I told her I believed it would make a difference to Eugenia, and she thought, too, that maybe it might.  Then I told her I believed that was why godmother gave me the enchanted necklace before she came, so that I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable.  Joyce had not heard about the necklace, so I showed her my gold beads and told her their story.  She thought it was lovely of godmother to make the fairy tale come true, but she advised me not to tell Eugenia.  Girls who always travel in private cars and have everything they wish for, she said, can’t understand what it means to be poor.  Then she told me about a box that her Cousin Kate had sent her, and how good it made everybody in the little brown house feel, when it came.

     JUNE 8th.

We had the grandest surprise this morning.  Lloyd came up to the house soon after breakfast, on Tarbaby, leading her mother’s riding horse, a graceful little bay mare.  Behind her came one of the coloured men leading two ponies, so that we could all have a ride.  The bay mare was for Eugenia, who is a fine horsewoman.  She learned in a New York riding-school.  The ponies were for Joyce and me.  Mr. Sherman had them sent out from Louisville after he went away, for us to use all the time we are here.

One of the ponies is named Calico, because he is marked so queerly.  His hair grows in such funny little streaks and stripes and patches that he looks as if he had been painted that way on purpose.  He was a clown pony in a circus one time, and is supposed to know a lot of tricks.  Joyce wanted him because he is so gentle, and she had never ridden any before.  She didn’t mind his ridiculous looks.  So Lad fell to my share,—­a pretty brown one that is as easy as a rocking-horse after the stiff-jointed old farm-horses that I am used to bouncing around on at home.

They were all ready to start, so we went galloping down to Judge Moore’s after Rob, and the five of us raced all over the valley till nearly lunch-time.  It was grand.  The dust flew, and people ran to the windows when we went by, as if we had been a circus.

We did have a sort of circus when we passed by Taylor’s grove.  A Butchers’ Union had come out from town for a big picnic, and they had a brass band with them.  It struck up a waltz just as we reached the grove, and Joyce’s pony, Calico, began turning around and around as if he had lost his senses.  Joyce screamed and threw her arms around his neck, frightened almost to death until Rob called out that Calico was dancing, and for her to hang on and see what he would do.  What he did was to stand on his hind legs and dump Joyce off into the middle of the road.

She sat there in the dust, too astonished to move, until Rob helped her up, and then they both leaned against the fence to laugh at Calico’s antics.  He was so funny.  He kept up his performances until the music stopped.  Then he walked over to Rob and held up his fore foot to shake hands, as if he wanted to be congratulated.  The music of the band seemed to have brought back all his old tricks to his memory.  I didn’t suppose that Joyce would mount him again, but she did.  Rob called to the men and asked them please not to play again until we were out of hearing, and we rode off.