CHAPTER IX

AFOOT AND ON HORSEBACK

One of the strangest things in all her strange new life to Beth was the fact that although one lived in the same house with people it might be quite impossible to see them without planning for it. Sometimes her Aunt Alida breakfasted in her room, lunched and dined out and Beth could not see her that day. Mr. Cortlandt’s morning hours varied. He was not often away, except when he and his wife were absent together, for he was exceedingly fond of his home and of his lovely wife, but sometimes he breakfasted early, sometimes not at all at home, but at the Country Club where he went to play golf till the snow flew. He was never at home to lunch and if he had a dinner engagement on successive days it happened that Beth might not see him for several days. Even Natalie and Alys were sometimes hard to catch; Dirk was always to be found at certain hours, but during the daytime Natalie and Alys had their youthful engagements which separated them from their cousin for hours. It seemed to Beth hardly possible that a family could live under one roof in such separation, when it was a most affectionate and happy family.

Beth thought of the close intimacy of the simple households she had known “when she was little.” She began to think of her life in Massachusetts as something that had happened years ago. A change as great as the one that had befallen Beth acts like years in putting previous ways and days far behind one.

Beth wondered what Aunt Rebecca would say to this feature of the new life. She did not speak of it in the journal-letter which she faithfully wrote each day and which she dispatched to her great-aunt every Monday and Friday in order that Aunt Rebecca should always have a letter on Saturday to reread on Sunday. When Beth gave this bi-weekly letter to Frieda to be included in the household mail she found it hard to realize that Ella Lowndes, or maybe Janie herself, would bring it up to Aunt Rebecca’s from the small post-office. How could it be that the old, simple life was still going on while Beth was in fairy-land? Beth was sure that she never could make Aunt Rebecca understand that members of a family might not live in constant touch with one another and yet be happy and fond together. She could see Aunt Rebecca’s look of disapproval and hear her say “there must be something wrong about it.”

For two days after her first lesson in the gymnasium and her discovery of Frieda’s lame little sister Beth could not get a chance to tell Mr. and Mrs. Cortlandt about Liebchen.

The third morning the entire family met at breakfast and while Beth was turning over in her mind the wisdom of broaching the subject then and was deciding against it, Mr. Cortlandt said:

“Any engagement for to-day, Miss Bristead?”

“No, Mr. Cortlandt, nothing particular,” returned Beth, laughing back at the laugh in her uncle’s eyes.

“Will you go with me to be shown something that I hope may interest you?” asked Mr. Cortlandt.

Beth saw that her aunt and the three cousins looked merrily excited, that there was some sort of new and delightful secret known to all but herself.

“I’m pretty sure I’ll be delighted to go, sir,” said Beth. “When?”

“As soon as breakfast is over and the mail disposed of,” said her Uncle Jim. “Did you ever see my stable?”

“I didn’t know you had one, here; I suppose I would have known you must have one in the country. I’d love to see it--if there are horses in it,” said Beth.

“A stable without horses would be rather worse than a horse without a stable in New York,” said Uncle Jim. “We’ll visit mine after breakfast.”

“What kind of a dress do you put on to visit city stables, Aunt Alida?” asked Beth seriously when they left the table.

Aunt Alida laughed. “Frieda has a costume for you that came home last night; you are to wear that,” she said. “Don’t be alarmed when you see it about looking conspicuous in the street. We shall go to the stable in the car, though it isn’t far.”

Beth silently went away, returning her aunt’s significant smile with a puzzled but affectionate one.

She found Frieda awaiting her in her room. On the chair before the dressing table lay, of all things, a trig, diminutive riding habit of dark blue, skirt, short coat, knowing little hard hat, gauntlet gloves and all, while across the end of another table lay a silver-mounted riding stock. There was no mistaking the size of these garments, for whom they were intended, yet Beth stopped short and gasped, as she so often did at the succession of wonders she was encountering daily.

