A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill
after many tears she was sent to a boarding school in the city.
The older teachers at Miss Gibbs' Select School for Young Ladies still
recall their trials during the one year Miss Lady was enrolled. She was
pretty, yes, and clever, and lovable, oh, yes! And at this point usually
followed a number of stories of her generosity and impulsive kindness;
“but,” the conclusion always ran, “such a strange, wild little creature,
so intolerant of convention, in dress, in education, in religion. Quite
impossible in a young ladies' seminary.”
After one term of imprisonment Miss Lady escaped to the outdoor world
again, and implored her devoted “Dad” to let her grow up in ignorance,
protesting passionately that she did not want puffs on her head, and
heels on her shoes, and whalebones about her waist. That she didn't care
whether X plus Y equaled Z, or not, and that going to church and saying
the same thing a dozen times, drove all ideas of religion out of her
head. She would study at home, she declared, anything, everything he
suggested, if only she could do it, in her own way, out of doors.
So the sorely puzzled Colonel had procured her the necessary text-books,
and she had plunged into her original method of self-education. She
usually fought out her mathematical battles down by the river, using a
stick on the sand for her calculations; history she studied in the
fork of an old elm, declaiming the most dramatic episodes aloud, to the
edification of the sparrows.
In the long winter months her favorite haunt was a little unused room
over the front hall, traditionally known as the library. Its only
possible excuse for the name was its one piece of furniture, a battered
secretary containing a small collection of musty volumes that did credit
to the taste of some long-departed Carsey.
Miss Lady had discovered the library in her paper-doll days, and had
ruthlessly clipped small bonneted ladies with flounced skirts from
magazines that dated back to the first year of publication. Later she
had discovered that some of the ladies had jokes on their backs, or
rather pieces of jokes, the rest of which she hunted up in the old
magazines. It was an easy step from the magazines to the books, and in
time she knew them all, from the little dog-eared copy of Horace in the
upper left-hand corner, to the fat Don Quixote in the lower right.
In this neglected little room, with its festoons of cobwebs, its musty
smell and its sense of old, forgotten things and people, she would tuck
herself away with a pocket full of apples, to study and read by the
hour.
The Colonel had done his part, and she was determined to do hers; for
three years she kept sturdily at it, devouring the things she could
understand, and blithely skipping those she could not, extracting
meanwhile a vast amount of pleasure out of each passing day. For the
thing that differentiated Miss Lady from the rest of her fellow kind was
that she was usually glad. She liked to get up in the morning and to
go to bed at night, a peculiarity in itself sufficiently great to
individualize her. She greeted each new experience with enthusiasm and
managed to extract the largest possible quota of happiness out of the
smallest and most insignificant occasion.
As she went singing through the hall, the Colonel tried to frown
over his glasses, but he was only partially successful. She was too
satisfying a sight with her shining hair and eyes, and lithe, supple
figure, every motion of which bespoke that quick, unconscious freedom of
body peculiar to children and those favored of the gods, who never grow
old.
The tall, awkward young man who had by this time arrived at the porch,
followed the Colonel's gaze, and then, without speaking, sat down on the
steps and clasped his hands about his knees. Noah Wicker's awkwardness,
however manifest to others, was evidently a matter of small moment to
him. He had apparently accepted the companionship of unmanageable arms
and legs without question, and without embarrassment. His stubby blond
hair rose straight from a high, broad forehead, and grew down in square
patches in front of his ears. His eyes, small and steady, surveyed the
world with profound indifference.
When Miss Lady disappeared the Colonel turned upon him suddenly:
“What about this rich young fellow over at your house? Who is he
anyhow?”
“Morley?” Noah crossed his knees deliberately. “Why, he's a
brother-in-law of Mr. Sequin.”
“Not Basil Sequin, the president of the People's Bank! You don't say!”
The Colonel paused for a moment to digest this fact, then he went on:
“Hell-bent on farming I hear; wants your father to look around for a
place.”
This not being in the form of a question, Noah conserved his energies.
“Don't amount to a hill of beans, I'll warrant,” continued the Colonel,
with a watchful eye on Noah for denial or confirmation, but Noah was
noncommittal. “When a fellow gets to be twenty-three years old and can't
find anything better to do than to run around the country spending his
money, and playing with the girls, there's a screw loose somewhere. What
does he know about stock-farming?”
“Says he's been reading up.”
“Fiddlesticks!” roared the Colonel. “You can't learn farming out of a
book! What does he know about horses?”
“Oh! He's on to horses all right,” Noah grinned ambiguously. “You and I
couldn't teach him anything about horses.”
“Can he shoot?”
“Can't hit a barn door.”
The Colonel heaved a deep sigh, drained the last drops from his tumbler,
then leaned forward, confidentially:
“Noah Wicker, do you like that young chap?”
“Like him?” Noah looked up in surprise. “Why, everybody likes Don
Morley.”
“I don't,” said the Colonel fiercely. “Here he comes now. I wish you'd
look at that!”
A headlong young man in model riding costume, astride a bob-tailed
sorrel, rashly took a fence where gate there was none, and came
cantering across the Colonel's favorite stretch of blue grass.
