Humorous stories; Washington (State) -- Fiction; Western stories
"Of course the rabid young hoydens up ahead made a feeble effort now and
then to carry it off lightly, and from time to time sang 'My Bonnie Lies
Over the Ocean,' or 'Merrily We Roll Along,' with the high, squeaky
tenor of Roth Hyde sounding above the others very pretty in the
moonlight, but it was poor work as far as these enraged vestals was
concerned. If I'd been Hetty and had got a strange box of candy through
the mail the next week, directed in a disguised woman's hand, I'd of
rushed right off to the police with it, not waiting for any analysis.
And she, poor thing, would get so frightened at bad spots, with the
fierce old horse bobbing about so dangerous, that she just has to be
held on. And once she wrenched her ankle against a horrid old tree on
the trail--she hadn't been able to resist a little one--and bit her
under lip as the spasm of pain passed over her refined features. But she
was all right in a minute and begged Mr. D. not to think of bathing it
in cold water because it was nothing--nothing at all, really now--and he
would embarrass her frightfully if he said one more word about it. And
Mr. D. again remarked that she was feminine to her finger tips, a brave,
game little woman, one of the gamest he ever knew. And pretty soon--what
was she thinking about now? Why, she was merely wondering if horses
think in the true sense of the word or only have animal instinct, as it
is called. And wasn't she a strange, puzzling creature to be thinking on
deep subjects like that at such a time! Yes, she had been called
puzzling as a child, but she didn't like it one bit. She wanted to be
like other girls, if he knew what she meant. He seemed to.
"They took Hetty home first on account of her poor little ankle and
sung 'Good Night, Ladies,' at the gate. And so ended a day that was
wreck and ruin for most of our sex there present.
"And to show you what a good, deep, scientific cause I had discovered,
the next night at Hetty's who shows up one by one but these four men
about town, each with a pound of mixed from the Bon Ton Handy Kitchen,
and there they're all setting at the feet of Hetty, as it were, in her
new light summer gown with the blue bows, when Mr. D. blows in with a
two-pound box and the novel in which love conquered all. So excited she
was when she tells me about it next day. The luck of that girl! But
after all it wasn't luck, because she'd laid her foundations the day
before, hadn't she? Always look a little bit back of anything that seems
to be luck, say I.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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