“...it may not 'ave seemed la'k it at the time, but...it really made mah heart bleed, seein' y'all in such a sorry state.” Applejack paused, hanging her head with shame as she allowed a small tear trickle out of her eye. “But hidin' the truth from y'all......Ah just felt la'k such a cad!”
Caramel chuckled lightly. “I wouldn't say that. Sure, you may have twisted the truth a bit; but if that actually counts as lying, then that'd make the Flim Flam Brothers no better than a pair of serial killers – which they might as well have been, considering what nearly happened the last time they were here!”
Applejack shuddered again. “Tell me about it!” she agreed darkly. “It was bad enough that they managed ta trick me an' the rest of mah family with that stupid Miracle Curative Tonic fraud o' theirs, but if Ah hadn't found 'em out at the last minute...” she tailed off, her eyes narrowed and her teeth clenched with dread, guilt and anger, as the memory of how she had nearly lost Granny Smith flashed before her eyes.
Seeing the untold hurt in the farm pony's expression, Caramel gingerly lifted his injured foreleg out of its sling and rested it on her shoulder. “Take it easy, Applejack,” he soothed. “It's hardly your fault they were able to con you so easily, Element of Honesty or not. Those two charlatans pretty much had us all fooled until Silver Shill owned up to their trickery.”
“Ah know,” sighed Applejack unhappily, the tension fading slightly from her shoulders. “Ah just hate it when Ah come across as dishonest.”
“Well...nopony tells the truth all the time,” Caramel pointed out reasonably. “Mother once told me, for example, that fiction writers generally have to make up a few...sort of 'false truths' for every book they write; but it's what makes a good storyline, so we readers tend to just accept it and suspend our disbelief.”
Applejack looked thoughtfully up at the stars. “Ah never really thought about it la'k that,” she mused.
“Anyway,” went on Caramel, his face falling again, “if you really had been so dishonest that day, I probably wasn't much better myself when I started working for you guys.” He looked down at the grass as Discovery's unintentional insults played on his mind once again, accompanied by visions of spilt apples, broken fences, overturned carts and smashed barrels. “My first few days were okay, I guess – but then I was mainly dealing with snow-clearing and other odd jobs. When I was sent to help gather firewood for the homestead...well, that was a completely different story...”
Shortly after Hearth's Warming Day, Ponyville was caught in yet another blizzard, much heavier than the last. When morning came, the Apple Family awoke to discover that not only had a fresh layer of snow been added to the already thick blanket that had been smothering Equestria, but also that the fierce winds had uprooted a few trees just outside the perimeter of the top orchard.
Applejack was most annoyed at having to lose some of their crop, but knowing that the weather team probably had a good reason behind this unscheduled change in the weather, she grudgingly withheld her complaint and sent Caramel and Big Macintosh to see what they could so about the uprooted trees. The two stallions duly obliged, and set off to the top orchard with an empty cart and some tools.
As soon as they arrived, Big Macintosh carefully inspected the damage. “Just as Ah thought,” he said at last, shaking his head. “Them trees are way too far gone fo' us to replant.”
“Well that tears it,” sighed Caramel unhappily. “What'll we do now?”
“Only one thing we can do,” replied Big Macintosh simply, procuring a saw from his toolbox. Caramel didn't even bother to question him any further – he knew exactly what the red-furred draft pony was talking about.
Throughout that day, the two stallions were kept busy processing the remains of the fallen trees into firewood for the farmhouse. While Big Macintosh dealt with the job of cutting the trees into more manageable chunks of wood, Caramel would shuttle them back to the house before returning to the top orchard for a fresh load.
For Big Macintosh, it was a fairly routine activity despite apple harvesting and other crops holding sway over the task of woodcutting; but for some strange reason, Caramel didn't seem to be doing as well here as he had at previous farms. Whether it was eagerness or just frayed nerves as a result of frostbite, he had no idea – all he knew was that things were going embarrassingly wrong. Firstly, as he was loading the cart, he threw one of the logs aboard in such a way that it caused several others to spill out. Then he forgot to secure the tailgate properly before he made his first trip back to the farmhouse, and as he was making his way across the fields, it was forced open when one of his cart wheels bumped over a rock, and half his cargo was once again upset onto the snow-covered ground.
