Across the Years | Page 6

her eyes anxiously scanning
the perturbed faces of her children.
"We did--especially," came the prompt reply.
Lydia Ann's gaze drifted to the table and lingered upon the clock, the
tie, and the bottle of perfume. "'Specially for us," she murmured softly.
Then her face suddenly cleared. "Why, then we'll have to take them,
won't we?" she cried, her voice tremulous with ecstasy. "We'll just have
to--whether we ought to or not!"
"You certainly will!" declared Frank. And this time he did not even try
to hide the shake in his voice.
"Oh!" breathed Lydia Ann blissfully. "Samuel, I--I think I'll take a fig,
please!"

Jupiter Ann

It was only after serious consideration that Miss Prue had bought the
little horse, Jupiter, and then she changed the name at once. For a

respectable spinster to drive any sort of horse was bad enough in Miss
Prue's opinion; but to drive a heathen one! To replace "Jupiter" she
considered "Ann" a sensible, dignified, and proper name, and "Ann"
she named him, regardless of age, sex, or "previous condition of
servitude." The villagers accepted the change--though with
modifications; the horse was known thereafter as "Miss Prue's Jupiter
Ann."
Miss Prue had said that she wanted a safe, steady horse; one that would
not run, balk, or kick. She would not have bought any horse, indeed,
had it not been that the way to the post office, the store, the church, and
everywhere else, had grown so unaccountably long--Miss Prue was
approaching her sixtieth birthday. The horse had been hers now a
month, and thus far it had been everything that a dignified, somewhat
timid spinster could wish it to be. Fortunately--or unfortunately, as one
may choose to look at it--Miss Prue did not know that in the dim
recesses of Jupiter's memory there lurked the smell of the turf, the feel
of the jockey's coaxing touch, and the sound of a triumphant multitude
shouting his name; in Miss Prue's estimation the next deadly sin to
treason and murder was horse racing.
There was no one in the town, perhaps, who did not know of Miss
Prue's abhorrence of horse racing. On all occasions she freed her mind
concerning it; and there was a report that the only lover of her youth
had lost his suit through his passion for driving fast horses. Even the
county fair Miss Prue had refused all her life to attend--there was the
horse racing. It was because of all this that she had been so loath to buy
a horse, if only the way to everywhere had not grown so long!
For four weeks--indeed, for five--the new horse, Ann, was a treasure;
then, one day, Jupiter remembered.
Miss Prue was driving home from the post office. The wide, smooth
road led straight ahead under an arch of flaming gold and scarlet. The
October air was crisp and bracing, and unconsciously Miss Prue lifted
her chin and drew a long breath. Almost at once, however, she frowned.
From behind her had come the sound of a horse's hoofs, and reluctantly
Miss Prue pulled the right-hand rein.
Jupiter Ann quickened his gait perceptibly, and lifted his head. His ears
came erect.
"Whoa, Ann, whoa!" stammered Miss Prue nervously.

The hoof beats were almost abreast now, and hurriedly Miss Prue
turned her head. At once she gave the reins an angry jerk; in the other
light carriage sat Rupert Joyce, the young man who for weeks had been
unsuccessfully trying to find favor in her eyes because he had already
found it in the eyes of her ward and niece, Mary Belle.
"Good-morning, Miss Prue," called a boyish voice.
"Good-morning," snapped the woman, and jerked the reins again.
Miss Prue awoke then to the sudden realization that if the other's speed
had accelerated, so, too, had her own.
"Ann, Ann, whoa!" she commanded. Then she turned angry eyes on the
young man. "Go by--go by! Why don't you go by?" she called sharply.
In obedience, young Joyce touched the whip to his gray mare: but he
did not go by. With a curious little shake, as if casting off years of dull
propriety, Jupiter Ann thrust forward his nose and got down to
business.
Miss Prue grew white, then red. Her hands shook on the reins.
"Ann, Ann, whoa! You mustn't--you can't! Ann, please whoa!" she
supplicated wildly. She might as well have besought the wind not to
blow.
On and on, neck and neck, the horses raced. Miss Prue's bonnet slipped
and hung rakishly above one ear. Her hair loosened and fell in
straggling wisps of gray to her shoulders. Her eyeglasses dropped from
her nose and swayed dizzily on their slender chain. Her gloves split
across the back and showed the white, tense knuckles. Her breath came
in gasps,