"Oh, but that was such a good chance," she chuckled. "Please, Aunt Julia, I just couldn't help it. I had to!"
"I don't doubt it," smiled back Mrs. Kennedy; and at the meaning emphasis in her voice there was a general laugh.
"Well, what shall we do first?" demanded Tilly, when breakfast was over.
Genevieve put her finger to her lips.
"I wonder, now. Oh, I know! Let's go out and see if they've driven in the saddle band yet; then we'll watch the boys rope them and start to work."
"What's a saddle band?—sounds like a girth," frowned Tilly.
"Humph! I reckon it isn't one, all the same," laughed Genevieve. "It's the horses the boys ride. Each one has his own string, you know."
"No, I don't know," retorted Tilly, aggrievedly. "And you needn't use all those funny words—'string' and 'saddle band' and 'rope them'—without explaining them, either, Genevieve Hartley. You've been talking like that ever since we came. Just as if we knew what all that meant!"
Genevieve laughed again.
"No, you don't, of course," she admitted, "any more than I understood some of your terms back East. But come; let's go out and watch the boys. One of the sheds has a lovely low, flat roof, and we can see right over into the horse corral from there. It's easy; there's a ladder. Come on!"