By the time evening drew in, both Caramel and his own pride had taken enough bruising to last him a lifetime. Not only had he made an absolute fool of himself, but he and Big Macintosh had been left with such a backlog that the rest of the woodcutting had to wait until the following morning.
“Some farm worker I turn out to be,” he muttered bitterly.
Big Macintosh gave the tan-coated stallion a wry smile. “Ah, don't y'all worry none, Caramel,” he said. “It's still early days yet.”
“I know, Mr Macintosh, but...”
“An' feel free to call me Big Mac, by the way.”
Caramel nodded absent-mindedly before continuing; “What beats me is that I've actually worked on several farms before coming here and never screwed up this badly. It's like I've just...lost my touch in a matter of a few hours.” He paused, gazing down at his hooves with shame. “Maybe working for you guys wasn't such a sensible idea after all.”
“Don't go so hard on yourself, Caramel,” soothed Big Macintosh. “Y'all actually did pretty good fo' a firs'-timer. 'Sides, we gonna need a' the help we can get here at Sweet Apple Acres; Granny Smith's gettin' a bit old fo' apple-buckin' nowadays, an' Apple Bloom's still way too young – not ta mention she has school work to be dealin' with – so normally it's just me an' Applejack runnin' the farm.” A small frown gradually leaked onto his face as he spoke. “Ah probably shouldn't say this,” he went on, “but there was one time a few months back when Ah had mah back injured by a fallen tree branch an' couldn't help with the apple harvest, which meant that A.J. had twice as much work on her hooves as she normally did.”
Caramel was so surprised that he nearly tripped over his own hooves. “What, all on her own?! But surely somepony else must have been around to help!”
“Oh...there were plenty of other ponies who could'a lent a hoof,” replied Big Macintosh gravely, “but Applejack can be a bit...well, stubborn sometimes. Even when Ah tried to point out that she'd need help gatherin' a' them apples, she refused to listen ta reason, an' nearly killed herself from exhaustion tryin' to harvest the whole lot single-hoofed. It was only thanks to a new friend o' hers – name of Twilight Sparkle, Ah think – that she managed to set 'er pride aside an' let anypony else help 'er with the harvest, an' even then it took a hay of a lot o' persuasion to bring 'er round.”
“Wow,” murmured Caramel feelingly. “Talk about a heavy burden!”
“Yo' tellin' me,” agreed Big Macintosh. “But that's the thing about mah sister – sometimes she just bites way more off of the apple than she can chew.”
The tan-furred young stallion nodded thoughtfully as he let the information sink in. Never in all his life had he realised that Applejack could be so headstrong even when the going became tough; but somehow, from what little he had picked up on her mannerisms while in Manehattan, it hardly seemed surprising. In any event, even though his work had been unusually sloppy that day, he found it reassuring to know he was still doing the Apple family a good turn.
But as the days trundled slowly by, Caramel soon found that his misfortune that day was by no means a one-off. Where most of his work on previous farms had been completed with the utmost efficiency, he no longer seemed able to make it through a complete working day without a mishap of some form; sometimes he would forget to bring along certain tools, while at other times he would inadvertently end up overturning his cart, breaking a fence or damaging an item of farming equipment. Understandably, Applejack found this most frustrating, and even though she tried not to go too hard on the tan-coated young stallion, he could easily see the annoyance in her expression whenever she spoke of his day's misadventures.
This served to dishearten him even further, and he would often lie awake on the couch in the living room until it was almost midnight, brooding over his seemingly endless misfortunes. How was it, he kept asking himself, that he had become so embarrassingly incompetent all of a sudden? Why did he no longer seem to exhibit the same dexterity and work ethic that he had done on so many other farms in the past? Was he really losing his touch – or was there another, far deeper reason behind his inexplicable clumsiness? No matter what the question or how long he spent pondering over it, the answer never came to him, and in the end he would simply doze off, leaving his mental self-inquest unsolved for yet another night.