“Oh, Frieda! Oh, Frieda, for me?” she cried. Then she had a second thought, a prevention of possible disappointment. “Do they wear riding habits in New York just to visit stables?” she asked.

“No, Miss Beth, I don’t think they do,” replied Frieda, trying not to smile. “I think your uncle wishes you to ride. Miss Natalie, Miss Alys and Master Dirk ride, you know.”

“Indeed I did know it, Frieda!” cried Beth. “If I might ride--but you can’t, if you don’t know how, can you? And I’m sure there isn’t room to learn here.”

“There are riding academies, Miss Beth. You can learn here much better than you can anywhere else, because here’d be first-class teachers,” said Frieda, ready to defend the city that had adopted her. “I think, if you please, Miss Beth, you had better make a little haste. They want to start quite soon.”

“You’ll have to do more even than usual to me, Frieda; I don’t know one bit how to get ready in a riding habit,” said Beth.

Her eyes were flashing with joyous excitement. The thought that this entrancing little habit might foretell her little self on the back of a living horse was almost too much rapture to bear. She could not talk, but silently watched Frieda gather her thick fair hair into a compact braid and loop it at her neck with a broad blue ribbon. Then she silently allowed her maid to divest her of her dainty morning gown and slip over her groomed head the riding skirt that was so entirely the correct sort that her head swam with the joy of it. A tailored little vest preceded the perfect-fitting coat. Beth surveyed herself in the glass, while she absent-mindedly pulled on the gauntlet riding gloves which Frieda offered her.

“I’m so glad I could cry!” said Beth tremulously, tears actually in her shining eyes. “I’m not going to believe I am going to ride for fear I couldn’t bear it if I didn’t. When Janie and I used to put on grown-up skirts and get up on the apple tree boughs to pretend to ride we never, never could have dreamed one of us could ever look like this! It’s exactly like the ladies in the pictures in the Waverley novels! I’m going to remember it’s enough to have such a riding habit to visit the stable in, and not mind if I don’t ever ride.”

This time Frieda allowed herself to laugh at her small lady.

“That would be a queer reason for your aunt to take such pains in having this habit made, Miss Beth. You’ve no idea the pains she took, stealing your gowns from me so the tailor shouldn’t make a mistake in fitting and yet you know nothing of it,” she said.

“I shall never live long enough, nor be good enough, nor--nor anything!--to show Aunt Alida how I love, love, adore her!” cried Beth.

She took her hat, set it on her smooth hair, caught her breath and snatched the hat off again. She made a deep bow to herself in the long glass, saluting with the hat in her hand, in quite a soldierly way.

“Hail, Elizabeth Bristead, my lady!” she said. “You are wonderful, because you used to be nothing in all this world but little Beth! Come, my lady; we’re going to ri--to visit the stable!” Whereupon with a grand parting flourish of the hat, she set it once more upon her head and ran out of the room, quite as though she were still “little Beth.”

“Oh, doesn’t she look fine!” cried Natalie as Beth appeared. The others were assembled, waiting her. “Her face rising up out of that habit looks like a pretty doll’s face over the top of a black Christmas stocking.”

“Natalie, Natalie!” laughed her mother. “Does this mean a poet or a painter? But you _are_ a satisfactory small thing in that habit, Bethie!”

“I ought to be! I wish I could thank you,” cried Beth, giving her aunt a hug that emphasized the wish.

“Come now, gushing ladies of assorted sizes, the car’s chugging away outside impatiently,” Mr. Cortlandt protested.

So they all gathered up their coats and went out. They filled the tonneau of this car, which Mr. Cortlandt kept for city use, so completely that Alys groaned as she adjusted herself into as small a wedge as she could and remarked that she was glad they were not going far.

They rolled leisurely around two corners and ran along a few blocks on an avenue, then turned into a cross street and, a short distance down its length eastward, stopped.

“Is this--why, yes, it is a stable!” cried Beth. “I had been looking for a regular barn.”

