“Can you do it, dear? Can you do it for Charles and Mammy? I wouldn’t ask you to if I could go alone, but you are bigger and stronger than I am, Baltie, even if you are so old. Can you take me to Dr. Black’s through this deep snow? It isn’t so very far, Baltie, and we’ll be careful. Can you, Baltie? We must have him, for Charles is so sick.”
For answer the horse nestled closer to the girl, and nickered repeatedly.
“I know you mean ‘yes,’ dear. I know you do. I’ll be careful, Baltie. I’ll cover you up all warm and snug.”
As she talked, Jean threw over Baltie’s head the head and neck blanket, which Charles had insisted must be part of the old horse’s impedimenta during the severe winter months. Deftly pushing his ears into the ear coverings, she drew the hood over his head, his soft eyes shining upon her like two moons from the circular openings, and buttoned it around his throat. An extra blanket was quickly added, and then the old saddle was strapped on. Leading Baltie to the door, Jean switched off the electric light, gave one lithe little spring and landed across the saddle. It had not taken her long to shift from her ordinary clothing into Constance’s divided riding skirt up there in the Bee-hive, or to add the heavy outer garments the inclement weather made necessary.
“Now, Baltie, we must go, we must, dear. Please, please do your best for Charles and Mammy, they have been so good to you.”
As though he understood every word spoken to him, the horse bent to the driving wind and plunged into the unbroken road. Dr. Black’s home was less than a mile from Mrs. Carruth’s, and ordinarily Jean could have walked it in less than fifteen minutes, or run it in ten, and had often done so; but all walks and roadways were now completely obliterated. She must trust to her sense of direction and to Baltie’s wonderful instinct.
On plodded the good old creature, breaking into a light lope where the wind had swept the street comparatively free of snow, wallowing, pounding, pawing into the drifts where they barred his progress, snorting his protest, not at Jean, but at the elements, though never pausing in his efforts, which made him breathe hard, and more than once slow up for his second wind.
Jean had ridden from her earliest childhood, and had a man’s seat in the saddle. Now she leaned forward, her arms clasped about the great, heaving neck, the while speaking encouraging words into the ears laid back to catch her voice. As they drew near the more thickly settled portion of Riveredge, the blank, dense silence in which it lay impressed her strongly. During the first half mile the electric lights at measured intervals cast their fantastic gleam and shadows upon the snow. In this section they were numerous and brought into stronger relief the ghostly houses. Far off some shivering dog howled dismally, and instantly Jean thought of old Mammy’s superstitions, and her convictions “dat ef he howl two times an’ stop, it sure is fer a man ter die.” This dog had howled “two times.” Jean was not superstitious, but she was the child of southern-born parents, and had been “raised” by a very typical southern “Mammy.” Tradition is very hard to overcome. She shivered, but not from the biting cold, though her feet were numb from it.
Not a human being was in sight as she turned into the street upon which Dr. Black’s house stood five blocks further down. They might almost as well have been fifty, for the street was narrower than most of the others, and running north and south had caught the full brunt of the northeaster. More than one piazza and front door was banked nearly to the piazza roof, and the street itself practically impassable.
Baltie had come bravely thus far, but such a white mountain as now lay before him was enough to daunt a young horse, much less an old blind one. He stopped, his flanks heaving, his head drooping. Jean was almost ready to give up in despair, for the cold had chilled her to the bone, and feet and hands were almost without sensation.