Chapter 5 - Page 2

in returning
it.

Ostensibly I was not present at these proceedings, and am ignorant
of them; but I was where I could see. I was afraid of one thing -
the jealousy of the other children of the post; but there is
nothing of that, I am glad to say. On the contrary, they are proud
of their comrade and her honors. It is a surprising thing, but it
is true. The children are devoted to Cathy, for she has turned
their dull frontier life into a sort of continuous festival; also
they know her for a stanch and steady friend, a friend who can
always be depended upon, and does not change with the weather.

She has become a rather extraordinary rider, under the tutorship of
a more than extraordinary teacher - BB, which is her pet name for
Buffalo Bill. She pronounces it BEEBY. He has not only taught her
seventeen ways of breaking her neck, but twenty-two ways of
avoiding it. He has infused into her the best and surest
protection of a horseman - CONFIDENCE. He did it gradually,
systematically, little by little, a step at a time, and each step
made sure before the next was essayed. And so he inched her along
up through terrors that had been discounted by training before she
reached them, and therefore were not recognizable as terrors when
she got to them. Well, she is a daring little rider, now, and is
perfect in what she knows of horsemanship. By-and-by she will know
the art like a West Point cadet, and will exercise it as
fearlessly. She doesn't know anything about side-saddles. Does
that distress you? And she is a fine performer, without any saddle
at all. Does that discomfort you? Do not let it; she is not in
any danger, I give you my word.

You said that if my heart was old and tired she would refresh it,
and you said truly. I do not know how I got along without her,
before. I was a forlorn old tree, but now that this blossoming
vine has wound itself about me and become the life of my life, it
is very different. As a furnisher of business for me and for Mammy
Dorcas she is exhaustlessly competent, but I like my share of it
and of course Dorcas likes hers, for Dorcas "raised" George, and
Cathy is George over again in so many ways that she brings back
Dorcas's youth and the joys of that long-vanished time. My father
tried to set Dorcas free twenty years ago, when we still lived in
Virginia, but without success; she considered herself a member of
the family, and wouldn't go. And so, a member of the family she
remained, and has held that position unchallenged ever since, and
holds it now; for when my mother sent her here from San Bernardino
when we learned that Cathy was coming, she only changed from one
division of the family to the other. She has the warm heart of her
race, and its