Visitors to the psychiatric section of Seton Hill Manor nursing home in downtown Baltimore are warned by staff not to believe everything the patients say. Today they may be telling an unbelievable story:
A horse walked in here yesterday.
Oh yeah, so what color was it?
Well, it's hard to tell, you see, because the horse was wearing this bright red Santa Claus suit and a little Santa hat. It brought Christmas gifts with it.
It walked into the room? How did it get through the doorway?
Well, it was just a little horse, not much taller than the bed frame.
And the patients would be telling the truth, because yesterday everyone at Seton Hill Manor got the chance to meet Ralf, a miniature horse of an Argentine breed called Falabella.
Ralf is a shaggy gray mare who stands less than 3 feet high at the shoulder and spends her free time -- 50 weeks a year -- at the Misty Manor Farm near Clarksville in Howard County.
Yesterday, Ralf was out doing her once-a-year job and being very ladylike about it.
On Seton Hill Manor's fifth floor, she got off an elevator and immediately brought smiles to the AIDS patients who live there.
"It's so pretty and white," said Anthony Edwards, 32, who sat in a wheelchair near the elevator, struggling to crack a smile.
Ralf was led by the halter into each room by Judy Reinke -- Misty Manor's owner and the founder of Ralf Anonymous, the volunteer group that brings the horse for Christmas visits to the homeless, the mentally ill and the infirm.
In some rooms, the gaunt patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome barely had the strength to react. It was all they could do to stretch their bony fingers out to touch the horse's nose through the bars of their bed railings.
But Brandon Faulkner Sr., a relatively vigorous 32-year-old AIDS patient, got up immediately when he saw Ralf walk into his room.
Wide-eyed, he leaned over and petted the horse's face.
"Y'all just made me feel better -- I was feeling kinda down," he told Ms. Reinke and one of the Ralf Anonymous volunteers, 51-year-old Wayne Ivester of Columbia.
"Don't be scared of me, I won't bite you," Mr. Faulkner said.
"Ralf's not scared of anything," said Bea Reynolds, a Ralf Anonymous volunteer from Reisterstown.
It was Ms. Reynolds' work 13 years ago in another nursing home that helped start Ralf Anonymous. "I brought the first Ralf there, and we've been doing it ever since," she said.
Meanwhile, though Ralf had moved on, Mr. Faulkner was still smiling.
"I've never seen a horse, little, like that. Only fully grown," said Mr. Faulkner, who moved to the nursing home eight months ago from his Baltimore home.
A few minutes later, Mr. Faulkner got out of bed and ventured into the hallway in his striped pajamas, looking for the horse.
Ralf was easy to find -- she was accompanied by a caravan of volunteers with blinking-light tassels on their Santa hats. Each helped push laundry bins filled with presents.
Ralf Anonymous this year raised more than $6,000 for presents, and some of that was used to buy about 1,000 presents to distribute to residents of Seton Hill Manor.
Mr. Faulkner found Barbara Katz, the nursing home's activities director, and hugged her, saying, "You just made my day."
Ms. Katz gives most of the credit to Ms. Reinke, who runs the farm that's been home to both Ralf and her male predecessor of the same name. He died in 1991 of old age.
Not only does Ms. Reinke bring Ralf on holiday visits, but she's opened up her farm to nursing-home residents who want to ride.
"One of the residents who lived here used to ride horses," Ms. Katz said. "All he wanted to do was ride a horse again."
Ms. Reinke allowed him and several other Seton Hill Manor residents to ride for free at her farm in August.
"When he got off, he was thanking her and thanking her," Ms. Katz said. That resident, an AIDS patient, died last month, she said.
Another AIDS patient, 42-year-old Roslyn Johnson, stood in the hallway yesterday waiting for Ralf and a chance to get her picture taken with the little mare.
"This is beautiful. I have never been up that close to an animal before," she said. "When I was a child, I'd say, 'I's scared, I's scared!' " and never get near vendors' ponies.
But yesterday, months after AIDS had forced her out of her home and almost blinded her, the fear was gone. "Life is beautiful," she said.