Anne’s father had a beautiful young horse Tom, which he both rode and drove, but who did not like side-saddles, and did not intend wearing one. So one day when Anne had ridden him up through the orchard pasture to look for the cows that had gone astray, he first tried to scrape her off by squeezing against the tree trunk, and then, when she dismounted to see if the saddle or girths could possibly gall him, he took a roll in the spring, saddle and all, and galloped home, leaving Anne to walk.
So Fox remained her pet, and all she had to do to make him come when she wanted a ride was to go to the pasture, where he spent his days luxuriously shod with rubber tips, or to the barnyard, where he was watered, and say “Fox!” ever so softly, and he would come trotting up, to be either petted or saddled, eager to nibble the bit of sugar, carrot, or bunch of clover that she always brought him, putting back his ears meanwhile in pure mischief, and pretending to bite her fingers, while his nostrils seemed to quiver with laughter at the joke.
In the middle days of this particular spring, the one that came before the summer when Waddles and Lumberlegs had their great fight, it was neither Fox nor the new calves that drew Anne so often to the Hilltop Farm, but Miss Letty and Hamlet: Miss Letty being neither calf, colt, nor puppy, but a very pretty girl, and Hamlet a worldly-wise French poodle.
Miss Letty was the orphan niece of Miss Jule, the child of her only brother who had lived abroad for many years, married a French lady, and died there. Miss Letty had been sent to an English and then a French school by another aunt, her mother’s sister; now as her father had willed it, she had come on a visit to America, so that she might see his country and choose with which aunt she preferred to make her home.
When Anne heard that Miss Jule’s niece was coming to make a visit half a year long, and that she had a pet dog, she was very much excited, for Anne was beginning to long for a companion of her own age. She only hoped that Waddles would like the dog visitor, and then they four could take lovely excursions together afoot and on horseback, that is, if a girl from a French boarding-school knew how to manage horses; if she didn’t, of course she could ride Fox until she learned.