It would soon be Christmas and I was broke. My roommate Gwen, too, was broke. We worked for the City of Corvallis and it was all we could do just to make ends meet with our whopping $1.25 per hour. Gifts and a little celebrating were completely out of the question. We did have a beautiful duck all stuffed and in the freezer waiting for Christmas dinner, but we had no tree. We had no ornaments. We had no Christmas lights.

     We lamented the fact to Gwen's mother one day while visiting. "That's ridiculous, girls," she admonished us, "why don't you just ride out and cut one down?" I looked at Gwen. Gwen looked at me. Her parents owned acres and acres of land, including forest, in Philomath. Why in the world hadn't Gwen mentioned this as a possibility before now? "You know your dad cuts a tree every year from the woods there behind the horse barn."

     "But mom, how could he?" Gwen asked, "There aren't any trees there small enough for a house."

     "Don't be silly, sweetie," her mom smiled, "of course there are. They just aren't close in. You'll have to ride deeper into the woods. It'll be fun. It's too late today, though, it'll be dark soon. Why don't you plan on coming back next weekend? You can stay for dinner."

     Well, that cinched it. Neither Gwen nor I ever turned down a free meal. It was one of the ways we stretched our food dollars and a meal from Gwen's mom wouldn't include any misunderstandings about implied "strings." Both Gwen and I had become quite skillful in avoiding "pay-backs" after enjoying a nice meal. Surprisingly enough, young men thus rebuffed often invited us out a second time but rarely a third.

     The following Saturday, bright and early, we headed back to Gwen's folks' house. One of Gwen's friends from high school was there, too. It seems she had invited herself after hearing from her mother about our planned outing. Sue thought it would be "quaint" to chop her own tree.

     "Do you need help saddling up Scout?" Gwen asked me.

     "No thanks," I answered, "I think I'll ride bare-back if it's OK with you and Scout."

     "Suit yourself," Gwen shrugged and headed out to her horse with a saddle and blanket.

     The truth was, although I loved horses, I had done very little riding and knew absolutely nothing about getting a saddle on one. I figured if I could get myself on I'd be doing well and I was reluctant to admit what a greenhorn I was. I grabbed the reins and began efforts to get myself on the horse's back without a stirrup to help. Fortunately, Gwen was busy saddling her own mount and didn't notice me huffing and chuffing as I struggled vainly to vault or climb my way to the top. It seemed like any time I might make it, the horse somehow moved imperceptibly and I found myself still on the ground.

     "I sure don't need help," Gwen's chum said in a rather snotty voice, "I've been doing this for years. I'll bet I'm ready before you are, Gwen." With that, she whipped the saddle on and got it buckled in record time, besting Gwen handily. "See?" she crowed triumphantly. She turned her attention to me and snorted contemptuously.

     I was still on the ground. Something about that horse was making me just a bit uneasy. I could have sworn that after my last failed attempt the darn thing turned around and grinned at me. At least that's the way it looked when his top lip curled up. I wondered if horses actually laughed.

     "Here, girls," Gwen's mom was back in the barn, "your dad sharpened a hatchet for each of you. Would you mind each bringing a tree? That would save your dad from having to take time to cut one."

     "Mom," Gwen whined, "I don't know what kind of tree you want!"

     "Whatever you bring will be fine with me," her mother assured her with a smile and I felt positive she really meant it. "With no picky kids left at home I'll be happy with anything."

     "Oh, all right," Gwen conceded, "Come on. Let's get going," she added, swinging into her saddle as easily as most people walk. "Aren't you ready yet?" she asked rather impatiently, noticing for the first time that I was still earth-bound.

     "Oh," Gwen's mom said, turning to me, "are you riding bareback? Here, let me get you a saddle blanket and give you a hand up." With that, she tossed a thick blanket on Scout's back and cupped her hands together for me to step into. As I put my toe in her hands, she gave me a hefty boost and I clambered up on to my steed.

     "By the way," Gwen called back over her shoulder, "be careful of the trees." Now what in the world did she mean by that? We headed into the woods and, to her credit, Gwen's friend began a rousing and cheerful chorus of "O Christmas Tree." It was hard not to get in the spirit. This really would be fun . . . out in the crisp country air chopping our own trees!

     We had not ridden far when I began to regret the blanket Gwen's mom had provided for me. It kept slipping and I had to repeatedly adjust myself to "scootch" it back squarely on the horse's back. Since I was preoccupied with the blanket, I wasn't paying close enough attention to where I was going and I was getting slapped with small tree branches. One branch, larger than the others knocked me sideways and I almost lost my grip on the hatchet. Clinging more firmly to both the hatchet and the horse, I concentrated harder on my riding. I then noticed that the horse was going where he wanted to go, willfully stepping slightly sideways from the course I set and purposefully striding under those branches which were smacking me around.

