Through the tremulous beauty of the California woods, in the silent
April afternoon, came Sammy Peneyre, riding Clown. The horse chose his
own way on the corduroy road, for the rider was lost in dreams. Clown
was a lean old dapple gray so far advanced in years and ailments that
when Doctor Peneyre had bought him, the year before, the dealer had
felt constrained to remark:
"He's better'n he looks, Doc'. You'll get your seven dollars' worth out
of him yet!"
To which the doctor had amiably responded:
"Your saying so makes me wonder if I WILL, Joe. However, I'll have my
boy groom him and feed him, and we'll see!"
But, as Clown had stubbornly refused to respond to grooming and
feeding, he was, like other despised and discarded articles, voted by
the Peneyre family quite good enough for Sammy, and Sammy accepted him
gratefully.
The spirit of spring was affecting them both to-day--a brilliant day
after long weeks of rain. Sammy whistled softly. Clown coquetted with
the bit, danced under the touch of the whip, and finally took the steep
mountain road with such convulsive springs as jolted his rider
violently from dreams.
"Why, you fool, are you trying to run away?" said Sammy, suddenly alive
to the situation. The road here was a mere shelf on the slope of the
mountain, constantly used by descending lumber teams, and dangerous at
all times. A runaway might easily be fatal. Sammy pulled at the bit;
but, at the first hard tug, the old bridle gave way, and Clown,
maddened by a stinging blow from the loose flying end of the strap,
bolted blindly ahead.
Terrified now, Sammy clung to the pommel and shouted. The trees flew
by; great clods of mud were flung up by the horse's feet. From far up
the road could be heard the creaking of a lumber team and the crack of
the lumberman's long whip.
"My Lord!" said Sammy, aloud, in a curious calm, "we'll never pass
THAT!"
And then, like a flash, it was all over. Clown, suddenly freed from his
rider, galloped violently for a moment, stopped, snorted suspiciously,
galloped another twenty feet, and stood still, his broken bridle
dangling rakishly over one eye. Sammy, dragged from the saddle at the
crucial instant to the safety of Anthony Gayley's arms, as he brought
his own horse up beside her, wriggled to the ground.
"That was surely going some!" said Anthony, breathing hard. "Hurt?"
"No-o!" said Sammy. But she leaned against the tall, big fellow, as he
stood beside her, and was glad of his arm about her shoulders.
They had known each other by sight for years, but this was the first
speech between them. Anthony suddenly realized that the doctor's
youngest daughter, with her shy, dark eyes and loosened silky braids,
had grown from an awkward child into a very pretty girl. Sammy,
glancing up, thought--what every other woman in Wheatfield
thought--that Anthony Gayley was the handsomest man she had ever seen,
in his big, loose corduroys, with a sombrero on the back of his tawny
head.
"I was awfully afraid I'd grate against your leg," said the boy, with
his sunny smile; "but I couldn't stop to figure it out. I just had to
hustle!"
"There's a lumber wagon ahead there," Sammy said. "I'm--I'm very much
obliged to you!"
They both laughed. Presently Anthony made the girl mount his own
beautiful mare.
"Ride Duchess home. I'll take your horse," said he.
"Oh, no, indeed; PLEASE don't bother!" protested Sammy, eagerly.
But Anthony only laughed and gave her a hand up. Sammy settled herself
on the Spanish saddle with a sigh of satisfaction.
"I've always wanted to ride your horse!" said she, delightedly, as the
big muscles moved smoothly under her.
Anthony smiled. "She's the handsomest mare here-abouts," said he. "I
wouldn't take a thousand dollars for her!"
Sammy watched him deftly repair the broken bridle of the now docile and
crestfallen Clown, and spring to the saddle.
"I'm taking you out of your way!" she pleaded, and he answered gravely:
"Oh, no; I'll be much happier seeing you safe home."
When they reached her gate, the two changed horses, and Sammy rode
slowly up the dark driveway alone. Even on this brilliant afternoon the
old Peneyre place looked dull and gloomy. Dusty dark pines and
eucalyptus trees grew close about the house. There was no garden, but
here and there an unkempt geranium or rank great bush of marguerites
sprawled in the uncut grass, and rose bushes, long grown wild, stood in
spraying clusters that were higher than a man's head. Pampas trees,
dirty and overgrown, outlined the drive at regular intervals, their
shabby plumes uncut from year to year.
The house was heavy, bay-windowed, three-storied. Ugly, immense,
unfriendly, it struck an inharmonious note in the riotous free growth
of the surrounding woods. The dark entrance-hall was flanked by a
library full of obsolete, unread books, and by double drawing-rooms,
rarely opened now. All the windows on the ground floor were darkened by
the shrubbery outside and by heavy red draperies within.
Sammy, entering a side door, seemed to leave the day's brightness
behind her. The air indoors was chill, flat. A half-hearted little coal
fire flickered in the grate, and Koga was cleaning silver at the table.
Sammy took David Copperfield from the mantel and settled herself in a
great chair.
"Koga, you go fix Clown now," she suggested.
Koga beamed assent. Departing, he wrestled with a remark: "Oh! Nise
day. I sink so."