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Updated: June 6, 2025
"And all the authorities agree with him," says Versatilia, who has accumulated a small library of books on equestrianism since she began to take lessons. "Your horse ought not to know much more than you do for if he do, you will find him perfectly unmanageable." Here you and Nell flee on the wings of discretion. The daring of the girl!
"You do look so funny, Esmeralda," she begins. "Your feet do seem positively immense, as the teacher said." "Pardon me; I said not that," gently interposes the teacher; "only that they looked too big, bigger than they are, when she turns them outward." "And you do sit very much on one side," she continues to Versatilia: "and your crimps are quite flat, my dear," to the beauty.
Beholding Ronald, the promised horse, severely correct in his road saddle, and looking immensely tall as he stood on the stable floor, she inly applauded her own wisdom, strongly doubting that Theodore's unpractised arm would have tossed her into her place as lightly as the master's, and she was secretly overjoyed when the master himself mounted and joined the party with her, making its number nine; Esmeralda herself, the graduate of three lessons; Theodore, all his life accustomed to ride anything calling itself a horse, but making no pretenses to mastery of the equestrian science; the lawyer, understood, on his own authority, to be well informed in everything; the society young lady, erect, precise, self-satisfied; the Texan, riding with apparent laziness, his hands rather high and seldom quiet, but not to be shaken from his seat; the beauty, languid and secretly discontented because her horse was "intended for a brunette, and a ridiculous mount for a blonde"; Versatilia, who had "taken up riding a little," and the cavalryman, calm, quiet, and fraternally regarded by the master, as he reviewed the little flock from the back of a horse which had been offered to him as the paragon of its species, and for which and its kind, as he announced after riding a square or two, he "was not paying a cent a carload."
The car glided off, and Versatilia turned to look at it; her horse stumbled slightly, jerking her wrists sharply, and but for the cavalryman's quick shifting of the reins to his right hand and his strong grasp of her reins with his left, she might have been in danger. "Never look back," lectured the master.
"Then we shall depend on you to regard the distance with great accuracy. At present you are two feet too far in the rear. Forward! Now, ladies, when I say 'forward, it is not alone for one; it is for all of you; each one must look and see whether or not her horse is in the right place. And she must not bend sideways to do it, Miss Versatilia. She must look over her horse's head between his ears.
I shall be ridiculous, and that's worse." Here she swept by the riding party, but as Versatilia and the beauty turned to look at her, and forgot to control their horses, the cavalryman and the Texan had to do it for them, and could do nothing for Esmeralda except to shout "Whoa," which Ronald very properly disregarded.
Miss Esmeralda, you are sitting too far to the left, your left shoulder is too far back! on't hold your hands so high, Miss Versatilia! Rise straight, Miss Esmeralda! Now, remember, ladies, what I say is for all. Prepare to whoa! Whoa!"
If you had had proper control of your horse, that would not have happened, Miss Versatilia! Now, Miss Lady, hold your whip in the hollow of your hand, and use it by a slight movement, not by raising your arm and lashing, lashing, lashing as if you were on the race course. A lady is not a jockey, and she should employ her whip almost as quietly as she moves her left foot. Forward, forward!
The Texan, on her right hand, had enough to do to keep her horse and his own absolutely motionless that she might not be thrown by any unexpected motion of either animal. Versatilia exclaimed in remonstrance, "Don't leave me," when the cavalryman said, "Wait a second, I'll come and give them to her;" the master sat quiet and smiling.
Shall we trot again?" Everybody assented, the cavalryman and Versatilia set off, the others followed as best they might, the beauty "going to pieces" in a minute or two, according to the master, the society young lady stiffening visibly, losing the cadence of the trot very soon, but making no outcry as she was tossed about uncomfortably, and not bending her head to look at her reins, as Versatilia did.
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