     He managed to walk under every low-hanging branch he could find. He obviously knew exactly how high he was, though. Every branch he chose just cleared his ears but not my head. I hunkered down and hugged his neck, yanking harder on the reins to pull him away from the branches. He, however, was stronger than I and since I was no longer getting hit in the face, he decided to change tactics. He was smart. He began brushing along the side of the larger trees. First he'd scrape alongside a tree on the right and then one on the left. I had to keep pulling up one leg and then the other just to keep them attached. I felt like a puppet and Scout was pulling the strings!

     "Scout! Stop that!" I commanded the horse as he caught a tree on the right and I barely recoiled in time to save my leg. Scout swerved left.

     "I said knock it off!" I informed him in a no-nonsense tone, smacking him on the rump. He calmly looked back, grinned, grabbed the corner of the blanket in his teeth and pulled. Whump! I hit the ground before I had time to plan my landing. I saved the hatchet but not my pride.

     "Hey, are you coming?" Sue called from somewhere in the trees ahead of me. Maybe, just maybe they had not seen my ignominious dismount.

     "I think I found a pretty good tree here," I called back, rubbing my bottom. I looked around frantically to find a tree . . . almost anything would do but there was nothing. "Never mind," I shouted ahead, "it's too spindly." Fortunately for me, although there was no tree to chop, there was a sizeable stump. I utilized it to mount that contrary horse. Vowing to not let him get me again, I rolled the blanket up and clutched it in front of me along with the hatchet. I had to kick my leg free, though, when Scout turned and grabbed my pant leg with the clear intent of throwing me to the ground.

     I tucked both my feet up behind me and stuck to that ornery horse like a tick for the rest of our jaunt. I managed to find an acceptable tree with an accommodatingly large stump nearby. It didn't take long to chop down the Christmas tree and I had only to figure out how to balance an eight-foot tree in addition to the hatchet and blanket. Scout had finally decided that he was not going to be able to dislodge me again and had quit trying. He had also realized that we were headed home and chose to get there by the quickest route possible, charging at full-gallop through the trees. Three times I had to pick myself up off the ground when my horizontal burden exceeded the opening the horse had chosen. I refused to let go of the reins, however, and Scout didn't get away. I, too, could be persistent!

     We made a spectacular entrance, charging full-bore into the barn where the horse, now home, made an abrupt stop. "What in the world . . . " gasped Gwen's mom as the tree and I catapulted past her headfirst into the hay mow. "Are you OK?" she tugged on my legs to pull me out of the mow.

     "I'm fine," I answered a bit dryly, extricating my self from the straw, "Scout and I simply had a few differences of opinion."

     Gwen rode in then and calmly dismounted. "Well, here's your tree, Mom, what do you think?" Before she could answer, though, we heard a muffled screaming sound in the distance. It seemed to be heading our way.

     "Where's Sue?" Gwen's mom asked suspiciously, her eyes narrowing at Gwen as the screaming got louder.

     "Oh," Gwen answered airily, "she's coming." Then she smiled. "For someone who's been saddling horses and riding 'for years,' you'd have thought she would have had the sense to check the cinch better." There was something definitely lecherous about that smile. I could now clearly recognize Sue's voice in the continuous wail.

     "Gwen, didn't you warn her?!" her mother cried.

     Somehow Sue was homing in, whining like a Kamikaze at full throttle and running out of fuel. The sound kind of went "AAAaaaAAAaaaAAAaaaAAAaaa" rather at the speed of a canter. We all ran to the barn door. Sue's horse was just coming into view. The nearer it came, the more perplexed I became. It didn't seem to have a rider yet there was a tree sticking up above its back and that ear-piercing screech was definitely coming from the horse. Gwen collapsed on the ground, holding her stomach and laughing. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Her mother was having obvious difficulty keeping a straight face.

     As the horse cantered screaming into the barn, the sound caused the multitude of barn-cats to flee wildly in all directions. I finally discovered the snotty Sue, also. She was still in the saddle, clinging precariously to the belly of the horse, her head barely clearing the ground and at definite risk if the horse had chosen to gallop. I marveled at her tenacity. She really must have been a good rider to be able to stay seated while cantering upside down. She hadn't lost either the tree or the hatchet, either. My opinion of her actually climbed a notch.

     I'm afraid the feeling wasn't mutual. It's hard to be snotty and superior, even to a tenderfoot, when you're hanging upside down from your saddle. I gathered from what Gwen was gasping that you had to kick that particular horse in the stomach in order to cinch the saddle at all. Sue's gasps to Gwen were not as polite.

     "It'll be a cold day in hell before you see me again!" she spat my way, storming out of the barn. What did I do?

     Gwen and I had a very nice Christmas and I decorated our tree with lots of paper horses, all named Scout. I took great pleasure in skewering each one with a metal tree hanger. Fortunately, there haven't been any unexpected temperature fluctuations, either.