"That will have to be amended, for a letter I must have every week. Aunt Betty will guide your hand at first, and very soon I hope you will be able to write me a sentence or two all your own, without Aunt Betty's help."
"But what'll I say in a letter?" asked Jack, still distrustful of his own powers.
"Just what you would say to me if you were talking as you're talking now; how you get on with your lessons. If you're a good boy or a bad one, who you meet, what picnics you have; anything you like. What interests you will surely interest me."
The thought that father would still talk to him when he was away kept Jack steady through the parting, that, and the fact that a young horse only partially broken in was harnessed to the steady goer who for months past had been one of the hinder pair of the four-horse coach, played all manner of pranks at starting; at first declining to budge at all; then, when the superior force of the three others made movement necessary, setting his four legs together and letting himself be dragged along for a few paces, finally breaking into a wild gallop which was checked by his more sober mates, until at last finding himself over-matched he dropped into the quick trot of the other three, fretting and foaming at the mouth, nevertheless, at his enforced obedience. It was a primitive method of horse-breaking, but effectual. And so Jack's farewells to his father were diversified by watching the antics of the unbroken colt, and joining a little in the laughter of the ring of spectators that had gathered round to see the fun. But when the final start was made Jack was conscious of the smarting of unshed tears, rubbed his eyes vigorously with his sturdy fists and set off home at a smart trot, standing still sometimes and curvetting a little in imitation of the colt that needed breaking in.
Betty, who stood waiting for him at the gate of the paddock, ready to comfort and console, saw him gambolling along like a frisky horse, and felt her sympathy a little wasted. Children's sorrows are proverbially evanescent, but she was hardly prepared for Jack to return in such apparently rollicking spirits from the parting with his father of indefinite duration. And when he came up to her it was of the horse and its capering that he told her, mimicking its action in his own little person: holding back, pelting forwards, trying to rear, interspersed with vicious side kicks, and finally a wild gallop which sobered into a trot.
"That's 'zackly how he went," he said, waiting breathless for Aunt Betty to catch him up.
Betty was extremely astonished that Jack made no mention of his father, but later she understood. Tea was over, and before Jack went to bed Betty allowed him a quarter of an hour's play at any game he chose.
"Would you like to be the frisky horse again, and I will drive you," she asked, willing to humour his latest whim.
"No, I'll get my slate and write, only you must help me."
This was indeed an unexpected development for Jack, and left Betty speechless. Jack was quick at reading and quite good at counting, but writing was his particular bug-bear.