' was something of a curse. It was a strange thing that she didn't understand, but she had stopped arguing about it years ago. "Sorry, Granny."
"Don't bother with bein' sorry. Make yerself useful and help yer brother, why don'cha?"
"But Granny! The ponies who were here went into town! Shouldn't one of us go an' try to find 'em?"
"Nnnope," came a deep answer next to her.
Granny Smith nodded. "He's right. There ain't no point in goin' to town, not to find two ponies. We don't know how long it's been since this wheel broke, an' we don't know where they would go! Better to stick around and wait for 'em to come on back."
"Ugh! And how long will that take?"
"Reckon we'll only find out by waitin'! Now plant yer roots, missy! The best trees are strong an' quiet!"
Applejack wasn't sure how it was possible, but waiting next to a broken cart was somehow even worse than waiting on an empty road. Maybe it was the fact that she now knew that the ponies they were waiting for were not around. Maybe it was just the occasional grunt from her brother asking her for help. Or, hay, maybe it was just because she was eager to be done with all of this wasted time. What did these new ponies have that they needed so bad after all?
Then she took a look inside their wagon, and she got her answer. "Are you pullin' mah leg??"
"What's got you all tangled up now?" Granny Smith called from the other side of the wagon.
Applejack stormed over with one of the wagon's contents slung across her back. She bucked it off and watched with satisfaction as it landed in a heap at her granny's hooves. "Seeds."
"Yup."
"Seeds."
"Yup."
"We've spent all mornin' out in this overbearin' sunlight, getting sweat and dirt on us without even workin' for it, and all just for bags of apple seeds."
"Yup."
Applejack broke. "Why, Granny? We live on an apple orchard! We have plenty of seeds! Why do we gotta have more?"
Granny Smith tittered. "Settle down, sour apple. Why don'cha take a look at what kind of seeds those are?"
She looked down and read the label aloud. "'Mixed braeburn, cortland, and red rome apple seeds.' What the hay are those kinds, and why are we sufferin' so much for 'em?"
"Oh dear," her granny said. "Mixed? That's unfortunate. We'll have to separate 'em before we plant 'em."
"Granny!"
"Yup."
A loud crack made Applejack jump in her skin. Behind her, apparently uninterrupted by the news, Big Mac had finished his repairs. He stood up with a roll of tape still between his teeth, then patted himself along the sides to knock off a new layer of dust. Without a word, he put the tape back into his saddlebags. In the same motion, he bent his head, took the bag of seeds, and casually tossed them back inside the wagon.
No sooner had he closed his mouth than the ponies they were waiting for returned. Like her granny had said, there were two of them: one with a bag of tools held in his mouth, and the other with a fresh wheel balanced on her back. When they saw the family, they each broke out into sheepish grins.
Applejack later learned that the seeds they were buying were bred to do well in the late-season harvest. Each of them grew better in the cold than many of their current varieties, which went a long way to keeping the family farm afloat when their stores ran low. It was still a long and aggravating task to separate each one into their own bins, and she swore she could feel a few that she had swallowed starting to sprout. Nonetheless, the seeds were planted the following day, and the Ponyville weather team brought in a summer storm that evening.
She never got to enjoy it, though. She was grounded for her outbursts.