Rode on horseback to Peaceville to-day to get the mail, and brought back a very heavy mail and two books which have been generously sent to the Book Club; and not content with that, saw some very nice salt fish at the store and bought two pounds and brought that home too.
I have given Ruth holiday since moving, and am using Romola. She is a delightful saddle horse so that I have been riding everywhere instead of driving, and I do enjoy it. Romola has a history.
One of my hands some years ago got into trouble and came to me in great distress to borrow quite a large sum of money. I lent it to him and two years passed without his making the least effort to pay it, though he had made good crops and shipped over a hundred bushels of rice of his own to market. So one spring I said to him,
"As you will not pay your debt yourself, you had better make your horse pay it. I will rent her from you and use her until the debt is paid." He seemed very pleased at the idea and brought his mare the next day. I had often felt sorry for her; she struck me as having once been some one's pet and a pleasure horse—a dark chestnut, with a nice air about her. When I asked her name he gave the name of one dear to me which I could not bear to use, so I said: "I will call her Romola, after you." This delighted him, his name being Romulus, pronounced by his friends Ramblus.
I found to my dismay that Romola was too weak to do any work when she first came and I had the pleasure of feeding her for a month before she could be of any use. Romulus had only fed her, and that lightly, when he used her, which might be once a week or once a fortnight; the rest of the time she was turned loose in the woods to hunt her living.
After being well fed and groomed for a while she became quite useful, and at the end of nine months the debt was paid and I returned her to him. He brought her back, however, at once and said:—
"Miss, she look so fine you kin keep um fu' she feed. I ain't got no co'n. I ain't got no pertikler use fur um."
So I kept her through that winter and in the spring he came to say he had received an offer of $45 for her and he was going to sell her. I told him I would give him $50 and so Romola became mine, and she is a delightful creature.
Having known evil days she appreciates her home and is always cheerful. Her gaits are very pleasant, easier than Ruth's, but she is a great jumper, no fence can hold her, she skims over like a bird. When I try to get her near enough to a gate for my short arms to reach the latch there is always a danger of her leaping it.
She comes up to it nicely and stops where a man's long arm could open it with ease, but for me it is hopeless. I ride off and bring her back two or three times with the same result, then she loses patience and prepares to jump.