My dear, suppose you let our friend Sutro, here, ride home and tell your people that I am going to keep you for dinner? Then they will not be anxious, and we will have leisure to consider this matter thoroughly. What do you say?” The Judge’s tone, addressing Steenie, was as grave and considerate as if she had been Madam Calthorp herself, and it restored her wounded pride at once.
Nobody likes being laughed at, least of all a child, about whose earnestness there is never any pretence. “Baby” had been a hard word for ambitious ears to hear.
“Thank you. I should be as glad as glad to stay! If—my grandmother said I was never to ’trude upon your ‘family life;’ that just ’cause you asked me to study with Beatrice, I mustn’t forget an’ be too—something or other. It meant I mustn’t go round an’ be a ‘noosance,’ like Sutro is to Mr. Tubbs.”
“‘Noosance’! She couldn’t be a ‘noosance,’ could she, Papa Courtenay?” cried Beatrice, dancing gayly about her friend, delighted with the prospect of a visit.
“Never,” responded the Judge, cordially. “Señor Vives, it is settled, then. Please convey my regards to Madam Calthorp and her son, and say to them that I will give myself the pleasure of calling upon them toward nightfall, and will bring this little girl with me. Your own affair—the legal document—shall, also, be duly arranged. Good day.”
“I have the happiness to salute thee, Señor Juez. In verity, I am proud of the honor done my little one. I will discharge thy message immediately. Ten thousand thanks. Adios.” With the lightness of youth the old Spaniard sprung upon Tito’s back, doffed his sombrero, bowed profoundly, and rode cheerfully away.
“How funny! It’s a side-saddle, too,” said Beatrice.
“Yes. But that makes no difference to my caballero. He can ride in any way on any animal, and always well. My father says he is a wonderful old man; but he doesn’t seem any older ’n me, I think. He’s very good an’ dear. My grandmother says ’at Sutro is worth everything to my father now, in his blindness.”
“I should think so, indeed! And now for dinner. After that—for a talk about this teaching business. A race to the house! Here we go! And a box of that coveted ‘Huyler’s’ to the winner! Step—step—step! One—two—three! Off!” Away flashed the gay frocks, up and down flew the little black-stockinged legs, and long before the Judge had covered half the distance, the children sat cuddled together on the piazza-step, hugging each other in the exuberance of their love and happiness. “It’s so puffectly nice to have a little girl, same’s me!” cried Steenie, ecstatically. “I used to have the ‘boys’ an’ nobody else. I didn’t know ’bout girls, then, an’ the ‘boys’ are dear as dear! But I like girls, now I’ve seen ’em,—some girls.”
“Me? Do you like me?”
“Course I do. Wasn’t I just telling you? Say, would you like to ride in a circus?”
“My—sake! No! Would you?”
“Course. I have,—lots of times.”
“Why—Steenie—Calthorp! Where? When? How? Who let you?”
“Out home. Santa Felisa. Ever so many whens. Last one, just before we came away; to show the Plunketty man—Lord—what his own ranchmen could do. My father let me. Course.”
“Was he nice?”
“Who?”
“The Plunketty man-lord. What is a man-lord, any way?”
“Think I didn’t say it right. I mean lord-man. That is an Englishman. My father says he can’t find land enough in their little bit o’ island to buy, so he came to California an’ bought San’ Felisa. But he didn’t come again for twelve years, a’most. An’ I never saw him, an’ then I did; an’ he didn’t wear a cor’net at all! And he laughed like anything when I told him what Suzan´ said. An’ he ’xplained beautiful. He does have the cor’net, but he doesn’t have it for himself. It’s his houses’. An’ sometimes the women of ‘his house’ wear it, when they ‘want to make a stunnin’ show of theirselfs.’ But mostly they ‘have more sense,’ an’ leave it where it b’longs, ’mongst the family plates an’ ‘gew-gaws.’ That’s what he told me.”
“Gew-gaws? Ginger! Was he a really, truly, lively lord? Was he?”
“Live as anything. Live as you. Live as me or your papa. But, Beatrice, you shouldn’t say ‘ginger.’ My grandmother says it’s not c’rect to use ’spressions.”
“But there is—ginger! The cook puts it in molasses-cake. So there!”
“Well. It’s c’rect enough to eat, I s’pose. But little gentlewomen should show they’s little gentlewomen by their languages. So my grandmother says, an’ she knows. ’Cause she knows everything in this whole world.”
“She couldn’t! She isn’t big enough. My papa says nobody knows everything. An’ he talks mostest ’bout grammar, not gentlewomens. He wouldn’t let you say ‘hisself’ or ‘theirselfs,’—I mean if he could help it. ’Cause he wouldn’t me. An’ I know better ’n you, you see, ’cause I’ve been teached longer.”
