“You’re too young to ride a stallion colt, Andy,” put in one of his Donelson aunts.
“I should ride some old bag of bones like Duke, I suppose?” flared the boy.
“Duke is a noble old horse,” stated Rachel sternly. “He carried your Papa through two wars. He’s earned his rest and feed.”
“And he still pays for his keep by dancing on three feet whenever anybody whistles ‘Yankee Doodle’,” laughed Emily. “Andy, you’re only fourteen. Plenty of time for you to wrestle fractious stallion colts.”
“You could be killed,” worried his mother, “and you’ve got to live to comfort me in my old age. Sometimes I feel like it’s coming on mighty fast.”
“Nonsense, Rachel, you’ve got twenty good years ahead of you,” argued one of her sisters-in-law, “and all the struggle is behind. This fine house now—and everything fine in it and all the worry behind you.”
“If only they don’t decide that Mr. Jackson has to save the country in some other awful place far from home!” sighed Rachel. “I declare, with millions of men now in this country there ought to be enough to keep it going peacefully without Mr. Jackson being dragged away from this place again.”
“The trouble is,” remarked the other woman, “that Andrew Jackson was never born for peace. Not that he starts any trouble but the minute anything does start Andrew is the man they look for to put an end to it.”
“He’d start a fight soon enough if anybody picked on Mama,” declared Andy. “He’s done that already. That’s why he’s carrying that bullet around right close to his heart.”
“Andy!” protested Emily, shocked at the quick whitening of Rachel’s face.