The hands all pulling corn-stalks; Gibbie hauling manure to corn-fields. I did not stop him to drive Marietta until 1 o'clock. She behaved very badly at the turn of the road going to Peaceville; she wheeled suddenly and reared at nothing that I could see. Gibbie held on to his seat. He said, "'E smell goat, I smell um meself." I think she was provoked at not getting out sooner—we generally go just after breakfast. Went on to Peaceville and made a visit, but she was very ticklish all the time and on the way home she tried to run twice. As we got nearer home she quieted down, and I knew she was thinking of the oats, but I did not give it to her, for she understands perfectly. To-night I finished the first volume of the "Life of George Eliot," by J. W. Cross, which Mr. G. lent me. My sympathy with her is great. A grand woman in mind and heart. Such a misfortune she should have fallen under the Bray influence.
January 26.
A most exquisite sky at 6 a.m. and a wonderful sunrise. Thank God for all His beauty!
Drove Marietta down and took lunch at Mrs. H.'s. She went beautifully. Stood quietly the hour I was there, scarcely moving, and was as gay as possible at the end of the sixteen-mile drive, and I gave her her reward with delight.
February 2.
Have had the pleasure of a friend staying with me, and my diary is blank in consequence. While my friend was here I could not drive Marietta and very much feared that the week's idleness would make her unwilling to go quietly this morning, but she did remarkably well. We just escaped terrible danger in the shape of a party of boys driving a team of goats. I saw them in the distance and was wondering what I should do, when they turned off into another road. Coming home for the first time she had to come behind a buggy, which passed me while I was stopping at the post-office. She did not mind it at all. It was a great satisfaction to me, as the occupant of the buggy was one of my dear neighbors who had predicted terrible things if I undertook to break the colt, and had said, "My dear Mrs. Pennington, at your age you ought to have more sense than to do such a foolish thing."
Cherokee, February 18.
Drove Marietta this morning and she behaved like a fiend. With all my heart I thank the good Father for his great mercy to me.
She started off pretty well, though I felt a subtle something unusual about her.
In a woman it would be called "nerves." About a mile up the road she had settled into the long, swinging trot, when through the pine woods running toward us I saw two little darkies in startlingly red frocks and startlingly white pinafores. This only was needed to upset her. She jumped, she pitched, she went from side to side of the road, but she did not get away from me, and after a little fight she quieted down, and I called the two little girls, who stood dismayed near the road, to me and talked to them, as that is always the most quieting thing to her. She seems to listen eagerly, as if trying to understand. After a few seconds we went on, very gingerly at first, but soon she resumed her beautiful level trot, head up, nostrils distended, and speed gradually increasing as we went on. It was delightful, and with a sigh of relief I shook dull care from me and gave myself up to the enjoyment of the moment—the perfect day, the battle won, and the beautiful, sleek bay creature, whose every pulse and thought I seemed to feel. Suddenly I saw fifty feet ahead at the opening of the Hasty Point avenue, where the grass stood high, two black heads rise above the brown, waving sedge a second and as suddenly disappear. Just as I saw them Marietta did. She stopped short, almost throwing me on to her back. Then, quick as lightning, wheeled and bolted, putting the left wheel into the deep ditch, throwing me so far out on that side, that my ear felt the wind of the wheel, and was spattered with mud though not cut. Luckily I had a firm grip on the rein with my right hand, and having learned to ride by balance, I did not go out, and my whole weight going on that rein, pulled the left wheel out of the ditch as she ran, but it was a near thing, and God's great mercy. She ran half a mile before I could pull her down, then I turned and drove her back, finding Gibbie on the way. He was thrown off when she wheeled, and of course could never catch up. I drove her ten miles and then up the avenue, where she had been frightened. The two boys (16 and 18), who had caused the trouble, came up to me and begged my pardon. I spoke severely to them, for some years ago I remember they scared the mail man's horse in the same way, and so could not plead ignorance. He, being a man of action, shot at them, frightening them terribly, and yet they have done exactly the same thing again, though a man who passed them in a buggy, warned them that I was coming with the colt.