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that!” Trixie said, stunned. “It’s our life work. Jumping isn’t.”
    “Try to act as though it is, at least today,” Honey begged. “The show means so much to Regan.”
    “I know that, and I do want to do my best. But if we ride in the Turf Show, it’ll mean daily practice for the next six weeks. I won’t have a chance to do anything else. I have to do my work at the hospital. I have to help Moms. What I want to do more than anything in the world is to try to solve mysteries. We’re just at the beginning of a good one now—Betje Maasden and that man at the marsh.”
    “Oh, Trixie, they haven’t anything to do with one another,” Honey said, laughing. “Anyway, the Turf Show won’t require daily practice. Regan said once a week, if we practice hard. And I’ll help you with the housework and Bobby too.”
    All morning, out in the pasture, Trixie watched Jupiter sail proudly over the bars and watched Brian on Starlight and Mart on Strawberry take their turns.
    It looked so easy, even for Honey on Lady. But, somehow, even though Trixie brought Susie right up to the bar at a romping gallop, the little horse turned her head and just walked around it.
    “I’ll never be able to jump,” Trixie told Regan, almost in tears.
    “That’s right,” he agreed. “You never will and Susie never will, unless you keep your mind on what you are doing. Susie can take those jumps without half trying. The trouble is with you. Try it again. This time put your heart into it. If you throw your heart and your mind into the effort, you and the horse will jump together.”
    “We’ll try it, Regan,” Trixie said, ashamed. “This time I think we’re going to make it.”
    When her turn came, Trixie circled the jumps several times, talking to Susie, petting her, and encouraging her. Then, confidently, she headed for the first hurdle, rose lightly over Susie’s withers, and gave the takeoff signal.
    Up they soared—and over!
    A cry went up from the other Bob-Whites, who had watched, without comment, Trixie’s many attempts and failures.
    “Susie never touched the bar with her hooves!” Trixie called triumphantly. “May I try it again, Regan, even if it’s out of turn?”
    “Go ahead,” Regan said. “Good girl! Keep at it while the going’s good!”
    When she slowed at the end of four jumps, Trixie turned Susie and cantered up to where Regan was standing.
    “That was real show riding,” he told her. “Nothing to it, is there, Trixie?”
    Trixie slid out of her saddle and put her head close to Susie’s. “When I’m riding Susie, there isn’t!” Back in the stable, Trixie rubbed, currycombed, and brushed Susie till the small mare nickered her gratitude for being made so comfortable.
    Trixie gave her a final pat. “As soon as you cool off a little, I’ll feed you and give you fresh water.” Jupiter, still restive, even after the strenuous morning, had to be crosstied before Jim could approach him with the currycomb. He had been superb. There wasn’t a horse to match him in all of Westchester County. Nevertheless, Trixie gave him a wide berth as she walked around the stable to join Honey.
    The two girls sat side by side, soaping and rubbing leather and shining chrome till it sparkled. Then all the Bob-Whites hung up their tack exactly right, for Regan was watching out of the corner of his eye.
    “It seems to me,” Dan said as he measured out the horses’ feed for his uncle, “that you don’t need to talk about jumping quite so loud around Spartan. Horses have feelings. Suppose you’d been a prize pitcher for the Mets, and then you got to be as old as thirty, maybe, and had to listen to a lot of guff about a new record for strikeouts. How would you feel?”
    “Do you mean Spartan used to be a jumper?” Mart asked.
    “I’ll say he was. Ask my uncle.”
    “Was he, Regan?”
    “The best. Look at those legs. Look at that chest and shoulders! He jumped in the circus. He was one of the Cossack horses, too.