They were small like most baby goats and they went freely back and forth between the fence boards, going in and out of their pasture where they were supposed to stay. Especially Pixie. Pixie was half LaMancha and half Nigerian but she had a certain Nubian quality, a surprised look that never seemed to go away. She wasn't shrewd like a Nigerian or managerial like a LaMancha. She was mildly astonished like a Nubian.
"My goodness," her expression always seemed to say. She walked down into the Old Lady pasture and looked at the Old Ladies, many of them down on their pasterns and looking a little motheaten and worse for wear, especially the very old ladies. But Cherry was there too, Pinky's twin, and she was more of a Middle-Aged Lady, and she looked at Pixie with an air of dim surprise. Pinky got the brains in the family, and Cherry got all the Nubian. They are Betsy granddaughters, and that makes them one-eighth Nubian. But Cherry got the whole eighth and Pinky is a LaMancha through and through.
Anyway Cherry looked at Pixie and she said, "My Goodness."
And Pixie said, "My Goodness."
They blinked at each other.
"Are you my daughter?" Cherry asked. Cherry didn't have any babies this year or last year or even the year before, because of everything, and she wasn't very pleased about it. In fact she did not believe it.
"Yes," said Pixie.
"I thought so," said Cherry, and she came into her magic trance milk.
Not a lot of milk, since Golly was bulging with milk. But just enough. Just barely enough. That is all you need anyway.
So Pixie has one mother, and she also has another mother, a mother from another planet.
The distant Planet Nubia, so near and yet so far. Twinkling out there in the Milky Way.