“Well, I s’pose you do. Though my grandmother’s c’rected me lots o’ times ’bout them very same words. I—Only I forget. My forgettery is always easier ’n my memory. Isn’t yours? An’ anyhow I don’t know anything, ’cept ’bout horses. But I know more ’bout them ’an I could tell you ‘in a month o’ Sundays.’”
“How long is a ‘month o’ Sundays?’ When does it come? Before Christmas?”
“I don’t know. Mary Jane knows. She talks ’bout it. An’ it comes—why it must come any time! ’Cause when Mr. Resolved goes to market she tells him not to be a ‘month o’ Sundays,’ or she can’t get the dinner cooked in time. And—lots—Here’s your papa! Oh, I tell you I love him! He’s so dear.”
“You needn’t! He isn’t yours. You can’t have him,” cried Beatrice, feeling her young heart swell with jealousy.
“But I can love him, can’t I? If you couldn’t love my father you would be funny. And, oh, isn’t it happy to be so glad! Most always, anyhow, I think this is an awful nice world. Folks are so cosey an’ kind.”
“An’ I don’t think it’s nice one bit. You’ll get the candy; I know you will. You got here first!”
“Well—if I did? Wouldn’t I give you half,—the evenest half we could measure? S’pose I’d want it if you didn’t have it too? Say, s’pose they’ll be dinner enough?”
“What do you mean? Course they will.”
“Then I’m glad. But you see they didn’t know I was coming; an’ Mary Jane says I’m the ‘beatenest eater for a little girl she ever saw;’ an’ sometimes when comp’ny comes to my grandmother’s she scolds, Mary Jane does. ’Cause she says: ‘I have enough cooked for my own folks, but not enough for my neighbors,’ an’ it makes her angry. An’ my grandmother says, solemn-like: ‘Ma-ry-Ja-ne!’ an’ then Mary Jane goes in the kitchen an’ bangs things around; an’ Mr. Tubbs laughs, an’ she gets madder, an’—I shouldn’t like to make your cook feel that way.”
“Don’t you be afraid! You can have all you want to eat; an’ if they isn’t enough you can have mine, too. I ain’t ever hungry.”
“My! Thank you. You’re a lovely, nice girl. But I wouldn’t eat it. Why aren’t you hungry? There’s the bell!”
Away they ran dinner-wards, and found the Judge rehearsing to his wife the incidents of the morning, and evidently something of Steenie’s ambition; for the lady bestowed upon the child a caress more cordial even than usual, and called her a “dear, brave, helpful little thing.”
There proved to be not only enough of food but to spare; and when the meal was over Judge Courtenay retired to his office with his secretary, while the children went into the parlor, where Steenie was asked to tell her hostess all about her desired “riding-school,” and what had suggested it to her.
“It was the blacksmith made me think about it, when he shod Tito. He said I ‘ought to;’ an’ I s’pose maybe he knows ’bout my father being blind, an’ my grandmother an old lady that never did anything but read books, an’ they both being so ‘helpless,’ Mr. Tubbs says. But he, Mr. Resolved, thought I was ‘helpless,’ too; only I don’t want to be. ’Cause I’m not old nor blind, an’ I’m strong as anything. But I don’t know very much, ’cept ’bout horses; an’ I do know ’bout them, way through. So—well, you see—after the blacksmith talk—I thought an’ thought—an’ thought. First off, it made me dizzy—just the thinking. Then I wasn’t dizzy any more for being sorry—but just for glad! An’ I hurried home fast as fast; an’ there was my father taking a nap, ’cause he doesn’t sleep good nights; an’ after supper some comp’ny came, an’ they stayed till I went away to bed. Then this morning there they were again; an’ they were a man an’ his clerk, or something, an’ my grandmother an’ my father went into the library an’ shut the door, so I didn’t have any chance to ask him. Then when I was coming here, I thought maybe I was glad I hadn’t. ’Cause my grandmother says your Mr. Judge is a terr’ble wise gentleman; an’ I know so too. An’ I thought prob’ly he knew all the little girls an’ colts in Old Knollsboro; an’ maybe they’d like to learn to ride the right way. And the blacksmith said I’d ‘make a fortune’ showing ’em. I’d like to make it, or some money, I mean. Any way if I could do one thing to buy beefsteaks with, I ought to, hadn’t I? ’Cause Mr. Tubbs says, ‘The Lord only knows how long any on us’ll eat beefsteak,’—an’ we all like it. Even my grandmother does. It would be awful, wouldn’t it, for an old lady like her to not have any more?”
“Yes, my dear, it would be very bad indeed; but I hope matters are not quite so serious as that,” answered Mrs. Courtenay, smiling.