“Painted red, with a wooden cock, or a trotting horse on the roof to tell which way the wind blew?” laughed her uncle. “Not here, my niece! Here we go into an opening in a long line of brick, much as the cave men used to go into caves to stable their horses and goats. And we go up-stairs to visit the horses.”

Beth jumped out, swung by her uncle’s outstretched hands.

“It doesn’t matter; I’m sure it will be all right when we get there. Everything here is different, but perfectly splendid,” Beth cried, ready to be delighted, which is half the recipe for having a good time anywhere.

The stablemen greeted Mr. Cortlandt with hearty liking shining through their respectful salutations. One of them hailed Dirk with a slap on the shoulder which Dirk returned by a friendly poke. Beth noticed that Dirk seemed quite transformed by this visit. At home the girls led; Dirk was, as he would have put it, “not in it,” but here in the stable his sisters suddenly shrank into nobodies of importance and Dirk became the one of the Cortlandt children who mattered.

“Your horse is all right, Master Dirk,” the man who slapped Dirk said. “He may have had a little cold, but I think he was just playin’ off. They’re foxy when they don’t want to go. ’T any rate there’s not wan thing wrong wid him now.”

“Has Dirk a horse? A horse his very own?” Beth whispered, awestruck, to Alys.

“We all three have,” said Alys. “Come on; we’re going to see them.”

Nothing that had happened so far had so completely overwhelmed Beth as this statement. A horse! each of her young cousins owned a whole horse, a live, entire horse! She followed her aunt and uncle up to the second floor of this curious stable in a maze of wonder.

They turned to the right. There were ten airy box stalls, nearly as big as small bedrooms in the New York flats which Beth had never seen. Eight of these stalls were occupied. Beth did not recognize her uncle’s carriage horses, because she had never seen them without their harnesses, but she had no eyes for them, nor for the beautiful, slender Virginian saddle horses which occupied five of the stalls. All she could see was a pony in the eighth stall. He was not tied and he whirled about and trotted up to the stall door when he heard his visitors coming, lifting his head and sniffing the air with his short, somewhat turned-up nose, hopeful of a treat, while his bright eyes peered out under his heavy thatch of forelock. He was the color of coffee-and-cream, with a long, thick tail and mane, almost brown. He was not a Shetland pony of the smallest type, but a stocky little fellow about four feet high and that is large for a pony, since four inches more than that is the greatest height allowed them by the proper authorities.

“Oh, what a dar-arling!” cried Beth. “Is that yours, Dirk? Will he bite?”

She was at the pony’s head as she spoke, half timorously, wholly ecstatically allowing herself to be sniffed for sweets.

“No; that one’s mine, that chestnut, and he’s the best of the bunch,” replied Dirk, going over to his horse’s stall, yet keeping his eye on Beth to see the fun.

“Well, maybe, but this pony! Yours, Alys?” persisted Beth.

“I thought, perhaps, you would ride him, Beth,” said Mr. Cortlandt quietly.

“Me! I ride him? This angelic dumpling!” cried Beth beginning to tremble.

“Isn’t that a new brand of dumpling?” inquired her uncle, as everybody laughed. “Of course you’re to do as you choose about riding your own pony. You may ride, or sell, or give him away, but I thought you’d like to ride him. He is your own, to do with as you please.”

“Mine? My own! This--this---- Oh, Uncle Jim, Uncle Jim!” And Beth, shaking like a leaf with the excessive, unbearable joy of this discovery, put her head down on the lower and closed half of the stall door and sobbed outright, while the pony nosed her, unheeded.

Only for a moment did Beth’s joy so overwhelm her. Then she sprang up, frantically hugged her amused uncle, crushed her aunt in a tempestuous embrace and spun Alys, who happened to be nearest her, in a wild dance for an instant, much to that dignified young person’s horror, for the stablemen were standing by greatly amused.

“My pony, my darling!” Beth cried, whirling over to the stall again. But here caution checked her raptures. “What can I do to him? Will he let me hug him?” she asked.

