I Remember When...We Got A Pony

One evening in the late 60's, mom and dad got all of the kids in the car and said "we're going to the Comber auction". Well, you can imagine the groans and objections, an auction is no place to take a bunch of kids, but once we found out it was a livestock auction we changed our tunes. We can go see all kinds of animals, it wouldn't be boring after all.
What we didn't know is that dad had built a stall in the barn and was planning on buying a pony.
We had a blast at the auction, watching the horses and ponies, cattle, pigs, sheep etc. being auctioned off. Dad bid on a draft pony, dappled grey guelding with a white blaze on his forehead. He was huge, almost the size of a horse. Dad was the winning bidder, he bought us a pony and saddle for $56. His name was Starlight.
We took turns taking care of Starlight, we all curried, fed and watered him, but it was my dad and older brother who cleaned out the stall every day. Since we didn't have a fenced-in yard, we tied Starlight out on a lead beside the apple tree where we had our tree-house, that was the biggest open area with a lot of shade.
We had a lot of fun riding and taking care of Starlight that summer, but, one day Starlight started acting up, there was a mare a couple of fields over that was coming into season. He wouldn't listen to us, all he wanted to do was try and get to the mare. He started running around, circling the barn and almost trampled my sister. Dad finally got a rope on him and arranged for the previous owner to come and pick up the pony that day. We all missed Starlight but understood why he had to go. It was nice while it lasted.