in profusion, stalked rampant over the fair grounds wherever a Pennerile blue ribbon waved jauntily over a red from the Bluegrass, or the State at large. "Well, what do you think of the Pennerile invasion, Barbara?" exclaimed Judge Cavendish, as he stood over the Robards's apple exhibit, which weighed one and a quarter pounds to the apple. "This kind of perfection is unsportsmanlike. His mule colt looks like a young elephant, and he spends his days stuffing, then exercising, his pigs, so his blasted bacon runs fat and lean streaks, like the stripes on a woman's dimity. He 'll breed mocking-bird voices in his cows next, and expect Bluegrass grangers to do the same." "Seen his beardless wheat and giant punkin, Jedge?" chuckled old Major Spence, who lives over the bank, and strenuously eschews the vicissitudes of farm life by renting his farm on shares to the judge, living on the results, meager or abundant. "What's that to you, sir?" stormed the judge, at the prod. "You never sprouted even a first-class goatee in your life, and don't know wheat from timothy. Barbara, my child, have you ever observed anything to equal that impudent Robards's Plymouth Rock rooster over in the poultry show that is as big as a calf? It makes my cock look like a half-breed hen, and yours can't be persuaded to take his head. out of the straw long enough to be fed." "Blast him! why don't he spend his fortune like a gentleman, instead of using it for tricky Yankee experiments, to come it over men who have farmed for generations by the grace of the hottest sun, clearest water, and the richest land in the South? The Pennerile upstart!" growled dad, and as he walked away he swung his heavy crop with vicious temper. had been drinking hard, and for the first time in my life I had begun to feel fear, not of him, but that he would fail to lose the end, as I saw he must, like a sports man. He I turned quickly away as a storm began to mutter in my breast. I am like dad. I have his powerful body and ungovernable temper. When I was ten my gentle mother died and left us to fight it out, and the battle has been royal. Still, at its worst I have never forgot the power in that last look of unutterable love for us both with which she left us, and knowing both him and myself, I had never even begun to understand-until I raised my eyes to Helm Robards's on Monday over that short quart of milk from Bluefields's udder. Then something in a region that lay back of what I had supposed to be my heart vibrated as I turned away from the cow-sheds into the sunshine. And I believe for the rest of my life I 'm going to be tender in that newly discovered spot from that shock and tingle. I hope so. And as I walked along the lane to the stables, the sensitized place ached with a passionate longing for dad to keep his pride, at least, up to the standard. For twenty years he has been the most brilliant farmer in Kentucky, and for ten years no one has even disputed his presidency of the grange. He has bred colts of national reputation, and his rams and ewes have sold from Virginia to Louisiana. They all know that he is considered the typical Bluegrass gentleman farmer by the world beyond our state lines, and distinguished visitors to the nation have been sent down to be his guests. Kentuckians have all been proud of him, and followed his lead, unscientific as it has been. But this week he had taken his losings hard, and day by day I had seen him grow sullen, and drink. Yes, I was frightened. "It's all right if we lose to the end game, not yellow," I muttered to myself. But the storm I dreaded broke down at the paddock less than an hour later. "Take that blasted rawbone beast back to Uplands," ordered dad in a thick, hot voice as he came to the door of the stall where I stood feeding Spunk a ripe apple, while a stable-boy was giving him a good rub-down before the green hunters' ordeal, which was coming to him at tenthirty. thirty. "I've just seen Robards gallop his green mare through the meadow, and I won't follow any Pennerile horse that breathes across a hurdle. That longlegged colt of mine has n't a show. I've taken the red to Robards's blue on my pigs and Jerseys and Southdowns, even seen my own punkins tagged behind his, but I'll be eternally damned if I let them pin a red ribbon on me, with the whole State looking on. Take him back. I'll scratch him." "For the love of heaven, sir, don't A scratch!" I gasped. "The whole State will witness your-your dishonor." volt of rage at him and pain for him riddled my nerves and sinews. I stood back against the stall-door, with my head held high, and looked him full in the face with all the pioneer pride of my pastures rising in my breast. "Give him a chance. He's great, and only a great horse can beat him." "That will do from you, Madam," answered dad, using the title of seeming courtesy that always marks the stage of fever-heat between him and me. "We Hardins lead the field in the Bluegrass, and never follow. This colt can't jump within two feet of his mare's reach. That cock-sure has given me more humiliations to swallow than I can well stomach. I'll not take another." "He's beaten us fair because he 's bred every one of his exhibits ahead of ours, but it remains for them all to see that we are bred under him ourselves-in grit and honor, if you fail to ride against him," I answered in the cool voice with which I can