“Hold on, dear!” called Mrs. Merrill reassuringly, as she hurried up behind her little girl; “hold on and you’ll be all right.”
“I’m a-holdin’,” replied Mary Jane breathlessly; “when I go riding I don’t let him leave me, ’deed I don’t!” and she clutched at the lines with all her might. But evidently the pony had had no thought of running away. He liked his eating so much that it took a hard pull on the lines by the groom to make him raise his head and start on again.
For a little while the groom rode close by Mary Jane and held on to the lines and Mrs. Merrill rode ahead with Alice. But the pony behaved so very well that soon Mary Jane held her own reins again and proudly rode all around the fort and back to the hotel.
“Oh, that was fun!” exclaimed Alice with a sigh of pure joy and satisfaction as she was lifted off her pony.
“I think I’d like to ride every day,” said Mary Jane; “I like a pony that runs and eats and takes me riding. Do they have ponies other places?” And then, as Mrs. Merrill paid the groom and led the girls back to the hotel, Mary Jane added, “Now what do we do next?”
LUNCHEON BY THE OLD WELL
BUT by the time she had had her luncheon, Mary Jane began to realize that a long swim, or trying at swimming, and a pony ride of an hour was almost enough for a little girl to do in one day. And when, as they came from the dining room, she saw Ellen running toward her with her French doll in her arms, Mary Jane was willing to promise to “play dolls” in the courtyard garden all afternoon. Alice wanted to take a few pictures in the gardens and write letters and send postals to her friends at home, and Mrs. Merrill had letters and a bit of mending, so the afternoon spent in the sunshine of the inner garden passed very quickly.
Next morning, as they were coming out from the dining room after breakfast, Mrs. Merrill stopped a few minutes to talk with the steward and the girls knew immediately that something nice was coming.
“What do you think,” she asked as she joined them a minute later, “of having a picnic luncheon to-day? Remember that pretty street we rode south on yesterday? All those old Spanish houses were built years and years ago. The queer one, that has no garden in front, is supposed to be the oldest house in America. When I was here before the kind lady who takes care of the place sometimes let folks eat their luncheon in the garden by the old well. Wouldn’t that be fun?”