Dad viewed the boy’s efforts with covert amusement; now and then, as in the case of the jerked reins, offering a word or two of criticism, then of brief, if kindly spoken, advice.
“I can stay aboard,” panted Jimmie brokenly, as the horse broke into a hard trot that shook the breath from his lungs. “I can stay aboard, all right. But I could get more fun out of a nice gun-carriage without strings or a—Gee, Emp!” he interrupted himself, apostrophizing the many-breeded dog that frisked coquettishly along just ahead of him. “You ain’t got a ghost of an idea how lucky you are to have four feet instead of riding something that has. And when you sit down you’ve always got something to sit on that won’t jog you up in the air again. Say, Dad, what old duffer ever invented the fool idea that folks mustn’t hang on by the pommel and the mane?”
“The same man, I suppose,” responded Dad, “who invented all the rules that pester us. The rule that you mustn’t run away when you’re scared, and that you must tell the truth when a lie would seem to help, and that you must share the half rations you’re so hungry for with the chap who hasn’t any; and every other rule that’s hard to obey and that makes man something better than an animal.
“Stick on, son. It’ll come easier by and by. Everything does. And the outside of a horse is the best thing for the inside of a man. There’s nothing else on earth to equal riding. It’s—Keep the hand lower and the heels higher, son! Ball of the foot, not the instep, in the stirrup. So!”
“It’s funny,” mused Jimmie, “how we happened to take this Frederick road when there are so many others. If we aren’t careful we’re liable to run into the Third Ambulance Corps wagon train before long. Emp!” he went on, hastily, forestalling any possible retort, “you and I are a lonely pair of youngsters, aren’t we? I wonder if you ever had a grandmother. Maybe dogs don’t. I don’t remember mine.
“But sometimes it kind of almost seems to me as if maybe I can look forward to her, Emp. And it makes me feel pretty good. ’Cause I think she’s just the dandiest little lady that ever fell in love with the dandiest man that ever was, or ever will be, Emp.”
“Jimmie!” remarked Dad, sternly. “Your shoulders are hunched over like a black bear cub’s. Square them when you ride. Don’t look more like a meal-sack or a Cherokee squaw than you can help.”
The boy straightened himself to erect military carriage. And at once the jarring trot of the big horse shook his spine excruciatingly.
He slowed his mount to a walk, thereat, with promptitude.
“Want to turn back, son?” queried Dad. “Had enough of it?”