“Well, I don’t know, course. But Mary Jane says we’d all ‘better be lookin’ out to earn an honest penny, those on us ’at can.’ An’ Mr., her brother, said she ‘needn’t cast no ’flections on him, ’cause hadn’t he got the lumbago, he’d like to know?’ So, you see, it’s just this one straight way: Grandmother can’t, ’cause she can’t, an’ she oughtn’t to; Papa can’t, ’cause he can’t see to do anything; Sutro can’t, ’cause he’s just Sutro; Mr. Tubbs can’t, ’cause he’s a lumbagorer an’ a ‘reg’lar funeral-dark-sider,’ Mary Jane says; Mary Jane can’t, ’cause her ‘hands an’ heart is full every ’durin’ minute, an’ so she tells you;’ an’ so, after them, they isn’t anybody left but me. So I want to; ’cause I love ’em—love ’em—love ’em—every one! An’ I’m young, an’ I can see, an’ I haven’t any lumbago, an’ I’m not just Sutro, an’ my hands an’ heart isn’t full, and—do—you s’pose I can?”
“My dear little girl, I have perfect faith that you can!—providing that your people will consent,” answered Mrs. Courtenay, with the most confident of smiles, and very shining eyes.
“Why shouldn’t they consent? Wouldn’t they be the most gladdest they could be? ’Cause I’d give them the money, an’ they could buy the things.”
“Who told you about ‘money,’ and money-earning, Steenie?” asked the lady, somewhat curiously, wondering how a child brought up “in the wilderness” had learned its value.
“Why, Sutro. I asked him what it meant to be ‘ruined,’ an’ he told me. He’s ruined, himself, he says; anyhow he’s lost his home, same as Grandmother’ll have to lose hers; an’ he says that he had to go to work an’ earn money, an’ that was why he didn’t ‘starve to death, en verdad!’ I should think it would be dreadful to starve to death, shouldn’t you?”
“I certainly should.”
“You see Sutro—I don’t know ’xactly how it was. But when I was as little as little, my father told Sutro ’at if he’d tend to me an’ not let anything bad ever happen to me, he’d pay Sutro money. Wages, it’s called. So they did it; an’ Sutro was my body-servant forever after that. Papa paid him every month, ’cause it wasn’t the Plunkett man’s money at all. An’ Sutro has saved it. An’ I don’t know. He showed me most of it ’at he hadn’t spended; an’ it does seem funny that folks’ll give you food an’ clothes an’ things just for it; but he says yes. An’ if I earn, an’ he helps me, don’t you see? Oh, I hope they will let me, don’t you?”
“I—hardly know. I wish you to be happy with all my heart; and so I mean that you shall succeed—if they are willing. But they are a proud family,—the very leading family of Old Knollsboro; and they may feel it—well, not just the thing for the little daughter of the house to teach even a ‘riding-school.’ But we’ll see. By the way, where would you like to hold your school? Tell me all that you have thought about it, please.”
“Why, on your race-course. Why not?” asked Steenie, brightly and innocently.
“Why, Steenie Calthorp! My papa’s race-track is my papa’s! He won’t let anybody, ’cept them he invites, go on it, not once at all. He says it’s private, for his own ’musement, an’ if folks want tracks let ’em have their own. He wouldn’t let other little girls, ’cept you an’ me, ride their ponies there, ever; would he, Mama?”
“I cannot answer for another, even your father, my dear. But I think that some fitting place could be found,” replied the mother, quietly.
Steenie looked up quickly. Her big blue eyes were filled with astonishment, and a pink flush stole deeper and deeper into her pretty face. Her native instinct, the instinct of a gentlewoman, told her that she had blundered in some way, yet she could not see how. If Judge Courtenay was her friend,—why, he was!—and that was the end of it. Why should he draw the line anywhere?
“Please, Mrs. Courtenay, was I ’truding then? Grandmother said I was never to do that. She said I had lived in a beau-tiful big, big place like Santa Felisa, an’ I was used to being mistress of everything; but I was to ’member that here, in this little bit o’ Old Knollsboro, I was only a little bit o’ girl. But if the dear Judge doesn’t want me to use his course, why I can find a place, somewhere, big enough. I guess maybe the blacksmith can tell me. He was a very nice man, too.”
Mrs. Courtenay watched the troubled little face grow bright and sunny again, and then she sent the children out to play; after which an elegant carriage was brought round, and a groom in livery assisted the lady into it, and lifted Beatrice to a place beside her. But Steenie needed no assistance, and was quite contented when the Judge took the empty seat next her, and she heard the order given, “To Madam Calthorp’s, High Street.”
It was a gay and happy party, and they carried their own good cheer with them into the care-shadowed home which they entered,—the greetings of the elders being even more cordial and sympathetic than ever, could that have seemed possible.
