Peggy Stewart, Navy Girl at Home | Page 3

ground, raised both arms, stretching hands and fingers and inclining her head in a pose which would have thrilled a teacher of "Esthetic Posing" in some fashionable, faddish school, though it was all unstudied upon the girl's part. Then she cried in a wonderfully modulated voice:
"Oh, the joy, joy, joy of just being ALIVE on such a day as this! Of being out in this wonderful world and free, free, free to go and come and do as we want to, Shashai, Tzaritza! To feel the wind, to breathe it in, to smell all the new growing things, to see that water out yonder and the blue overhead. What is it, Dr. Llewellyn says: 'To thank the Lord for a life so sweet.' WE all do, don't we? I can put it into words, or sing it, but you two? Yes, you can make God understand just as well. Let's all thank Him together--you as He has taught you, and I as He has taught me. Now:"
It was a strange picture. The girl standing there in the beautiful early spring world, her only companions a thoroughbred, half-wild Kentucky colt and a Russian wolfhound, literally worth their weight in gold, absolutely faultless in their beauty, and each with their wonderfully intelligent eyes fixed upon her. At the word "Now," the colt raised his perfect head, drew in a deep breath and then exhaled it in a long, trumpet-like whinny. The dog voiced her wonderful bell-like bay; the note of joy sounded by her kind when victory is assured.
The girl raised her head, and parting her lips gave voice to a long- drawn note of ecstasy, ending in a little staccato trill and the same upflinging of the arms.
It was all a rhapsody of springtide, the semi-wild things' expression of intoxicating joy at being alive and their absolute mutual harmony. The animals felt it as the girl did, and surely God acknowledged the homage. Such spontaneous, sincere thanks are rare.
"Let's go now."
The horse's slender flanks quivered; his withers twitched with the nervous energy awaiting an outlet; the dog stood alert for the first motion.
Resting one hand upon those sensitive withers the girl gave a quick spring, landing lightly as thistledown astride the colt's back, holding the halter strap in her firm, brown fingers. Her costume was admirably adapted to this equestrian if somewhat unusual feat for a young lady. It consisted of a dark blue divided riding skirt of heavy cloth, and a midshipman's jumper, open at the throat, a black regulation neckerchief knotted sailor-fashion on her well-rounded chest. Anything affording freer action could hardly have been designed for her sex. And a bonny thing she looked as she sat there, the soft wind toying with the loose hairs which had escaped their bonds, and bringing the faintest rose tint into her cheeks. It was still too early in the spring for the clear, dark skin to have grown "black as a darky's." "On to the end of nowhere!" she cried. "We'll beat you to the goal, Tzaritza. Go!"
At the word the colt sprang forward with an action so true, so perfect that he and the girl seemed one. The dog gave a low bark like a laugh at the challenge and with incredibly long, graceful leaps circled around and around the pair, now running a little ahead, then executing a wide circle, and again darting forward with that derisive bark.
Shashai's speed was not to be scorned--his ancestors held an international fame for swiftness, endurance and jumping--but no horse can compete with a wolfhound.
On, on they sped, the happiest, maddest, merriest trio imaginable, down the road to the point where the perspective seemed to end it but where in reality it turned abruptly, leaving the one following its course the choice of taking a sudden dip down to the water's edge or wheeling to the right and leaping "brake, bracken and scaur." The girl did not tighten her single guiding strap, she merely bent forward to speak softly into one ear laid back to catch the words:
"Right--turn!"
Just beyond was a high fence dividing the lane where it crossed two estates. It was surmounted by a stile of four steps. There was no pause in the colt's or dog's speed. Tzaritza cleared it like a--wolfhound. Shashai with his rider skimmed over like a bird, landing upon the soft turf beyond with scarcely a sound.
Oh, the beauty of it all! Then on again through a patch of woodland which looked as though a huge gossamer veil had been laid over it. If ever pastelle colors were displayed to perfection Nature here held her exhibition. Soft pinks, pale blues, silver grays, the tenderest greens with here and there a touch of the maple buds' rich mahogany reds, and above and about the maddest melody of