THE
LITTLE LADY OF THE HORSE
I told thee so, señor! See! she is leading him as gentle asa lamb.—Page 152.
THE
Little Lady of the Horse
BYEVELYN RAYMOND
❁
BOSTON
ROBERTS BROTHERS
1898
Copyright, 1894,
By Roberts Brothers.
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
THE
LITTLE LADY OF THE HORSE.
CHAPTER I.
Old Sutro and youngSteenie were wherethey might havebeen found on almostevery day atthe same hour,—downon the beach,where the greatcañon cut throughthe mesa to thesea.
A group ofrocks, roughlypiled, and afew evergreen shrubs clustering about them,made a pleasant break in a long, monotonousstretch of coast, and the coolness of the spotwas always refreshing after their canter inthe sunshine. Their horses had been unsaddledand set free to browse upon the herbage up thecañon; and these moved here and there, lazily,as if—like the old caballero himself—they feltthe languor of that midday hour.
“Sutro, what makes the water so bluey-green?”asked the little girl, who had been sitting silentfor full one minute and gazing dreamily at theshining waves.
“Caramba! How can I tell?”
“But you should know, shouldn’t you?Doesn’t everybody keep learning things all thetime? If I were a’most a hundred, like you,I should know everything, I think. In verity,I should be able to answer a simple question suchas that. And so I tell you.”
“Si? Thou wouldst find thou knew nothing atall, maybe; and thou wouldst not trouble if it wereso. Because, if the good Dios wished to make uswise He would put wisdom into our heads withoutlabor to us, wouldn’t he? Why not?”
“Fie, my Sutro! Do I learn reading that way?But no. I should wait a long time first, myfather says. Well, then, if you do not knowwhat makes the water green, I s’pose, at least,you can tell what lies beyond the water?”
“Ah, that I can! Beyond the water lies thesky. Thou canst see that for thyself,” answeredthe old man, with a chuckle of delight, and pointingto the horizon, where, in truth, the sky andocean seemed to blend.
“No, that is a mistake, begging your pardon,dear Sutro, though it looks so. For my fathersays that it is only seeming; and that if I wereto sail ’way, ’way over ever so far, it would bejust as it is here,—the water so low down andthe sky so high up above m