“He wasn’t hurt?”
“Oh, no. You see, Merrilegs has ideas of his own about jumping, now: he thinks he’s too old, and it takes Billy all he knows to get him over a log. So, when Rex rode him at this one—it was only a wee little log—he just propped. And Rex shot over the log all right, except that the pony didn’t go with him. Rex was awfully disgusted, but he wasn’t hurt.”
“And, of course, Billy yelled with laughter?”
“Well, that’s what Billy would do,” said Jo. “All the same, I think it’s very likely that Master Rex will go off by himself some fine morning and get Merrilegs over that log—just as he did with swimming.” She told the story of the boys’ early-morning bathe, and Tom nodded approvingly.
“Shows he’s got something in him. Well, I went to school with the other Forester boys, and they certainly weren’t the kind of chaps to be beaten by anything.”
“And, of course, his sister Helen is the same. Why, she was Captain of Merriwa!” said Jo, as though that assertion implied every possible virtue. “Only, Rex hasn’t had a fair chance, between illnesses and being handed over to a prim old governess who did her best to make an Early Victorian young lady of him. He was like nothing earthly when he came, but there’s a good deal of commonplace small boy cropping out now, thank goodness!”
“And how about you two?” demanded Tom, with a grin. “How’s work suiting you?”
“Oh, work’s all right,” said Jo shortly.
Not even Jean knew how her twin longed in secret for the school-life they had lost. School had always been a glad prospect ahead of them, for Mrs. Weston had loved her years at Merriwa and she had brought up the twins in happy anticipation of just as good a time when their own turn should come. And it had been all, and more, that they had hoped. Lessons, thanks to their mother’s good grounding, had been not too difficult: out of school hours the time had been all too brief for the packed interests, the jolly friendships, the long, intimate talks. Their first year had gone in a happy whirl: they had looked forward to others as good. And now it was all over.
Not that Jo was discontented with home-life. It was not in her nature to be discontented with anything for more than five minutes at a time. She loved her home, and there was plenty of interest in each day’s work and play, besides the solid satisfaction of knowing that she and her twin were doing something really worth while—something that helped to lift the burden from her father’s shoulders. But they were not yet sixteen: and sometimes there came over her a wave of longing for the care-free days when there had been no worries, no responsibilities. “We were just kids, last year,” she thought, sometimes. “It’s a bit sudden to be grown-up.”