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 the shed. Pete was no mere plow mule. He had fire and spirit. The men had taken their lunches with them to the field and would not be back before night. After she had washed up the breakfast dishes and swept the kitchen, she put clean things on the children and took them over to Aunt Selina's.

"I gotta go to mill," she explained, "an' git a sack o' corn graound up. I didn't know we was so near out o' meal till I come to mix up the cakes this mornin'."

When she got home again she saddled and bridled Pete and, stepping with some diffidence into the saddle, turned the mule's head toward the road.

It was years since she had ridden horseback; and for the first few moments she felt awkward and perilously poised. Then the familiar undulation of the animal's flanks under her and the old feel of the lines in her hands restored her confidence; and all at once, as if a good fairy had breathed new life into her, she felt her spirits rise and began to realize the September morning, clear, blue, and sparkling, the caress of wind and sun, the exhilaration of change and motion.

Out on the pike she urged Pete into a gallop and passed Aunt Eppie's house riding like the Wild Huntsman, her old red cotton sweater flying out behind.

Cissy, hearing the beat of the mule's hoofs, ran excitedly to the kitchen window.

"Well, if there hain't Judy Pippinger a-gallopin' past like mad on her dad's mule, her hair a-blowin' out jes like she used to ride when she was a little gal. What's fetched her away from home, I wonder?"

All along the road she drew similar comments from the neighbors who were fortunate enough to live on the pike. The conclusion generally arrived at was that only urgent need of the doctor could satisfactorily explain her appearance. Otherwise it was an unheard of and hence unseemly thing for a married woman the mother of three children to be seen out alone on horseback and going at breakneck speed. But then, after all the things that had been whispered about her, anything might be expected of Judy Pippinger.