The Penney family live in a plain but substantial house on the main road, a little way north of the village, where Mr. Penney combines farming, a blacksmith's shop, and a small line of groceries, for the benefit of his family. Up to the present time this family has jogged along at a fairly comfortable pace, only one daughter, the youngest, Mollie, having so far escaped from the traditional female employments of the region as to spend a season in New York, supplementing the grammar school education by a course in elocution, with Delsarte accompaniments. When she returned she gave her old friends to understand that she was thoroughly misunderstood by her family; also, that she was now to be called Marie and preferably Miss, hinted that she was soon going on a professional tour, and condescendingly agreed to give a free recital at a Sunday-school entertainment. At this she startled the community by reciting the sleep-walking scene from Lady Macbeth, clad in a lace-trimmed Empire nightgown, red slippers with high heels, whitened face, wild hair, and, of course, the candlestick, with such terrible effect that the mothers of the infant class had difficulty in getting their progeny to stay in bed in the dark for some weeks to come. The pastor considered that, under the circumstances, she gave the words "out damned spot" undue emphasis, while the "Watch-out Committee" of the S. C. E. failed entirely to agree as to what gave the nightgown a decided pink tint, opinions greatly varying. Some insisted that it was flesh, while the pastor's wife, knowing the flavour of persecution, firmly insisted that it was merely a pink cambric slip, as was most right and proper. But her charity was immediately discounted by Mrs. Barton, who said that likely it was pink lining, for Marie's flesh was yellow, and not pink.
However, this event was soon forgotten in the greater interest that gathered about Fannie Penney's return ride from town.
It seems that soon after Fannie left the town limits and was jogging along the turnpike, the big roan horse of all work began to stumble, then grew lame forward, and finally came to a standstill.
Fannie got out, examined his feet, soon found that not only had he cast a shoe, but in doing so had managed to step on a nail and drive it into his frog. With the good judgment of a farrier's daughter, she promptly unharnessed him. Looking about and seeing cows grazing in a neighbouring pasture, she led him slowly to the side of the road, let down the bars and turned him loose, where he immediately showed his appreciation of the situation by lying down and nibbling at the grass within reach.
So far so good, but when Fannie began to consider the possibility of walking home, with the chance of being picked up on the road by some one, and getting her father to come and remove the nail, the load of groceries loomed up before her. Not only did they represent considerable money value, country reckoning, and there was no house within half a mile either way, but some of the articles, such as lard, were in danger of being ruined by the hot sun; so Fannie walked along the road, searching the dust for the lost shoe, seeing no way out of her dilemma unless some one should come by.
She did not find the shoe, but soon a cloud of dust from the town side told of an approaching team, and she went to the shade of the only near-by tree and waited.
A moment later, the team coming up proved to be a freshly painted runabout, drawn by a fine bay horse in trim harness, driven by the average stable boy; while beside him sat a smooth-faced, keen-eyed man, rather under middle age, dressed in a spotless light suit, tan shoes, lilac shirt, opalesque tie, finished above by a Panama hat pinched into many dimples.
He was evidently a man of quick action, for he saw the girl and horseless wagon at a glance, touched the reins, stopped the horse, and jumped out before Fannie could think, taking off his hat and saying:—
"Lady in distress, runaway horse, lucky not to have upset load—can I be of any use?" all in one breath.
Fannie had never read Dickens, so that no comparison with the speech of Alfred Jingle arose to make her distrustful, which was unnecessary, and the bowing figure appeared to her the perfection of up-to-date manly elegance. Could it—yes, it must be a guest on the way to the Bluffs.