During the winter months, various items of farming and other equipment were always gathered in the barn next to the farmhouse, ready for crop plantation during and after Winter Wrap-Up. Since there was barely any room left for the seed packets at ground level, Applejack and Big Macintosh would store them in the hay loft for the duration. Three months after his arrival at Sweet Apple Acres, Caramel was going through their supplies of seeds in readiness for crop plantation (and trying once again to work out a few answers to the drop in his competence) while Applejack inspected the many ploughs, sprinklers and other equipment awaiting deployment.
“How many packets o' carrot seeds is that so far, Caramel?” called Applejack from the floor of the barn.
Caramel furrowed his brow, trying to remember how many packets he had counted. “Uh...well over three thousand, I make it – and still counting,” he replied at last.
Applejack nodded, a smile of satisfaction on her face. “That ought ta do. Ya better make a start on the grass seeds.”
“Okay then,” conceded Caramel, turning to face the hay-bale on which he had left them.
As the young stallion began counting the packets containing the grass seeds, he couldn't help thinking about how big a change this new lease of life was turning out to be. In his youth, Winter Wrap-Up had always been a simple case of rallying the city's unicorn population together to melt the snow and ice, clear the skies and plant any required crops. Here in Ponyville, a far more rural town founded by Earth ponies, it had become a sacred tradition for its inhabitants to change seasons without directly using magic, a concept that would have met with strong disapproval if introduced into Manehattan.
But strenuous and time-consuming though this method seemed, Caramel thought it more of a blessing than a burden. Up until this point, none of his work on Sweet Apple Acres had been all that significant aside from the trees that he and Big Macintosh had had to cut up; but if he could do a good enough job on Winter Wrap-Up Day, that would more than show the Apple Family his true worth, and might even bring Applejack that little bit closer to remembering who he was. Heck, if he was really lucky, then maybe – just maybe...
“Caramel, what in tarnation are y'all doin'?!”
Caramel snapped abruptly out of his reverie, and was most dismayed by what he saw. Because he had been so distracted, he had accidentally knocked some of the seed packets over while counting them, with the result that their contents had spilt out and become embedded in the hay. From the barn floor, Applejack was glaring at him with an expression of disapproval stamped on her face.
“At what point, might Ah ask, did Ah say it was okay to hide them seeds in the hay?!” she demanded crossly.
The tan-furred stallion groaned and slapped an embarrassed hoof to his face. “Sorry, Applejack,” he apologised meekly. “I guess I just wasn't concentrating properly.”
Applejack rolled her eyes with an exasperated sigh. “Well, just make sure it don't happen again,” she replied firmly. “We've enough trouble as it is without havin' ta put up with lost crops.”
Caramel nodded meekly and went back to counting the grass seeds without another word. Secretly, he was a little confused; the way Applejack and the rest of the family had been talking earlier, it was as if they usually managed to clear winter away without a single fault, and now she was insinuating that they would be experiencing some sort of trouble? Was it something to do with the townsponies who would be pitching in on the whole Winter Wrap-Up business? Or was it all down to the maintenance of the farming equipment? He didn't know, but one thing was for sure – the job of clearing winter away in exchange for spring would clearly be a lot more daunting than he had bargained for...
Mercifully, everypony else's minds were focussed more on Winter Wrap-Up itself than whether they were missing any of the required tools and other commodities, so nothing more was said about Caramel's mishap with the grass seeds. All the same, Caramel was so ashamed of himself that he remained respectfully silent for the rest of the day.
A few days later, however, the tan-furred stallion's woes were quickly swept aside with the rising of the sun as Winter Wrap-Up dawned over Equestria. With a broad, eager smile and a growing sense of optimism, Caramel set about preparing himself for the big day; now, after so many months of dodging across the countryside, and spending the whole winter in Sweet Apple Acres, he would finally be able to show what an invaluable asset he could be to the orchard.
