The number of oak, chestnut, and walnut trees around Applejack dwarfed the number of apple trees that existed on Sweet Apple Acres. Thus the amount of ponies needed to gather up all the acorns, chestnuts and walnuts from them was quite high. So Mr. Woods really had no problem with a pony offering to do some work for nothing more than a place to stay the night and a quick meal.
Meaning Applejack now found herself bucking trees and picking up all the nuts and seeds that came from them along with about ten other ponies that normally did it. Mr. Woods was all about speed so as long as the job could get done as quick as possible and the acorns, chestnuts and walnuts could be boxed up or jarred up and shipped off wherever they needed to go he was a happy stallion.
Compared to her apples it was a little different to get all the walnuts off a walnut tree and such but with her applebucking skills and Hoof of the Earth Applejack could do it easily. Even more than the strawberry harvest it felt good to her to do this kind of work.
She reached up to tilt her hat back and-
“Oh, right.” Applejack said to herself as her hoof waved through empty air. “Never gonna get used to this.” Instead she started absentmindedly tugging at the lasso hanging from around her neck.
It was a few more hours of work that Applejack and all the other ponies had to put in but they eventually made it through all the trees. Now their bags, buckets, and barrels were full and being loaded onto the various wagons to be brought back to Woods’s warehouses. Each wagon had a big stallion attach themselves to it and pulled it along while Applejack and the other workers walked with it. Applejack would’ve been fine with just her own thoughts to occupy her but another earth pony decided to start chatting her up to pass the time.
“So my name’s Swift Swish, I normally make nets but every time there’s a harvest I come out here for the extra cash. What about you?” The brown and fairly plain looking pony with a net for a Cutie Mark asked her.
“Well my name’s Applejack, I was just passing through here and figured I could chip in to help out and get myself a nice place to rest and eat for a day or so. And I’m a farmer by the way, me and my family grow apples.” Applejack politely said back to him, even though she was a bit tired of all this repetition.
“Oh, apples huh? I had one of those yesterday. Pretty good.” Swift Swish nodded along.
“Sure are.”
It took her about ten more seconds to process what had just been said.
Applejack spun around and grabbed Swift Swish by the shoulders, shoving her face into his.
“What did you just say?!”
The other ponies around them were a little weirded out but kept walking. Meanwhile Swift Swish was nervously glancing around, confused and a little afraid of Applejack now.
“W-What do you mean?” He finally squeaked out.
“Apples! You know what apples are, you said you had one! Where?!” Applejack practically screamed in his face as she shook him back and forth.
“S-Stop!” His eyes went loopy as she shook him hard enough to knock his brain around. “It was just yesterday! Some pony was selling them out the back of his wagon, he said he traveled all over the world and had stuff to sell if we wanted it! I was hungry so I bought one of those apple things from him.” Instantly he felt himself let go of and Swift Swish collapsed to the ground in a dizzy heap. He looked up to see Applejack staring blankly ahead of her, eyes unfocused as they looked at something a million miles away.
“Where’s this pony now?” She finally said, still staring ahead unblinkingly.
Swift Swish was a little afraid to respond in case it might set her off again but he shakily raised a hoof and pointed down through the orchard to the main road outside it that led back up to town.
“He said he was leaving today, he might have already headed out.”
Unlike her normal polite nature Applejack didn’t even thank him, she ran off to the road, ignoring all the nuts she had harvested and the promise of a place to stay, none of that mattered anymore. Applejack had apples to find.
She ran faster than she ever had before as the trees zoomed by her. Once she had found the road she went running down it in the direction out of town, it didn’t matter that this was the way she had came in and now she was essentially going backwards. It would all be worth it if she could just catch up to that traveling pony.
The cloud of dust she was kicking up would’ve looked like a cyclone blowing through, Applejack’s hooves thumped loudly on the dirt road with each bound, the ground practically being torn up from how hard she was running over it. But finally in the distance she saw it. It was just a dot now but it grew larger as she approached it, still running full speed to catch up to that wagon.
“Waaaait!” Applejack yelled as she came up beside the much slower going wagon, skidding to a stop in front of it and digging big trenches in the dirt with her hooves.
Applejack was breathing heavily as she looked up at the large wagon, it was easily twice the size of a normal wagon and covered with a large tent but was still being easily pulled by a single earth pony. The pony who came to a stop right in front of the panting and sweating Applejack.
