Betty at Fort Blizzard | Page 3

was the best disposed horse in the
world, except when she was in a temper and her temper was merely
bashfulness and stage fright.
"Whatever it is," answered Chaplain Brown, smiling while he rubbed a
bruised shin, "it hurts. It hurts pretty badly, too."
Next, Mrs. Fortescue apologized profusely to the troopers who had
been knocked down by the bashful Birdseye. After their kind, they
preferred a kicker to a non-kicker, and accepted, with delighted grins,
Mrs. Fortescue's sweet words. But it was another thing when Mrs.
Fortescue had to face a frowning husband.
Mrs. Fortescue tripped into the Colonel's office, and going up to
Colonel Fortescue gave him two soft kisses and a lovely smile, and this
is what she got in return, in the Colonel's parade-ground voice:

"I supposed I had made myself perfectly clear, Elizabeth, in regard to
your riding that kicking mare."
"But, darling," replied Mrs. Fortescue, "I thought you wouldn't mind.
And please don't call me Elizabeth. It breaks my heart."
"I must ask--in fact, insist--that you shall not ride that mare again,"
answered the Colonel sternly, without taking any notice of Mrs.
Fortescue's breaking heart.
"And her name is Birdseye," plaintively responded Mrs. Fortescue.
"Don't you remember, the first horse you ever put me on was your first
Birdseye."
Mrs. Fortescue accompanied this information with a little pinch of the
Colonel's ear. The Colonel remained coldly unresponsive; he had
steeled his heart; the kisses and the pinch were hard to resist, but
hardest of all the look of wide-eyed innocence in the dark eyes uplifted
to his. Mrs. Fortescue would never see forty again, and her rich hair
had a wide streak of silver running from her right temple; but she was
the same Betty Beverley of twenty years before. The Betty Beverleys
of this world are dowered with immortal youth and change but little,
even under strange stars.
Mrs. Fortescue had never in her life been at the end of her resources for
placating men. She withdrew her arms from about her husband's neck,
and running lightly into the drawing-room took the After-Clap from
Kettle's arms, and, throwing him pick-a-back on her shoulders, tripped
with her beautiful man-child into the Colonel's office. Mrs. Fortescue
and the baby were the only persons who ever took liberties with
Colonel Fortescue.
The baby, charmed with his father's uniform, seized a shoulder strap
with one hand and grabbed the Colonel's carefully trimmed mustache
with the other, and lifted a pair of laughing eyes, wonderfully like his
mother's, into his father's face. Mrs. Fortescue, at first as demure as any
C. O.'s wife in the world, suddenly smiled the radiant smile that began
with her eyes and ended with her lips. The woman's cunning was too

much for the man's strength. Colonel Fortescue put his arm around his
wife, as she laid the baby's rose-leaf face against his father's bronzed
cheek. Husband and wife looked into each other's eyes and smiled.
With this baby their lost youth was restored to them. Once more the
Colonel was a slim young lieutenant, and Mrs. Fortescue was holding
in her arms another dark-eyed, rose-leafed baby, now a young soldier in
the gray uniform of a military cadet. They, themselves, could scarcely
realize the flitting of the years. This new baby was a glorious surprise
in their later married life. The baby's little hand had led them backward
to the splendid sunrise of their married happiness.
"It is because I love you so that I can't--I won't let you ride that black
devil, Betty dear," said the Colonel.
"How ridiculous!" replied Mrs. Fortescue. "You know I can ride as
well as you can--can't I, After-Clap?"
"Goo-goo-goo-goo!" replied the baby, positively.
"And I never could understand why you should take the trouble to get
angry with me," Mrs. Fortescue kept on, "when you can't stay angry
with me to save your life."
Colonel Fortescue made a last stand.
"But if I didn't get angry with you sometimes, Betty----"
"'Betty' sounds cheerful," interrupted Mrs. Fortescue, and then there
was peace between them.
Mrs. Fortescue and the Colonel went up-stairs to dress for dinner, and
Kettle, on watch in the hall, took charge of the After-Clap, who
commanded to be taken back into the office. Kettle, as always,
promptly obeyed, and putting the baby on Sergeant McGillicuddy's
desk, allowed the After-Clap to wreck everything in sight.
It had not been originally designed that Kettle should be the
After-Clap's nurse. The colored mammy who had nursed Beverley and

Anita with tender devotions having gone to her well-earned rest, Mrs.
Fortescue had determined to be very modern with the After-Clap. A
smart young trained nurse, in a ravishing cap, was his first nurse. But
the baby showed such marked preference for Kettle, and Kettle dogging
the baby by day and