“No, not always. I know a father ’at whips his girl. With a whip, like you do horses,” asserted Beatrice, gravely.
“I never—whip horses’ Never! I wouldn’t be so cruel!”
“My—sake! Why, are you ‘mad?’ Why shouldn’t you whip ’em? Everybody does.”
“They don’t at Santa Felisa. I’ve seen folks do it here, though; till I’ve had to run away an’ cry. I think it’s puf-fect-ly dreadful!”
“Why, Steenie Calthorp! You are the veriest oddest one! My Papa’ll laugh at you. Pshaw! He whips horses himself; an’ he’s a Judge,—a Judge-of-the-Supreme-Court! If you know what that is.”
“I don’t. And I don’t care if he is, he oughtn’t to. Bob says so, an’ Bob knows. He says it’s ruiny to any poor thing to do it. Once he caught a vaquero doing it to one of the Plunketty man’s ploughers; and he just snatched the rawhide out of the fellow’s hand, and gave it to the fellow himself! Just as he was hurting the horse. I tell you, wasn’t he mad? And didn’t he jump around lively?”
“I should s’pose he did.”
“And Bob says: ‘Now you know how ’tis yourself!’ and that vaquero could be trusted anywhere after that. Only once he tried to shoot Bob; so Bob had to lick him again, an’—that settled it.”
“I should s’pose it did!” quoted an amused voice, and Judge Courtenay’s hand rested lightly on Steenie’s curly head. “You see I was tired waiting for eleven o’clock, because that old señor of yours has promised me a treat, too; so I came out to meet you on the path from your summer-house school-room.”
“How nice! What is it, Papa?”