“The only thing that I can think of,” interrupted the groom, “is for us to leave you girls with the horses, while we get to shore. Then you send ’em off one by one, and we’ll catch ’em. Miss Hildreth, you send yours first. No, Miss Wales, you send mine first, then Miss Hildreth’s may follow better. I’m awfully sorry to make you young ladies so much trouble.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Babbie bravely, shaking the water out of her eyes. “Only—do hurry, please.”
The “easy wading” proved to be through water up to a man’s shoulders, and it lightened twice, with the usual consequences to Babbie’s horse, before the groom signaled. His horse went off easily enough, but Babbie’s balked and then reared, and Betty’s lay down first and then kicked viciously, when she and Babbie between them had succeeded in getting him to stand up. Finally Madeline broke her crop in getting him over the side, and when Black Beauty had also been sent ashore the ferry lurched a little and floated.
“Do you suppose we shall ever get dry again?” asked Eleanor lightly, while they waited for the ferryman to come back to them.
Babbie touched her black coat gingerly. “Am I wet?” she whispered to Betty. “Of course I am, but I’d forgotten it.” The reins had cut one of her hands through her heavy glove, but she had forgotten that too, as she shivered and clung to the railing that Black Beauty had splintered when he went over. All she could think of was the horror of riding that plunging, foam-flecked horse home.
The ferryman took them to his house, which was the nearest one to the landing; and while he and the groom rubbed down the horses, his wife and little daughter made more coffee for the girls and helped them wring out their dripping clothes.
Babe pretended to find vast enjoyment in watching the water trickle off her skirts and gaiters. Christy, who rode bare-headed, declared that she had gotten a beautiful shampoo free of charge. Even Babbie smiled faintly and called attention to the “mountain tarn” splashing about in the brim of her tri-corn hat.
“I tell ye, them girls air game,” declared the ferryman watching them ride off as soon as the storm was over. “That little slim one on the bay mare is a corker. Her horse cut up somethin’ awful. They all offered to change with her, but she said she guessed she could manage. Look at the way she sets an’ pulls. She’s got grit all right. I guess I’ll have to make out to have you go to college, Annie.”
Whereupon little Annie spent a rapturous evening dreaming of the time when she should be a Harding girl, and be able to say bright, funny things like Miss Ayres. She resolved to wear her hair like Miss Watson and to have a pleasant manner like Miss Wales, and above all to be “gritty” like Miss Hildreth. For the present evening the fiercest steed she could find to subdue was an arithmetic lesson. Annie hated arithmetic, but in the guise of a plunging bay mare, that it took grit to ride, she rather enjoyed forcing the difficult problems to come out right.
Meanwhile the riding party had reached the campus, a little later and a little wetter than most of their friends, and they were provided with hot baths and hot drinks, and put to bed, where they lay in sleepy comfort enjoying the feeling of being heroines.