On that occasion the lady, being ill, was very comfortably propped in the big steamer-chair on the porch, Peg declaring she felt better out in the air, and that she preferred sleeping out there when the weather was mild enough.
So Peg of Tamarack Hills was a queer girl in many ways, and the mystery surrounding her home life always served to excite the curiosity of strangers, but had not, as yet, been explained.
Perhaps a half-hour after she entered the bungalow for breakfast she appeared again in the familiar roughrider’s outfit, adjusting the leather-fringed skirt over her breeches as she stood in the doorway.
“I’ll take Shag if that will make you feel any better, Aunt Carrie,” said the girl, pulling her hat firmly on the cropped head. “Also, I’ll ride slowly enough to talk to him, and I’ll surely be back by noon. Now promise you are not going to worry.”
“I can’t promise, my dear; but I’ll try not to. You are growing up now, Peggie, and summer folks are so critical, you know.”
“Toothpicks for summer folks!” retorted the girl scornfully. “We don’t owe them anything, Carrie, and if that’s all you have got to worry about——”
“I wish it were, dear,” sighed the woman, but the girl was hurrying to the log-built barn where “Whirlwind,” her blue roan, impatiently awaited her coming.
Then she was off “like a piece of scenery,” as Pete put it. But Peggie Ramsdell had no thought of the picturesque effect she created, nor did she care for less friendly criticism that followed in her dust-blown path.
[CHAPTER VI—OPENING DAY]
“Everything is ready. Miss Mackin has sent our application to headquarters so that we may go on record, and now all we have to do is——”