“I’ll take you into his stall, miss,” said the man with whom Dirk had seemed to be on such friendly terms. “He’s used to me and I’ll introjuice you like.”

He opened the stall door and Beth followed him within, to be introduced to her own, her very own pony.

“You brought no sugar? Of course not, not knowin’ what you was comin’ to see! Here’s some then. I keep it handy in my coat-tail pockets, not knowin’ whin I’ll be wantin’ it to reward one or another of the horses. They’ll do much more for you, miss, if they know you’re like to be givin’ them a bit of a treat now an’ thin.”

“Everybody will,” returned Beth gravely, to the man’s manifest delight.

She offered the pony a lump of sugar, at first with a hand somewhat shaky and too ready to withdraw, but quite steady at the second lump.

“Oh, how beau-tifully mousy-velvet his nose feels!” cried Beth. “How shall I ever go to sleep to-night? And how shall I ever, ever tell Janie and Aunt Rebecca about him?”

“We must start now, Bethie,” said Mr. Cortlandt. “Tim will saddle the pony; we must get off.”

“Get off? That’s exactly what I should do, Uncle Jim!” cried Beth. “You don’t mean I am to ride right straight off, to-day? I don’t know how to ride.”

“But the rest of us do! I shall keep you beside me, between Dirk and me. The pony has been trained for a little girl’s use; he knows how to be ridden, if you don’t know how to ride him. Saddle him, please, Tim,” said Mr. Cortlandt.

“Yes, sir. Sure, all you have to do is to sit like he was a rockin’-chair, keepin’ your lines so you do be feelin’ his mouth easy, an’ your backbone straight, miss,” said Tim. “Come now, shake hands wid your new mistress, Trump, an’ it’ll be out you go! Put your hand down, miss, an’ bid him shake hands good-bye an’ he’ll do it.”

“Is his name Trump? I shall never call him anything but my dearie, my darling! Shake hands, Trump, you blessedest thing, you!” Saying which Beth held out her hand, palm uppermost, as Tim had bidden her, and Trump obligingly raised his right forefoot and offered his clean little hoof to be shaken, to the unspeakable rapture of his new owner.

Tim brought forth the most knowing looking, perfect miniature saddle and bridle and put them on Trump, first brushing his already speckless coat lest a bit of dust should escape his vigilance.

His assistants were saddling and bridling the other horses. If Beth had been wise enough in horse lore she would have known that there were few such beautiful creatures anywhere as the five horses making ready for her relatives’ ride. But, small as he was, Trump filled her eye to the exclusion of all else.

The horses were led down the incline which was their stairway while the riders descended the steps. Mrs. Cortlandt discovered that Beth was trembling and rightly construed it as not entirely caused by her joy.

“You’re not to be afraid, little Beth,” she said, putting her arm around the little girl. “We would not for the world let you go into danger. Trump will trot along with his big comrades as quietly as a kitten. We tried him before we bought him; Tim’s little girl rode him and she does not know how to ride. It is the easiest thing in the world to sit on that broad, steady back of his and he will never play you a trick.”

“I seem to be too--too much little Beth Bristead, still, to ride in New York,” said Beth faintly.

“Bless your heart, dear, pretend you’re Miss Elizabeth Bristead, then!” laughed Aunt Alida. “I think when you’re mounted confidence will come. Besides, we are going over country roads just as soon as we can reach them.”

Aunt Alida’s prophecy came true. When Beth was mounted on her entrancing gift, with her lines in her gauntleted hand, her stock held at precisely the correct angle, as she was bidden to hold it, and especially when she found how easily Uncle Jim could reach down from his splendid chestnut Virginian and touch Trump’s bridle, and when she heard that rhythmic tread of horses’ feet and knew that her own, her _own_ pony’s feet made part of it, horsemanship flowed into her like an inspiration. To her uncle’s satisfaction and Dirk’s undisguised pride she held herself bravely erect, her cheeks reddened with excitement, her eyes were almost black, her lips parted with her rapid breathing and she laughed aloud as, having gained a quiet avenue, the horses began to trot and plucky little Trump kept up with them, in spite of his difference in length of legs.

