California -- Fiction; Ranch life -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Ginger jumped up from the dinner table one day and flew to the
telephone. “I _must_ get you a horse,” she said, excitedly. “I don’t
know what I’ve been thinking about!” Then she colored hotly and
suddenly; she knew very well what she had been thinking about. “You’ve
been here nearly two weeks and we haven’t had a ride together, and
Friday’s the big day!” She gave her number and stood waiting, the
receiver in her hand.
“But--look here,” said Dean Wolcott. “I don’t ride, you know. I’ve told
you that before, haven’t I?”
He had told her several times, but it simply didn’t register. For a
man--a hundred per cent man, who had been a soldier and her brother’s
comrade, who was, above all, _her_ man--not to ride was--ridiculous.
He was using a phrase which didn’t mean anything; he probably didn’t
care especially about riding (Boston was without doubt a wretched
place in which to ride) or didn’t ride especially well; city men
didn’t as a rule. But to say he didn’t _ride_-- She was speaking into
the telephone. “Hello! Hello! Oh, ’Rome, is that you? How are you?...
’Rome, can you lend us a horse? Felipe’s turned out with a bad foot,
and we haven’t a thing for Dean to ride.... Oh, fine,’Rome! Thanks a
lot! Bring him over with you Friday morning, will you?” She came back
to the table radiant. “’Rome says he’s got just the thing for you; I
knew he’d help us out.”
(’Rome Ojeda had heard, as all the countryside had heard, of Ginger’s
eastern suitor; it was the chief topic in a land which was ordinarily
bare of conversational thrills, but he had taken it quite coolly. He
wasn’t, he had been quoted as saying, “worrying none.” Ginger hadn’t
given him any thought. He had not, to be sure, telephoned to her or
ridden over with congratulations as others had done, but he had been
gay and good-natured when they met up on horseback.)
Dean looked at her quizzically. He was beginning, in the last day or
two, to look at her with his mind instead of his heart, and he had
made several discoveries. One of these was that she was as high-handed
and autocratic as a feudal duchess; it was not only that she always
wanted and took her own way--she was unaware that there was any other
way to want, or to take. But, up to that time, he was not worrying
any more than ’Rome Ojeda was. It was picturesque, it was pretty--her
high-handedness.
The night before the “big day” she refused to walk or motor or even sit
on the veranda, but told him a resolute good night at eight o’clock.
“Ling will call you at three, and breakfast’s at three-thirty.”
“We attack at dawn, I see,” said Dean, steering her cleverly into an
alcove and out of her aunt’s range of vision. “Then, if my evening is
to end at eight instead of ten or eleven, I certainly consider myself
entitled to something in the way of recompense.” He swept her into his
arms and kissed her.
“Honey,” said Ginger, persuasively, “let me go! And you must get to
sleep yourself--we’ve got a big day ahead of us!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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