Peggy Stewart, Navy Girl at Home | Page 3

Tzaritza.
The lilting song continued to its end and the dog and horse stood as
though hypnotized by the melody and the fingers' magnetic touch. Then
the song ended as abruptly as it had begun and Peggy slid lightly from
her perch to the 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