Nothing, not even heart-break, could make Madam Calthorp other than the noble, gracious woman she had always been; and no sign of the burden she was bearing was permitted to inflict itself upon her guests. Yet even her self-reliant spirit gained fresh courage from the support of these friends whom she held in such high esteem; and she was delicately forced to remember that the Judge would be honored if she would make use of him in any way.
“Yes, Steenie, show Beatrice anything. And you will find some roses in the garden, the sort her mother likes. Thank you; but, Judge, such things are usually very simple. I have had one of the bank men here over night. There is nothing left, absolutely, beyond my trifling amount of real estate. I shall put this house on the market, and dispose of it as speedily as possible. I have already written to accept an offer which I had for the little farm; and—that is all. If you hear of a small cottage anywhere in town, that is not in an objectionable neighborhood, will you kindly let me know? And now—let us talk about your horses. I’m sure that Daniel will enjoy a description of them. He is quite a horse-lover, though not like Steenie—all horse! Did you ever know a taste so marked? It amounts almost to a passion with her; due to her training at Santa Felisa, I suppose. Well, it has made her a perfectly healthy and wonderfully happy child. I am grateful to the odd rearing for that much, at least.”
“And for much more!—that is, you may be!” returned the Judge, impulsively. His heart was still glowing warmly with thoughts of Steenie’s brave desire, and the words escaped him almost unconsciously.
“Indeed! How so? I fear that even her last intercourse with the equine race is about over for poor little Steenie.”
“It should not be. No, no; it must not be!—that would be a crime. Let me tell you, please,” and the gentleman described, far more minutely and eloquently than the little girl had done, her marvellous influence over Diablo, and her instruction of himself. He concluded enthusiastically: “It is her gift—Heaven-sent! She is the best friend the horse ever had, I believe. And that child’s beneficent influence is destined to work a complete revolution, hereabouts, in the future treatment of the noble animals. It is as if she had a magical power of entering into their very feelings, inclinations, joys, and sufferings. I never witnessed anything like it! Yet the only explanation she can give is: ‘It isn’t anything I do. I don’t know how to explain it—only I just love them so!’ My dear Madam, your grandchild is a phenomenon. Better than that—she is the bravest, noblest little creature who ever lived.”
“Judge, Judge! You are too enthusiastic, and too kind!” answered Steenie’s amazed grandmother.
“Enthusiastic, perhaps; but I could not be too kind to a child like that. It is an honor to serve her. She has taught me, not only what a fool I have been about horses, but how to meet trouble, disaster. Listen to this: here is her idea—that baby’s!”
Launched upon his subject, Judge Courtenay poured out the whole story. Steenie’s half-formed plans had taken full shape and detail under the consideration of his own maturer mind, and not only this, but he had actually decided, mentally, upon the children to be selected for her first pupils. He could not see one good reason why the project was not wholly feasible, with Sutro and himself to “back” it with age and experience.
“She shall have the course at Rookwood for ordinary weather; and I will have a great building erected for stormy days. I know several persons who have valuable colts, and they will gladly avail themselves of her gentle method of ‘breaking in.’ They shall pay her well, too! The school terms we will regulate by those of city riding-schools; and she shall have the use of as many of my horses as is necessary, besides her own Tito. That old Sutro is just the fellow to assist; and my grooms shall do the rough work.”
“Pardon me, Judge, but it appears to me as if this were to be your school,—not my little daughter’s!” exclaimed Mr. Calthorp, smilingly.
“All right—all right! Make it so, then! Let it be my institution, and she my salaried instructor. Why not? That is an improvement upon the original plan,—decidedly an improvement. People will be less inclined to shirk their tuition fees to me, a grim old lawyer, maybe, than to her. Yet I think she would never lose a penny. How could she,—if men and women are human?”
Mrs. Courtenay had been observing their hostess, and interrupted, gently: “My dear, you are taking for granted the consent of Steenie’s guardians. However, I trust it will not be wanting.” The speaker noticed, regretfully, that the children had returned, and that the little subject of the discussion was standing on the threshold of the room, her lithe young body eagerly poised and her eyes intently watching her grandmother’s face for the answer forthcoming, which was made speedily and courteously, but it struck upon Steenie’s heart with intolerable cruelty.
“Thank you, cordially, my dear friend. Your generous kindness is fully appreciated—fully. But I have already reached a more practical decision,—one which will put more money, even, into Steenie’s pocket than this chimerical, if unselfish scheme of hers could ever do. We will sell Tito. Do you know of a purchaser?”
In the silence which followed this unexpected suggestion, Steenie heard her own heart beat. Then she bounded into the centre of the room, white with fear and indignation.
“Grandmother! Sell—my—Tito!”
“Yes, darling. We can no longer afford to keep him.”
“You mustn’t! You mustn’t! It would break his very heart! I’d rather you’d sell me!”
