A country boy of ten living near Boneville was, recently, walking to his house in the vicinity of a large oak tree, when a violent storm arose. The boy took refuge beneath the tree scant moments before it was struck by lightning, sending the boy tumbling to the earth, as if lifeless, his clothes smoked to cinders. Fortune smiled upon the child that day, however, for his quick-witted father, having witnessed the event, was able to revive him by means of a fireplace bellows. The child remained unaltered by the experience afterward but for one peculiar souvenir—an image of the tree had become emblazoned upon his back! This “daguerreotype by lightning” is one of several documented in recent years, making it yet another wondrous curiosity of science.
On the following page commences Chapter 1 which opens with the first-person narrator—the country boy written about above—informing the reader that it was this brush with death which stimulated his father’s interest in the “photographic sciences.” He then proceeds to assert that it is his father’s absolute immersion in all things having to do with photography which is the fuel powering the narrative. Note, however, that he specifies “photographic sciences” rather than simply saying photography. What happened to his son’s body as a result of that experience drives his father toward becoming a highly regarded master of not daguerreotype, but irontypes as Pa calls them.
I have already mentioned that Mittenwool is a ghost, but I’m not entirely sure that’s the right word for him. Spirit. Apparition. Fact is, I don’t know what the right word for him is, exactly. Pa thinks he is an imaginary friend or some such thing, but I know that’s not what he is. Mittenwool is as real as the chair he sits on, and the house we live in, and the dog. That no one but me can see him, or hear him, doesn’t mean he’s not real.
The novel is a strange—some might say eclectic—commingling of different genres. On the one hand, it is a western or it is really historical fiction set during the frontier days? As the title strongly indicates, it is also an animal story, of course. But what may be most surprising to anyone coming it only from the perspective of the title is that it is also a ghost story. Of a sort, anyway. As the quote here indicates, even the narrator is not entirely sure what the call his near-constant companion. Still, ghost seems to be the go-to referential term, so that will seem to apply best. Regardless of exactly what Mittenwool actually may be, the point is that he is an integral element of the story and that means this not just some horse opera.
People don’t think of horses as being roaring creatures, like lions or elephants, but that really was the sound Pony made as he pummeled Rufe Jones with his hooves. He was roaring. Mouth frothing. Eyes open wide.
The pony of the title also exists on a level that is set apart from the realistic realm of most stories such as this. Silas believes fervently that there is a connection to the pony that exists on a sphere well apart and away from the normal relationship between humans and animals; even beyond the sphere of such intensely close animal relationship that serve as the underpinning of fiction. The pony, Silas believes, has arrived specifically for him with an agenda in mind. Throughout the book, there are passages such as these that situate the horse as something over than mere four-legged beast of burden.
