Horse Trouble by Bonnie Bryant Page B

terrific. I only expected to learn something about horseback riding. I got twice the value for my money!”
    “You’re being awfully nice about this,” Lisa said, now not so eager to disappear into the earth. “In fact, I think you’re giving me a lesson in diplomacy.”
    “Oh, but I mean it,” Mr. French insisted. “And nowthat we’ve brushed up my languages, let’s see if you can do as well with the riding instruction, which I’m sure will be a little easier in our native tongue. Just exactly what was it you were trying to tell me about the Amazon River and women who ride horses?”
    Lisa tried to stifle her giggle, but she couldn’t contain it. “I guess I ride better than I speak French,” she said when she could talk. “That has to do with sidesaddles.”
    Much to Lisa’s surprise and pleasure, Mr. French seemed genuinely interested in learning about sidesaddles and everything else she could tell him about riding and horses. When they finally returned to Pine Hollow an hour and a half later, they’d had a great ride, and they’d both learned an awful lot. Mr. French had learned about horses. Lisa had learned about people.
    “C AN YOU GET the order here by Friday?” Stevie asked. The man at the other end of the phone wasn’t too happy with the question.
    “We just delivered there. You need more already?”
    “Look, I’m just filling in for Mrs. Reg,” Stevie said.
    Although she usually felt that being devious was the way to accomplish something, in this case she suspectedthat straightforward begging was going to be the most effective. “She was called to the bedside of a very sick friend who needed her to nurse her, wipe her brow, feed her gruel—” Stevie wondered briefly what gruel was, but it sounded like something somebody who was sick would eat. “Selflessly she left her family and her home to be with her friend and asked that we do a few meager chores in her absence. Her thoughts were with those who needed her the most: her friend and the horses. Can we let them go without, just because Mrs. Reg—”
    “All right, all right! Stop already!” the man practically hollered into the telephone. “You’ve got me crying, miss. We’ll deliver. The stuff will be there Friday morning just like you asked. You may or may not have a future as a stable manager, but I’m sure you could get a job on a soap opera.…”
    “Thanks for your help,” Stevie said. “I know Mrs. Reg will be pleased and grateful and …”
    “Yeah, and she’ll wipe my brow and give me gruel when I get sick, huh?”
    “I’ll leave a note for her,” Stevie said.
    When they hung up, Stevie reflected on the conversation. Then she had a little laugh to herself, confident that in the office at Connor Hay & Grain therewas a man who was doing exactly the same thing. The two of them had seen exactly eye to eye, and it had been fun.
    Stevie sighed contentedly. Being a stable manager had its rewards.

C AROLE WAS VERY proud of her charts. It wasn’t easy to keep track of who was riding which horse when, but it was important. For one thing, it was a way of keeping track of what riders were out. For another, and really more important as far as Carole was concerned, it was a way of telling how long each horse was working. Horses couldn’t spend all day every day with riders on their backs. Just like people, they needed time to rest and recuperate. Mrs. Reg always tried to arrange it so that no horse spent more than four hours a day in class. Carole thought she could manage that, too.
    Charts weren’t all of the job, though. The harder part was pleasing the riders. In Red’s beginner class,three of the girls had wanted to ride Delilah. Carole was almost relieved when she saw that Lisa had taken the mare for the French ambassador. That way the girls couldn’t fight over her. Instead they began fighting about which one of them was going to ride Patch. Carole solved that problem by talking louder than the squabbling young