usually manage to quell dad. "If you scratch Spunk, you scratch yourself before the whole State, which will look on and see that you can't take a defeat-that you run.' "Take that horse home, boy," answered dad in his level voice, which sometimes meets mine and means war to the knife between us. "And also, Madam, it will show good taste for you to keep out of Robards's arms at the ball to-night. Red and blue don't accord in the dance. It's enough for me to be forced officially to ask him to dine at the grange house today." "He'll probably not want to eat or dance with-with yellow," I answered between my teeth as he turned on his heel and left me. For a crazy minute I stood and shook with the unholy rage he had roused in me, and then something soft and warm snuggled against my cheek as Spunk leaned across his bar to thank me for the apple and ask for more. I took his long, thin nozle, with its wide, sensitive nostrils, in my hand, and looked deep into his clear, gentle eyes, which held a spark in their depths. Spunk and I have been bred alike; he has been sired by dad's Satan, the worse-tempered, most beautiful, and most powerful stallion in the Bluegrass, out of English Lady, a gentle mare my mother had driven to her low phaëton to within a week of her death. As I looked into his eyes, I seemed to see that he knew and sympathized with the war that was perpetually waged within my own breast profound womanliness, and hard-riding, passionate temperament fighting for possession of me. And the beauty of us! Spunk has long legs, deep flanks, and high-held head. So have I. Spunk has steel muscles that knot under a thin, silken skin. So have I. Could it be haphazard, rotten beauty? Suddenly the question stormed into my brain, Did Spunk and I lack the small per cent. that the cows and pigs and pumpkins lacked of matching Helm Robards and his products? Did we? Just then I heard the paddock starter call for the green jumpers, and the crestfallen, sobbing stable-boy came. with Spunk's blanket to lead him home. It was then that a deep chord toned in me, and I rose out of the depths of deadly shame and humiliation into which I had sunk at being scratched along with Spunk. Once, when dad and I had clashed to the echo, my mother had held me close and tight to her breast, and had whispered so that I had hardly heard it: "You are the child of a good God; never forget it." Like a flash came the first impulse to pray I had ever had. "Now, please God!" I whispered under my breath, and stood still for just a second, listening. Something there back of my heart struck a note, and lifted my head high and strong. "Strap the smallest racing-saddle you can find on him and make the stirrups short," I said to the boy as I slipped out of my coat and buckled the belt of my khaki riding-skirt closer about my waist. I knew that no Bluegrass woman before had ever been allowed to ride in a field of half-broken colts for the first time being put over bars, with the excitement of the music and the crowd running them wild again. again. No wonder the green hunters' event is always the greatest and most exciting one of fair week; it's dangerous enough to have pleased Nero himself, and takes the breath of the grand stand. But I felt perfectly unafraid, and I laughed softly to myself as I wound my braids tighter around my head and hung up my Panama hat in the stall, while the boy, trembling with fear, saddled and bridled Spunk. "Spunk darling, we 'll find out if there's more in us than in punkins," I whispered as I kissed his nozle, mounted, and let the boy turn us into the run that led to the end of the track. It was in a bunch of the most beautiful youngsters ever bred in Kentucky meadows that Spunk and I galloped down the track toward the first hurdle. Bobby Henderson was riding his Meadow Belle, and she fairly frolicked with joy on her dainty feet, while Mason Burt's Getaway was indulging in a glorious turkey-trot all to himself, inspired by the strains of "Robert E. Lee" that the country band was blasting out from the band-stand. Lindsey Hall, on Peachy, looked across at me with alarm in his friendly, brown eyes and called: felt that I must have some sort of a blue ribbon to put me into his class or remain forever in outer darkness. "If you want this ribbon, you'll have to jump for it-high," I answered calmly. and softly, my eyes still held by his. "I'll not jump against you in this field of dangerous horses," he said, while the mare nozled Spunk, who nipped a goodnatured reply, as we cantered down to the line. "Come back to the paddock with me before the starter calls." "And let them all say I came into the ring to disqualify you?" I asked coolly, calling up my temper to steady my emotions, which is always a successful manœuver for a hard-pressed woman, while I also regained possession of my eyes. "If you don't use all the jump there is in your mare against me, you will impeach my honor. It's what I 'm fighting for. I'm in this field to save it, because my father -my father refused to ride his horse against you-went to scratch at the call "Don't take him to the limit, Barbara! bell in fear of a red ribbon." Jump low and alone!" "Our name is Spunk, and we jump," I laughed back at him, with my heart beating higher and higher, as I saw the huge, black Pennerile mare galloping down the track behind us under Helm Robards, whose face was white