Before long, he was out of the farmhouse and making his way across town to join Applejack and Big Macintosh, who had already assigned him to work alongside them on the Plant Team. By this time, the other Wrap-Up teams were already out and about, clearing clouds from the sky, making new nests for the birds, sprucing up the setts, burrows and warrens in which other animals had spent the last three months peacefully slumbering away – even scoring the ice that covered lakes and ponds so as to allow it to melt more easily. As the young stallion trotted cheerfully through the snow-coated streets, he could hear the melodic, upbeat sounds of the other participants singing;
“Three months of winter coolness
And awesome holidays."
“We've kept our hoovesies warm at home.
Time off from work to play."
“But the food we've stored is runnin' out,
An' we can't grow in this cold.”
“And even though I love my boots,
This fashion's getting old...”
Caramel quickly caught the tune, and as the fourth line drew to a close, he merrily chipped in with a few lyrics of his own;
"The time has come to welcome spring,
And all things warm and green.
But it's also time to say goodbye;
It's winter we must clean.
And now's my chance to prove my worth;
Then Applejack will see,
That though I'm just a city pony,
A hard worker I can be..."
Some other ponies on the Plant Team were hard at work clearing snow from the fields, and others were making last-minute checks on the ploughs and sprinklers in readiness for crop plantation. As soon as Caramel arrived at the Town Square, he was instructed by Applejack to go and help two other stallions plant some of the grass seeds around Chevalier's Bluff, on the western side of town. With a broad, eager grin and an obedient nod, he gathered a few seed packets into one of his saddlebags and followed the other two ponies out to the bluff. Predictably, given how much snow they had had, the snowplough teams were still hard at work by the time the three stallions arrived; but luckily, there were a few extra snowploughs going spare, so Caramel and his two team-mates took a snowplough each and went to help the others clear the fields.
It was hard work, but the young stallion refused to let the heavy drifts hold him back; if he could handle an ordinary plough on other farms, he kept telling himself, then a snowplough shouldn't be any different. But in spite of his resolve, after only an hour's worth of hard graft, it came as a deep disappointment when he found out that he had only cleared about a tenth of the snow away.
“Good grief!” he panted. “I never thought snowploughing could be this demanding.” He gazed down at his front hooves, thoroughly disheartened. “Who am I kidding? This is way more than I can handle. I might as well have just been assigned to something more menial, like nest-making or...” but then he heard Applejack cheering him and everypony else on, and remembered his resolution.
“Come on, Caramel, you stupid!” he growled, slapping himself on the fetlock. “What good are you gonna do by just standing here feeling sorry for yourself?! Now get that snowplough going, you spineless prawn!!!” and with an almighty heave, he forced his snowplough back into motion. Little did he or any of the others realise, however, that their work was about to become horribly undone.
Caramel was just approaching the middle of the field when he heard a frantic yell from nearby. Startled, he turned his attention to the source of the shout, and was taken even further aback by what he saw – one of the other snowploughs seemed to have come to life, and the lavender-coated unicorn mare who should have been operating it was desperately fighting for control. But no matter how hard she tried, the snowplough refused to slow down.
“RUNAWAY SNOWPLOUGH!!!” yelled one of the other stallions, and the rest of the team brought their own snowploughs to an abrupt halt as the renegade careered right past them, just missing Caramel. The tan-furred young stallion could only stand and stare in disbelief as the scene unfolded before his eyes, further shouts emanating from a huge snowball that had formed in front of the snowplough – but then his confusion turned to horror as he realised that it was headed straight for the bluff.
With a loud, splintering crash, the snowplough crashed right into the bluff, sending up a plume of powdered snow and water vapour as the snowball disintegrated. Then, suddenly, there was a deep rumbling sound as the impact shook more snow loose, triggering a huge avalanche. Panic-stricken, Caramel leaped clear from his snowplough and ran as far away as he could manage, never once looking back at the mass of snow that was chasing after him. Several team-mates followed, desperately trying to get out of harm's way before the avalanche caught up and buried them.
