“How do you know?”
“Try me; please try me! You’ve done things an’ things an’ things—for me; an’ now—please let me do this wee, wee little thing for you.”
“Wee? It’s a tremendous undertaking.”
“Pouf!” Steenie shrugged her shoulders in one of her little Spanish fashions, and made a motion of blowing thistle-down from her fingertips. “Wait till I tell you. Do sit down a minute, please. I can ride anything. I can ride standing, an’ jumping through rings, an’ over hurdles, an’ any way a horse can go I can ride. If you’ll let me show you now,—once this morning,—before everybody much is on the track, I’ll make you see. Then you’ll say yes, won’t you?”
“Steenie—I’m—I’m wax. But your grandmother—Do with me as you will!” cried the Judge, comically, but looking very much relieved. “And there certainly is no harm in your riding Trixie once, now—as you say.”
Within the next half-hour Steenie demonstrated fully her ability to ride Lady Trix, “anyhow, any shape,” and to that sensitive animal’s perfect satisfaction, which, in such a case, was far more important than the satisfaction of her master.
“But, my little girl, what shall we say to the people at home? What will they think of me as a guardian for their jealously-loved child?”
Steenie sat thoughtful for a moment; then her face cleared. “They’ll say I ought to do it if I can,—that is, if he was here to know ’bout it my father would say so. He tells me all the time to show my ’preciation of your kindness; an’ how am I going to if you don’t let me have any chance? The only one way I can do things for you is through your horses, ’cause I know ’bout ’em. Isn’t it? I’m puffectly sure my father would say yes.”
The Judge was reasonably certain of that also; but he was not so positive concerning Madam’s opinion. However, his inclination urged him so strongly that he at last replied: “Then, my brave, helpful little girl, hear me. If I let you ride you must take the thousand dollars I offered. Wait—listen—understand. It is the want of just that paltry sum which necessitates your grandmother’s leaving her old home; she was ‘short’ just that amount in her indebtedness, or ‘liability,’ after the farm was sold. To raise this money she is to sell her home. She would not accept the loan of it, because she saw no way of ever repaying it; and if your dear father’s writing ever comes to anything, it will be in the future,—some distance.”
“If you ride and win the race you must consider that you earn the money fairly; and must take it. Else—no—decidedly—to the whole proposition.”