beneath the long lock of brown hair that had blown across his forehead. For three evenings I had been dancing within the brawny arms that, bare now, held in the powerful, straining, excited horse, and the night before, just for the last second of the last dance, they had held me very close, and I was not positively certain just whose heart was so pounding and vibrating within the strong clasp. I had strongly suspected my own of being at least partly involved, and now it strained at the curb in my breast and took a wild, anticipatory jump as he reined in beside us. "What do you mean, Miss Hardin? This is too rough a sport for a woman,' he said, with something peremptorily possessive in his voice that almost made me reel in my saddle and fall weakly and femininely sobbing into his arms. But there was also something in his eyes that, in their imploring, looked past my guard down into my fastnesses, and aroused an imperative desire to find out what was in the depths of Spunk and me. I vaguely A lesser man would have broken my nerve by pleas, but just as the starter dropped the flag something came into his eyes, which again took mine, that steadied me and made my head go high and my legs strong to grip Spunk, until I seemed a part of his prancing body. "Go, then; let him lift himself, but ease him down, you beauties, both of you!" His warm, strong hand slid across mine as we sprang away from him and the mare. Then for one mad, glorious half-hour we jumped and jumped, the whole bunch of joyous young brutes just from their pastures wild with the music and the cheers of the crowd. They vaulted and tumbled and cleared their hurdles, one after another, as higher and higher rose the bars after each onrush. Meadow Belle flunked the fifth bar, and Bobby had to ride her away down the track, prancing just as if she had won the honors, while Getaway scrambled the sixth so badly that the grand stand held its collective breath in agonized rapture; but over bar after bar the young black mare skimmed, and just behind her Spunk vaulted with a perfect rise, but a heavy, cumbersome landing. I had known enough to ride up to the first hurdle and let him nose it, but after that the instinct that made him bunch his long. legs for the rise and spread for the land he had got from his own cross-country, galloping strain, which had come down to him from his English Lady mother, and the soft, passionate, confident hand that never left off caressing his withers I had got from mine. Finally, when our hearts had begun to beat hard and fast against our satin breasts, and our lungs and legs to strain, the bars went up to seven full, and the field cleared to the mare and Spunk. Spunk and I were fifty yards behind them, and I held him to the left of the track as I saw them begin to get together for the dash and rise; then I leaned in the saddle as they sprang into the air, shot across, and landed, but bringing the top plank with them. It had been a great jump, and the grand stand both roared and cheered at the puzzled expression of the mare's body as she turned around to see what it could be that had jumped that fence with her, and found the bar at her feet. With a touch of his crop to his forehead in our direction, her rider drew her to one side and turned to watch our finish. And such as the finish was, Spunk made it. The fall of that bar and the fear of a crash for our opponents had put me out of the race. I gave him the rein and deserted him flatly, my heart going over to the black mare and rider, only my legs clinging to him. And as if he realized that the honor of his pastures rested on him alone, poor Spunk gathered himself. together in one mass of knotted muscles, threw aside all affectation of lift, spring, and recover that I had been forcing on him in imitation of the mode of procedure of the opponent, and hurled himself over that hurdle in awkward and successive jerks that strongly resembled the leaps of a mountain goat; but he landed clean on the right side of the seven full bars, amid deafening roars from the assembled State and the crash of the band. He had done the winning. I had just backed him, literally and figuratively. My heart laughed in my eyes and I hugged the plucky colt with my knees as I saw the defeated Penneriler cantering up to us. "Thank God! it 's over," he muttered as he rode down the track at my side, Spunk and the mare nozling and nipping and comparing notes as to the colors of the ribbons that floated from their bridles. "Every jump you 've taken has landed full on my heart, and I could n't have stood another." "Pretty hard heart, judging from some of the jolts Spunk and I have got in our landings," I answered with a laugh that he echoed with his deep, hearty voice, which had soothed the impatient me the very first time I heard it on Monday morning urging the judges down in the barns to be certain that his Mrs. Butter had the points that blue ribboned her ahead of our Bluefields. Some men's voices have biceps that support a woman's perturbed nerves; those in his throat are as strong as those in his arms. "Not so hard a heart as firm in winning its desires," he challenged boldly just as I reined Spunk away from the mare, to turn in our runway. His eyes crossed fire with mine. "Sometimes you lose," I called over my shoulder as Spunk began to amble hurriedly toward his stall and rub-down. "Just wait," he again answered, with his challenging laugh. "Spunky darling," I whispered after I had turned him in and put up the bar to leave him, and call the boy from his place on the fence over by the track to come with the blanket, "we are fit, after all. And we measure up, even if a bit awkwardly. If we 've got a yellow streak, it did n't show to-day." But as he nozled for an apple I held his head against my breast for a second while another electric volt made me partly see why I would keep standardizing him and myself. And again I was frightened. Yes, I'd won the race, but was I just like the pumpkin from Uplands, beautiful and rounded to look at, but rank-grown, pithy, and below standard at the heart when laid open. Jumping Spunk over the bars. had just proved the outer me; but what about the fiber of the inner woman when the knife should cut through me? Would it measure up? Measure up to what? Something that I had kept dumb and suffering in me all week was panting for the answer. But what was I to standardize, judge, and make the award on a soul? Anyway, how did I know I had one? Questioning, questioning and smoldering, I came up to the grange house ve randa, on which dad's dinner-party was assembled, drinking mint-juleps while they waited for me. Just as I mounted the side steps, I saw dad standing in the midst of a group of our friends, and they had all evidently been toasting Helm Robards and me in their long, frosted, green-topped glasses. Dad refused to look at me, and I instinctively felt his chagrin that I and not he had cut off the string of the Pennerile blue ribbons by winning the best one of all. Also he could n't help but know how they all felt about my taking Spunk across when he had just gone to the judges to withdraw him. I saw it all in his sullen, handsome face as I paused on the top step just as Mason Burt held his glass high and laughed across the mint to me as he said: "To Spunk and the spunkiest woman in the Bluegrass, who 'll neither of them ever need a spur to win-and to the winner of them!" Then as they all lifted their glasses to me, dad raised his, and answered with a drawl that was half a sneer: "To the man who lays a whip across them both! They need it, damn them!" For a paralyzed moment the men all stood silent, with their glasses in their hands, too astonished to speak. Dad had been drinking hard all morning, of course, but the insult was from a brute-to its cub. A hot rage rose in me, and I started forward. I don't know what I might have done, but before I had taken a single blind step Helm Robards very quietly and calmly took dad's glass from his hand and flung it out into the bed of geraniums on the lawn. The rest of the dinner-party continued to stand paralyzed with horror, and Mrs. Judge Cavendish held back a sob. For a still second, in which the whole universe seemed to be holding a shocked breath, I gazed straight into Helm Robards's eyes, and took my awakening and baptism into limitless love from the depths. of their holy compassion. I drank deep, and all at once knew within me then and forever the power that I could invoke in my terrible need. For that birth second I had been oblivious of everything, but suddenly I heard a hard breath at my side, and turned in time to see dad raise the heavy crop with which he was to have ridden Spunk, and swing it straight at Helm Robards's face. If it had landed, it would have marred his calm, clean-cut beauty for life; but instead, across my arm and shoulder I carry a livid bruise that will be a scar for many a day. God gave me that second to spring in between them. "Your guests are waiting for dinner, Dad," I said calmly as I recovered my breath quickly after the first agony of the blow. I stood close to him, and held his shaking arm with my strong fingers as I looked him straight in the face and offered him the cup of compassion that had just been filled within me. He stood rigid and cold, for a second looking down at me. He had expected me to fling my own crop in his face in a return blow, and I felt sure the rest of them had the same expectation, but my calm words had been a call to them all to ignore my shame and stand by me. "Yes, we are all hungry for the saddle of Southdown, with the famous Uplands flavor, that you have promised us, Mr. Hardin. Don't keep us waiting any longer," Helm Robards's strong voice came in promptly as soon as I had finished speaking, and he walked slowly into the dining-room with me, dad trembling and dazed between us. And for almost two hours I sat at the head of dad's long table in the diningroom, conducting his dinner-party, which as president of the grange he gives to the prize-winners from all over Kentucky every year, just as calmly as if I had not been branded with a red-hot iron before them all. Something in me sang and jubilated and rioted in my face and voice until it took hold of the whole tableful of horrified guests, and set them laughing and talking and having a glorious time, not noticing the blood-stain that spread across the shoulder and sleeve of my tan silk ridingshirt. A miracle was at work, wrought by the same Guest who had turned the water into wine at the wedding-feast at little Cana in Galilee. They were all drinking from my full cup, and it seemed bottomless. And by the time the Southdown saddle had been disposed of, I had turned that tragic dinner into a glorious reconciliation |