It was a wonderful ride, that first one! Though it was but the first of many to come, each a rapture, none other ever could be that first one of all, with Trump newly owned. Oh, to watch those quick little ears, that tossing, ambitious little head and to know they were _her_ pony’s ears, it was _her_ pony’s head! To feel the strong, warm body bearing her along and to know that as long as life was in it that was to be its duty! To pull off her glove and pat the sturdy neck, the thick mane, and to know the whole wonderful little fellow was her Trump, her own, Beth Bristead’s! Suddenly Beth lost her fear of moving in her saddle and bent forward to lay her face on the mat of mane.

“Oh, Trump, my darling, my darlingest! How I love you! And you are mine to have and to hold, for better or for worse, till death doth us part! And you won’t die, my preciousest, because I’ll love you so you can’t!” she whispered close to the ear that she believed moved in response to her words and not because her breath tickled it.

They rode out into the country, the pretty, hilly country that lies north of New York. It was a warm day. Winter had not set in, although it was early December. The fields were brown, but the air was soft, and though there were no birds, except the winter ones, the sunshine was so warm that one felt as though a robin or a bluebird might sing from any orchard that the horses trotted past.

“We are to lunch at a good place not far beyond here, Beth, and if you are tired I’ll telephone back to have Tim come out in the car and take Trump home for you,” Beth’s uncle said, after a long silence between them.

“I’m not tired, Uncle Jim. I’m too happy to speak; that’s all,” said Beth. “At first I was boiling over, but now I’ve boiled down quiet and it’s all the stronger. It’s exactly like preserves--or soup.”

Mr. Cortlandt threw back his head to laugh as boyishly as Dirk, who shouted at this speech.

Reluctantly Beth allowed Trump to be taken from her by a groom when they had arrived at their destination for lunch. It seemed impossible that any one they did not know could be trusted to feed and properly care for a pony so small and so precious as Trump.

After a lunch that included all the things that young palates like best and for which the riders were hungry enough to have enjoyed it if it had been of the plainest sort, Beth and her uncle sat down in one vast lounging chair in a glass-enclosed corner of the hotel piazza to rest and chat while one of them smoked.

“I’d like to tell you about Frieda now, Uncle Jim, if you feel like listening,” began Beth, reaching up a hand to caress the collar of her uncle’s coat.

Mr. Cortlandt took the wandering hand prisoner in one of his and stroked the fingers. “Who is Frieda, Bethie?” he asked.

“My maid,” said Beth, not yet lost to the strangeness of this statement. “I’ve been wanting for days to tell you about her.”

“Better have your aunt hear it, if it’s about your maid,” said Mr. Cortlandt.

“It isn’t exactly; it’s Liebchen,” said Beth.

“Better call your aunt over anyway, for you seem to be wandering in your mind, Bethie,” laughed Mr. Cortlandt, and he beckoned his wife to a chair beside his.

She came over from where she was sitting and took it.

“Beth has something to tell us about Frieda and Liebchen; I hope you may know what she means, Alida,” Mr. Cortlandt said.

“Frieda did not mean to tell me, Aunt Alida,” Beth hastily made sure of this explanation. “I was talking to her while she was dressing me the other day and it all came out without her knowing it would. She felt afraid it was wrong, or that some one would think it was.”

“But you know, Beth, that I am not an ogre,” suggested Aunt Alida. “So tell me about it.”