“Awfully sorry to have cut across, Colonel!” he called out in tones that
spoke little contrition. “Slipped my trolley as usual and got lost in
the bullrushes. Hope I haven't kept Miss Lady waiting?”
The Colonel rose and extended a hand of welcome. A true Kentuckian may
commit murder and still be a gentleman, but to fail in hospitality is to
forfeit even his own self-respect.
“My daughter, Mr. Morley, will be out presently,” he announced with
great formality.
“And how are you, Mike?” went on young Morley, stooping to pat the dog;
“didn't mean to cut you, old fellow, 'pon my word I didn't.”
The dog, a shaggy beast, with small, plaintive eyes looking out from a
fringe of wiry hair, expressed his appreciation of this attention with
all the emotion a stump of tail would permit.
“It's a bully day!” continued the visitor with enthusiasm, wiping his
wrists and forehead, and tossing his hair back. “If I weren't going to
town to-night I'd ask you to take me fishing, Colonel. Hello! What kind
of a reel is that?”
Now the article which had attracted attention happened to be an
invention of the Colonel's, something he had been working on for a long
time, so he could not resist explaining its unique qualities.
“Well, I'll be hanged!” said Morley, turning it over and over
admiringly. “If that isn't the cleverest thing I ever saw. This little
screw regulates the slack, doesn't it? Does your legal mind get on to
that, Wick?”
“It was a great job to get that to fit,” said the Colonel, nattered in
spite of himself. “Took me the best part of a week to puzzle out that
one point.”
“A week!” exclaimed Morley. “It would have taken me months! Oh! here
she is!” and from the very ardent look that leapt into his face, and the
alacrity with which he sprang up, it might have been doubted whether his
mind had been wholly upon the matter under discussion.
Miss Lady greeted him with almost boyish frankness, but there was an
unmistakable flush under the smooth tan of her cheek that did not escape
the vigilant eye of the Colonel.
“Here you are, Dad! here you are, Noah!” she said, tossing a small
package to each; “sandwiches and hard boiled eggs for two.”
“Put the salt in for the eggs?” asked the Colonel, having had experience
with her lunches.
“I believe I did. Open yours and see, Noah. Say, Daddy darling!” she
swooped down upon him from the rear, slipping an arm about his neck as
he knelt on the porch to collect his hooks and lines, “you are going to
let me ride Prince, just this once, aren't you?”
The Colonel gasped, partly from strangulation, and partly from
amazement.
“Prince!” he cried. “Well, I reckon not! That colt's hardly broken to
the saddle. He threw Jimpson last week.”
“Well, I'm not Jimpson. Please, Daddy, just this once.”
“If that's the little beast Wick was telling me about,” said Morley, “we
are certainly not going to trust you on him.”
The Colonel leaned back upon his knees where he knelt on the porch, and
glared at Morley.
“Who do you mean by we?”
“The conservative party of which I, for once, am a member. From all I
can hear of that colt, no girl could handle him.”
“You are absolutely mistaken, sir! I taught my daughter to straddle a
horse before I taught her to walk. Handle him? Of course she can handle
him! Jimpson!” he roared in conclusion, “put the side-saddle on Prince!”
CHAPTER II
The Cane Run Road lay straight ahead, now white under the full light of
the sun, now dappled with tiny dancing shadows from the interlaced twigs
overhead, new clothed in their garb of green. White and purple violets
peeped from the fence corners, and overhead the birds made busy in the
branches.
Two young people, flushed and smiling, drew rein and looked at each
other. In the eyes of each was a challenge.
“I'll race you to the mill!” cried Miss Lady, tugging at her bridle.
“Don't start 'til I give the word. Now, go!”
Off through the smiling, sunlit fields they dashed, too impetuous and
young, and gloriously free, to waste a thought on that inexorable wheel
of life, upon which sooner or later the most irresponsible must break
their wings. On and on they went, neck to neck, the gallop breaking into
a run. Down past the blacksmith's, past the old mill which was to have
been the goal, through the long covered bridge, over the hill and out
again on the level road where they still kept abreast.
And close upon them, with head up and mane flying, came another steed,
free, irresponsible, unbridled, invisible. It was Romance, pounding in
their wake; Romance, whose hoof beats made their pulses dance in unison,
whose breath upon their cheeks made them laugh for joy in the face of
the wind.
They were almost to the city now, having reached that slovenly suburb
that had given its plebeian name to the once aristocratic neighborhood.
Clouds of dust whirled in their wake, and stones flew right and left
under the horses' hoofs; men in carts pulled their teams to the side
of the road to let the mad pair pass; dogs dashed from dark doorways,
barking furiously.
Suddenly, just as they neared the railroad junction, the sharp whistle
of an engine sent Prince plunging into the air. Donald rose in his
stirrups and made a frantic clutch at the horse's head, but even as he
missed it, he heard the clanging signal for an approaching train and saw
the gates immediately in front of them descending. Instantly he flung
himself out of the saddle, and sprang for Prince's head. The horse,
almost under the nose of the engine, reared frantically, swerved, then
came to a trembling stand, as Miss Lady deftly loosened her skirt from
the pommel, and swung herself to the ground.
In a second Don was beside her.