ds, leaving me on
my slippery perch, high up near the sky, drew afar off and stood
against the fence, and gave me plenty of room to fall off. But when I
suddenly felt the world heave up beneath me, I uttered a wild
shriek--clenched my hands in the animal's black hair and, madly
flinging propriety to any point of the compass that happened to be
behind me, I cast one pantalette over the enameled back, and thus
astride safely crossed the pasture--and lo, it was not I who fell, but
their faces instead! When they came to take me down somehow the animal
seemed shrunken, and I hesitated about leaving it, whereupon the
biggest boy said I had 'pluck.' I had been frightened nearly to death,
but I always could be silent at the proper moment; I was silent then,
and he would teach me to ride sideways, for my mother would surely
punish me if I sat astride like that. In a few weeks, thanks to him,
I was the one who was oftenest trusted to take the horses to water at
noon, riding sideways and always bare-back, mounted on one horse and
leading a second to the creek, until all had had their drink. Which
habit of riding--from balance--" the young person adds, "has made me
quite independent of stirrups since those far-away days."

Besides the riding, there were many other delightful pastimes which
were a part of life on the farm, and on rainy days, when the children
could not play out of doors, they would flock to the big barn, and
listen eagerly to stories told by the city girl, who had read them in
books. Two precious years passed all too swiftly on the farm, and the
young person was fast shooting up into a tall, slender girl, who had
learned a love of nature in all its forms, which never left her. She
had also grown stronger, which satisfied her mother that the
experiment had been successful. But now there was education to be
thought of, and when news came of the death of that father, who had
been the haunting specter of the mother's life, they went back at once
to Cleveland, where the mother obtained employment, and the growing
daughter was sent to a public school. But at best it gave a meager
course of study to one who had always been a reader of every book on
which she could lay her hands. To make the dreary, daily routine less
tiresome, she supplemented it by a series of "thinks." These usually
took place at night after her candle had been blown out, and the young
person generally fell asleep in a white robe and a crown of flowers,