“Frieda has a little sister nine years old. Her name is Lotta, but they call her Liebchen. I think that is nice. I wonder if I could call Trump Liebchen sometimes! She is an American, because she was born here, but she is German Frieda’s full sister. She is a dreadful cripple; she can only walk a few steps with crutches and she can’t walk at all without them. When I asked Frieda if she couldn’t be cured she said it would cost a great deal, if it could be done. I--I----It seems so sad, doesn’t it, to know that a little girl, only nine years old, and so sweet they call her Liebchen, is a dreadful cripple?” Beth ended her story lamely; she could not bring herself to suggest to her uncle that he might have Liebchen operated upon when she came face to face with that issue.

“And you thought that we would see what could be done for the child, if we knew about it?” asked Mrs. Cortlandt.

“You could do less for me, Aunt Alida!” cried Beth eagerly. “You are so good to me, but I don’t need another earthly thing! Wouldn’t it be fine if Liebchen could be cured?”

“Have you seen her, Beth?” asked Mr. Cortlandt.

“No, but I can imagine her, all pale and peaked, just lying there, and poor, and only nine!” cried Beth eagerly.

“An operation is exceedingly expensive, Beth,” said Mr. Cortlandt solemnly. “It would require a skilful surgeon, of course, and a thousand dollars would hardly cover the cost, probably.”

“A thousand dollars! Oh, Uncle Jim! Isn’t that fearful! But if I could do something--couldn’t I sell something, or----” She stopped, unable to suggest anything practical.

“There is Trump,” said Mr. Cortlandt thoughtfully, watching Beth’s face. He saw her turn red, then white and heard her catch her breath. “I have just bought that pony. I know he would sell easily--would you care to give up Trump to help that child, Beth?”

Beth turned her face to hide it in her uncle’s shoulder. She breathed hard and fast. He heard her whisper: “‘The sacrifice of a broken heart Thou wilt not despise.’ And it will break it. Uncle Jim,” she said sitting up, a poor, white, strained looking Beth, “I will try, I will try to--to give up Trump.”

“You’re the trump, my Bethikins!” cried Mr. Cortlandt just as Aunt Alida exclaimed:

“James Cortlandt, you shall not torture my little Beth!”

“No, you won’t give up your Trump; he is yours for keeps! And, yes, I will see what can be done for this little Liebchen, American sister of your German maid! If she can be cured, cured she shall be! I’ve three healthy youngsters of my own and a plump, sound little niece, any of whom might have been crippled. And I’ve been entrusted with so much money, Bethie, that even if it cost two thousand dollars to cure that child it would not entail sacrifice on any of us to pay the bill. As time goes on I shall want you to learn what all this power means, Beth, my dear, and to help my girls and boy to use it wisely, unselfishly. I think you are going to be exceedingly helpful in that way, with your warm little heart and your sensible little head! We’ll look into Liebchen’s case at once, Bethie, and I’m much obliged to you for ferreting it out for Aunt Alida and me--aren’t we, Alida?”

“Of course we are, Jimmy dear!” cried Aunt Alida. “And it will count for Beth that she would have given up her dear pony, if she had to, rather than let Liebchen remain a cripple. So she will have a part in two ways in the cure, if it ever is a cure.”

“Oh, what dear, dear uncles and aunts you are!” cried Beth, her eyes wet with happy tears. “And why do people say that money is bad? It is perfectly beautiful to go about doing things!”

“Poor and rich, it is all one, Bethie darling,” murmured Aunt Alida, her lips touching the little girl’s hair as she leaned forward in her chair to answer Beth. “It is the heart that makes poverty into riches, or, when it is a hard heart, turns riches into the most ghastly poverty.”

Beth rode home that afternoon blissfully, but seriously happy. Trump was hers, the sacrifice was not required of her, and at every beat of his small hoofs she loved him better. Yet she was thinking long thoughts, for a child of eleven, and she saw the road of her coming years stretching out before her, as the road she was riding stretched, growing denser, fuller with every pace, but full of beautiful and glorious possibilities. It led her into the world of grownupdom, where there were to be great tasks to fulfil, great good to be done. And little Beth, true to her great-aunt Rebecca’s old-fashioned, good training, prayed in her heart that when the time came she might not fail.