Constance was now a pupil at the Riveredge High School and Jean at the grammar school. Both had been seminary pupils prior to Mr. Carruth’s death, but expenses had to be curtailed at once.
Constance was the domestic body of the household; prettiest of the three, sunshiny, happy, resourceful, she faced the family’s altered position bravely, giving up the advantages and delights of the seminary without a murmur and contributing to her mother’s peace of mind to a degree she little guessed by taking the most optimistic view of the situation and meeting altered conditions with a laugh and a song, and the assurance that “some day she was going to make her fortune and set ’em all up in fine shape once more.” She got her sanguine disposition from her mother who never looked upon the dull side of the clouds, although it was often a hard matter to win around to their shiny side.
Eleanor was quite unlike her; indeed, Eleanor did not resemble either her father or mother, for Mr. Carruth had been a most genial, warm-hearted man, and unselfish to the last degree. Eleanor was very reserved, inclined to keep her affairs to herself, and extremely matured for her years, finding her relaxation and recreation in a manner which the average girl of her age would have considered tasks.
Jean was a bunch of nervous impulses, and no one ever knew where the madcap would bounce up next. She was a beautiful child with a mop of wavy reddish-brown hair falling in the softest curls about face and shoulders; eyes that shone lustrous and lambent as twin stars beneath their delicately arched brows, and regarded you with a steadfast interest as though they meant to look straight through you, and separate truth from falsehood. A mouth that was a whimsical combination of fun and resolution. A nose that could pucker disdainfully on provocation, and it never needed a greater than its owner’s doubt of the sincerity of the person addressing her.
This is the small person skipping along the pretty Riveredge street toward the more sparsely settled northern end of the town, hopping not from dry spot to dry spot between the puddles, but into and into the deepest to be found. Amy Fletcher’s home was one of the largest in the outskirts of Riveredge and its grounds the most beautiful. Between it and Riveredge stood an old stone house owned and occupied by a family named Raulsbury; a family noted for its parsimony and narrow outlook upon life in general. Broad open fields lay between this house and the Fletcher place which was some distance beyond. In many places the fences were broken; at one point the field was a good deal higher than the road it bordered and a deep gully lay between it and the sidewalk.
When Jean reached that point of her moist, breezy walk she stopped short. In the mud of the gully, drenched, cold and shivering lay an old, blind bay horse. He had stumbled into it, and was too feeble to get out.
[CHAPTER II—“Baltie”]
“When he’s forsaken
Withered and shaken
What can an old horse
Do but die?”
(With apologies to Tom Hood.)
For one moment Jean stood petrified, too overcome by the sight to stir or speak, then with a low, pitying cry of: