Dorman straightway went to find his six precious, shiny pennies, which Beatrice had painstakingly scoured with silver polish one day to please the little tyrant, and which increased their value many times--so many times, in fact, that he hid them every night in fear of burglars. Since he concealed them each time in a different place, he was obliged to ransack his auntie's room every morning, to the great disturbance of Martha, the maid, who was an order-loving person.
Martha appeared just when he had triumphantly pounced upon his treasure rolled up in the strings of his aunt's chiffon opera-bonnet.
"Mercy upon us, Master Dorman! Whatever have you been doing?""I want my shiny pennies," said the young gentleman, composedly unwinding the roll, "to buy my big, high pony.""Naughty, naughty boy, to muss my lady's fine bonnet like that! Look at things scattered over the floor, and my lady's fine handkerchiefs and gloves " Martha stopped and meditated whether she might dare to shake him.
Dorman was laboriously counting his wealth, with much wrinkling of stubby nose and lifting of eyebrows. Having satisfied himself that they were really all there, he deigned to look around, with a fine masculine disdain of woman's finery.
"Oh, dose old things!" he sniffed. "I always fordet where I put my shiny pennies. Robbers might find them if I put them easy places. I'm going to buy my big, high pony, and you can't shake his hand a bit, Martha.""Well, I'm sure I don't want to!" Martha snapped back at him, and went down on all fours to gather up the things he had thrown down. "Whatever Parks was thinking of, to go and get fever, when she was the only one that could manage you, I don't know! And me picking up after you till I'm fair sick!""I'm glad you is sick," he retorted unfeelingly, and backed to the door.
"I hopes you get sicker so your stummit makes you hurt. You can't ride on my big, high pony.""Get along with you and your high pony!" cried the exasperated Martha, threatening with a hairbrush. Dorman, his six shiny pennies held fast in his damp little fist, fled down the stairs and out into the sunlight.
**** and Beatrice were just ready to ride away from the porch. "I want to go wis you, Uncle ****." Dorman had followed the lead of Beatrice, his divinity; he refused to say Richard, though grandmama did object to nicknames.
"Up you go, son. You'll be a cow-puncher yourself one of these days.
I'll not let him fall, and this horse is gentle." This last to satisfy Dorman's aunt, who wavered between anxiety and relief.
"You may ride to the gate, Dorman, and then you'll have to hop down and run back to your auntie and grandma. We're going too far for you to-day." **** gave him the reins to hold, and let the horse walk to prolong the joy of it.
Dorman held to the horn with one hand, to the reins with the other, and let his small body swing forward and back with the motion of the horse, in exaggerated imitation of his friend, Mr. Cameron. At the gate he allowed himself to be set down without protest, smiled importantly through the bars, and thrust his arm through as far as it would reach, that he might wave good-by. And his divinity smiled back at him, and threw him a kiss, which pleased him mightily.
"You must have hurt milord's feelings pretty bad," **** remarked. "Icouldn't get him to come. He had to write a letter first, he said.""I wish, ****," Beatrice answered, a bit petulantly, "you would stop calling him milord.""Milord's a good name," **** contended. "It's bad enough to 'Sir' him to his face; I can't do it behind his back, Trix. We're not used to fancy titles out here, and they don't fit the country, anyhow. I'm like you--I'd think a lot more of him if he was just a plain, everyday American, so I could get acquainted enough to call him 'Red Hayes.' I'd like him a whole lot better."Beatrice was in no mood for an argument--on that subject, at least. She let Rex out and raced over the prairie at a gait which would have greatly shocked her mother, who could not understand why Beatrice was not content to drive sedately about in the carriage with the rest of them.
When they reached the round-up Keith Cameron left the bunch and rode out to meet them, and **** promptly shuffled responsibility for his sister's entertainment to the square shoulders of his neighbor.
