“‘Shiver my timbers!’ and ‘Scuttle her amidships!’ is my contribution to this, but I am the only person to be allowed to use these choice phrases until some one can think up better ones. Then, of course, I’ll be glad to cash in my old ones for the new ones,” was Ellen’s generous offer.
“Son, you had better order some horses saddled directly after dinner so you kids can ride over and send the necessary telegrams,” said Mr. Pellew to Jack.
With an “Aye, aye, sir,” Jack raced toward the stable.
“Home is so beautiful in the summer that I can hardly bear to leave it,” sighed Jane.
She and her father and Ellen were walking over the close-cut grass and she cast a rather wistful eye around the lovely lawn that stretched before the Pellew house. There were great trees whose spreading branches had shaded her grandparents, her own father and the mother she couldn’t remember, but loved because of the sweet pictures her father had of her. Where the lawn stopped the rolling fields of blue grass began and Jane could see the old mare, on which she and Jack had learned to ride, grazing contentedly. It was a hobby of her father’s never to sell the old horses on the place but to treat them as worthy old pensioners and turn them out on the rich bluegrass pasture lands that bordered his place. Mr. Pellew had a string of race horses famous throughout Kentucky, and as Jane put it, she and Jack had “fallen from the cradle into a saddle.” Their father kept a model stable and Aunt Min, who took charge of the Pellew home, often complained that the expense of upkeep for the stable was far greater than that of their exceedingly well run home.
“Well, of course, I won’t force you to go,” teased her father.
“Why, Jane, I thought you were perfectly wild to go,” Ellen said.
“Oh, that is the way I always behave about leaving home. I am terribly sentimental over it and always indulge in dramatics when I go away. You see, I am bats about all the horses and dogs on the place and I can’t help thinking about Atta Boy, the Denmark colt Dad was letting me break for my own,” Jane explained. “All the work I have put in on him will come to nothing if he isn’t ridden regularly this summer, and Daddy doesn’t have time to do it for me and I wouldn’t trust anybody else with such a peach of a colt.”
“You honor me, daughter.” Mr. Pellew made a low mocking bow. “To show my deep appreciation of the fact that you put my horsemanship on the level with your own, I suppose I will have to promise to ride Atta Boy every other day for you.”
“I love Kentucky too, Jane, and you can’t know how much it has meant to me to stay with you. Last summer it was too wonderful with the other girls here but this summer it has been just splendid with you and Jack.” Ellen blushed after mentioning Jack, because he had just been telling her what a wonderful summer it was for him with her visiting Jane.