“I say, I say, I do say indeed, just what indeed could you want with me? From high or low to run so fast, what could you want that I might have?” The tall and thin stallion with a murky white coat and red mane said as he looked down at her.
Applejack ignored his somewhat weird way of speaking. “Apples! Do you have any apples?! I heard you did!” She asked frantically, eyes nearly bugging out at him.
“Apples? Apples? Apples indeed, I do not have any apples with me. Gone are they, gone all soon, in the stomachs of those who were hungry, unlike you.” He said, shaking his head.
The poor apple farmer closed here eyes and groaned, stamping her hooves on the ground. “Are you kidding me right now!” She yelled at the sky.
“Kidding, kidding, who here? Unfortunately no, no one here. Apples are gone, I as well, traveling again as I feel.”
Applejack’s eyes cracked open as she frowned at him. “Could you stop talking like that?”
“Indeed, indeed, indeed I could, but I say, I say, I say no ma'am.” The stallion shrugged at her.
“That didn’t even rhyme!” Applejack accusingly shoved a hoof at him.
“Rhyme? Rhyme? I could do it any time, but rhyme is no reason I talk, rhythym, rhyme, mood, my mouth opens without any indeed.”
Applejack’s hoof smacked into her face and she sighed. “Okay, whatever, if you don’t have any apples can you at least point me in the direction you got them from?” She asked the strange pony with exasperation and wary hope dripping from her voice.
“Directions? Directions? Directions indeed, one needs direction for a place they’ve already been? I say, I say, Applejack needs to know where to get back to Ponyville? How so? Quite wrong, that one is so lost, so lost, yet it is so.” He sighed sadly as well and shook his head.
But Applejack wasn’t bothered by that at all.
“Ponyville?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “You just said Ponyville didn’t you?” She looked up at him with big wide eyes, any annoyance at the traveling pony completely gone.
“Quite, quite, quite indeed. Ponyville is a place I’ve been, apples are not what Applejack needs, directions it seems indeed.”
“Where! Where’s Ponyville!” Applejack barely held herself back from grabbing who she was talking to this time. She sat back onto the ground, practically falling over, and tugged at her mane.
“Ponyville, I say, it is no trouble, follow where I point and stay straight as an arrow.” The strange pony raised a hoof and pointed off behind him, past where the town they had both come from was. “Through mountain, river, forest, town, any obstacle around, you stay this direction, stay steady and true, and Ponyville will be found by you, yes you.”
Applejack unsteadily rose to her hooves, shaking, and muttering to herself, practically unbelieving that things may be ending so simply for her. “I… I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Thank? Thank? Indeed no thanks, I help all who need it. Whether good or bad or big or small, my help is there for all. What ponies need what help indeed, I say I do give it all yes quite indeed.” The pony just shrugged.
“Well, anyways, thank you. I’m uh… I’m gonna get going now.” Applejack started walking off in a daze down the direction he pointed her.
“Oh wait, oh wait, Applejack please, there is one more thing you need.”
Applejack turned back to see the strange pony holding a brand new Stetson hat.
“How did you-”
“I have, I have, what ponies need and Applejack without a hat is no Applejack indeed.” He tossed it to her so it perfectly floated on the air and landed on her head. “I help, I help, and that is me.”
Applejack ran her hoof around the hat, feeling every last inch of it. It was perfect. It felt and looked just like her old one, she wouldn’t have been surprised if it somehow was her old one. Grabbing her lasso she stuffed it back under her hat and tipped it back, giving a happy and confident grin to the strange pony that had given this gift to her.
“Well thanks for that too. Who are you anyways?” She had to ask.
“I believe, I believe, I say, I say, I am Harlequin Red at your service.” He bowed to her and then just as quickly went back to walking down the road, pulling his wagon along as if Applejack wasn’t even there anymore.
Applejack was fine with that, she gave a quick salute and headed back on the way to Ponyville. She wasn’t taking any chances of getting turned around or going the wrong direction so she stayed as straight as he told her to. Walking on the imaginary line from where he pointed his hoof, it didn’t matter that there was no road and probably a bunch of natural obstacles on the path ahead of her. Applejack would keep walking exactly straight forward towards Ponyville. Her hooves kicked up gravel beneath her as she walked up the nearby rocky hill, just one more thing to conquer.
Home sweet home...