But after dinner was over, Mr. Calthorp retired to his own room and closed the door, and Madam retreated to her library; so that Steenie, driven to her own resources, did the most natural thing in the world: got Sutro to saddle Tito and set off for a gallop, leaving the old caballero to attend upon her father, “case he should come out an’ want somebody an’ not both of us be gone.”
Sutro remained, partly on account of Steenie’s argument, and partly that for a long ride he utterly disdained the livery hack it had been his fortune to use during his stay at Old Knollsboro; for he did not feel quite free to go to Rookwood, so soon again, and borrow “the pretty black horse” which had been offered for his enjoyment.
Thus he was forced to hear various unpleasant remarks from Resolved Tubbs’ grim lips about “plenty o’ mouths ter fill ’ithout no furriners,” and so on; all which, busied in visions of his own brain, he ignored as referring to himself. For wasn’t he at that very moment planning the details of a scheme which should enrich everybody?
As for Steenie, she gave Tito his head, and he took it, far out into the open country, with a will and spirit that drove every care from his little rider’s mind. But after he had travelled a long distance he cast a shoe; and, seeing a smithy near, Steenie rode up to the door and coolly requested to have the shoe set.
Steenie coolly requested to have the shoe set.—Page 178.
“Humph! Who are you, any way, child? And who is going to pay me for my trouble?” demanded the farrier, with equal coolness.
Pay for it? Why, at Santa Felisa, the smith was “their own”—nobody paid. Here—Steenie didn’t like such difficult questions, but she answered, simply enough: “I s’pose somebody will. I’m Steenie Calthorp; and Tito can’t go home barefoot, over these rough roads, can he? You must see that for yourself, Mr. Smith, don’t you?”
“I see that, plain enough; and if you are one of the Calthorps down at Knollsboro—here goes! They’re honest folks, and always have been. Never a poor man lost a cent by them, and that’s the truth. They’re the right kind of aristocrats, they are. Pay for what they have, and what they can’t pay for go without, and no complaining. But no matter this time aboot pay for a trifle of kindness like this. I’ll shoe this handsome fellow, and proud of the job, any time you choose to ride out this way and show me how a little girl can ride when she puts her mind to it. That’s so. You may count upon it.”
“Why, Mr. Smith! I’m sure that’s very kind of you, an’ I ’preciate it. I like to see a man shoe a horse, when he does it neatly, an’ what Bob calls ‘with sense of a horse’s feelings.’ I think I could almost be a farrier myself, sometimes. I do, so.”