Luckily, it didn't. After only a quarter of a minute, the rumbling noise slowly died down until the only sounds that could be heard was a soft breeze. Cautiously, Caramel glanced over his shoulder – sure enough, the avalanche had stopped just a few yards short of him and his team-mates. He breathed a huge sigh of relief; “That was a close call.”
“Everypony alright?” Big Macintosh came sprinting onto the scene from across the fields. He had been supervising another snowplough team at a nearby meadow, and had seen everything.
“We're okay, Mac,” replied a two-tone grey stallion, whose Cutie Mark consisted of three four-leaf clovers. “A few bruises, but at least nopony's been buried, that's the main thing.”
Big Macintosh frowned as he surveyed the huge snow-bank that had built up during the avalanche. Clearly it would take a long time to clear that lot away and extricate the buried snowploughs. “Hmm,” he mused. “Seems we gonna run late again unless we get them snowploughs out. Better git a move on, y'all.”
“Will do,” said a brown, blond-maned stallion; and with that, the team set to work clearing the snow away from their ploughs.
Caramel rolled his eyes crossly. “Well that's just great!” he muttered. “First I find I'm not as fit as I was when I first started working on farms, and now I'm going to be late sowing these dratted grass seeds, all because of some...” but he never finished. Looking back towards his saddlebags, he noticed that the one on his left, into which he had placed his seeds after the briefing, had somehow been torn wide open in his rush to escape the avalanche. The young stallion immediately forgot about the snow and began digging frantically through the saddlebag, hoping to goodness that he hadn't lost anything.
But horror of horrors, he quickly came to discover that he had. The single most important thing he should have had on him, and it had gone. For a few moments, he could do nothing but sit and stare in disbelief as this damning realisation struck him like a runaway train, until at last it came out in a piercing yell of despair; “WHERE ARE MY GRASS SEEDS?!?”
The remainder of the snowplough team abruptly stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at Caramel in alarm. Big Macintosh trotted over, a worried look on his face; “What's wrong, Caramel?”
“My grass seeds have gone!” wailed Caramel. “I had them in my saddlebag a few minutes ago, but I must have ripped it open somehow when I abandoned snowplough!”
The red-furred draft pony's eyes widened. “Ya sure ya put 'em in the one y'all 'ave been lookin' through just now?”
“Positive!” insisted Caramel, almost in hysterics as a result of his blunder. “I put them in there immediately after the briefing!”
“Okay, Caramel, just calm down,” soothed Big Macintosh patiently. “Where exactly were you at the time o' the avalanche?”
Caramel paused, trying to remember his exact position prior to the other snowplough crashing into the bluff. “Uh...about twenty yards away from the bluff, I think,” he replied at last.
“An' what exactly did y'all do when the snow started slippin' down the slopes?”
“Just leapt clear and ran for it,” answered Caramel simply, hanging his head in shame. “I never realised for one moment that I might catch my saddlebag on anything sharp – but it looks like I might well have done.”
“I see,” said Big Macintosh gravely. “Well, Ah don' really see much hope in tryin' ta dig 'em out – them grass seeds are as good as gone. We're just gonna have ta go find Applejack an' ask 'er fo' some more.”
Caramel recoiled nervously. “Are you sure about this, Mac?” he asked uneasily. “She was pretty annoyed with me the first time I lost them; what if she gets all angry at me for dropping them a second time? She might fire me for all I know!”
“Well, we ain't gonna get anywhere by just standin' 'ere frettin' about what mah sister might say,” replied Big Macintosh reasonably. “We don't get fresh seeds, then that field might as well be left fallow – an' we can't allow that, can we?”
With an unhappy sigh, Caramel accepted his defeat with a gloomy nod. “Alright then, Mac,” he murmured. “If you say so...”