“THAT REDHEAD”
“To look at those beasts,” Tavia said, ruefully, and some time after
the event, “you wouldn’t think they could run at all.”
Certainly a pair of steers tipping the scales at a ton and a half each
did not look like racing machines. But they proved to be that as they
thundered down hill.
Had one of them fallen on the way we shrink from thinking of the
result--to the two girls in the cart. The long, lingering dog that had
started the trouble was left far behind. The three collegians who had
come over the hill to surprise the girls, could not gain a yard in the
race. As for “that redhead” who had governed the steers before they
ran, he just missed the rear of the cart and he followed it down the
steep grade with an abandon that was worthy of a better end.
For he couldn’t catch it; and had he been able to, what advantage would
it have given him?
When a span of steers wish to run away, and decide upon running away,
and really get into action, nothing but a ten-foot stone wall will
stop them. And there was no wall at hand.
The great wheels bounced and the cart threatened to turn over at every
revolution of the wheels; Tavia screamed intermittently; Dorothy held
on grimly and hoped for the best.
The steers kept right on in a desperately grim way, their tails still
stiffened. They reached the bottom of the hill and were at the very
verge of the sloping bank into the shallows of the river.
A suicidal mania seemed to have gained possession of their bovine
minds. They cared nothing for themselves, for the wagon, or for the
passengers in that wagon. Into the river they plunged. The wabbling
cart rolled after them until the water rose more than hub high.
And then the oxen halted abruptly, both lowered their noses a little,
_and both began to drink_!
“Such excitement over an old drink of water!” gasped Tavia, and then
fell completely into the hay and could not rise for laughing.
“Do--do you suppose they ran down here--like _that_--just to get a
drink?” demanded Dorothy. “Why--why I was scared almost to death!”
“Me, too; we could have been killed just as easy, whether the oxen were
murderously inclined or as playful as kittens. Ugh! that redhead!”
“It wasn’t his fault,” said Dorothy.
“He never should have left us alone with them.”
“It was that dog did it,” declared Dorothy.
“Don’t matter who did it. The dog _was_ funny enough looking to scare
’em into fits,” giggled Tavia. “Here he comes again. Oh, I hope the
oxen don’t see him.”
“Yet you blame the young man with the--light hair,” hesitated Dorothy.
“Here he comes now.”
The excited young man with the flame-colored tresses was ahead of the
three collegians. He leaped right into the water and called to the
girls to come to the back of the cart.
“’Tis no knowing when them ugly bastes will take it inter their heads
to start ag’in,” he declared, holding his strong arms to Dorothy.
“Lemme carry ye ashore out o’ harm’s way, Miss.”
Dorothy trusted herself to him at once. But the boys were not to be
outdone in this act of gallantry--at least, one of them was not. Bob
Niles rushed right into the water and grabbed Tavia, whether she wanted
to be “rescued” or not.
“Bob, my dear boy,” said Tavia, in her most grown-up manner, “don’t
stub your poor little piggy-wiggies and send us both splash into the
water. _That_ would be too ridiculous.”
“I shall bear you safely ashore, Tavia--no fear,” he grunted. “Whew!
You’ve been putting on flesh, I declare, since New Year’s,” he added.
“Pounds and pounds,” she assured him. “Now, up the bank, little boy.”
Dorothy was already deposited in safety and her cousins were taking
their turns in “saluting her on both cheeks;” but when Bob tried to
take toll from Tavia in that way she backed off, threatening him with
an upraised hand.
“You are no cousin--make no mistake on that point, sir,” she declared.
“Huh! I ought to have some reward for saving you from a watery grave,”
said Bob, sheepishly.
“Charge it, please,” lisped Tavia. “There are _some_ debts I never
propose to pay till I get ready.”
But she, like Dorothy, was unfeignedly glad to see the three young men
again. While they chattered with Ned, and Nat, and Bob, the red-haired
young man got his oxen and the cart out of the river and guided the
animals back toward the hill.
There came on a dog-trot from the scene of the excavating operations
a fat, puffy man, who snatched the whip out of redhead’s hand and
proceeded to administer a tongue lashing, part of which the girls and
their companions overheard.
“Oh! he doesn’t deserve that,” said Dorothy, mildly. “It wasn’t his
fault.”
“He shouldn’t have left us alone in the cart,” pouted Tavia. “That’s
Mr. Simpson, one of father’s foremen. Let him be. A scolding never
killed anybody yet--otherwise, how would I have survived Olaine this
term?”
Dorothy was not quite satisfied, but she was overborne by her
companions to go back to town and so did not see the end of the
controversy between the foreman and “That Redhead” as Tavia insisted on
calling the ox-team driver. Besides, Tavia acknowledged a cut she had
received on her arm by being banged about in the ox-cart.
“You’d better hurry home and put some disinfectant on it,” advised Nat,
who always had serious interest in Tavia’s well-being.
“Huh!” said Tavia, hotly, “I’m not a kitchen sink, I hope. If you mean
antiseptic, say so.”
“Wow!” cried Ned. “Our Tavia has become a purist.”
“Oh, dear, that’s worse!” declared Tavia. “Come on, Doro, I don’t like
these boys any more. I am going to become a man-hater, anyway, I think.
They’re always underfoot---- Oh! what a cute dog you’ve got, Ned.”
“’Tain’t mine,” said Ned. “It’s Nat’s.”
“But he seems a long way from his head to his tail for a short-legged
beast,” observed Dorothy.
“That’s some dog, let me tell you,” Nat declared, stoutly. “He’s a real
German dachshund.”
“I thought he looked like an animated sausage,” declared Tavia,
stooping to pet the animal. The creature stood very still while she
patted his sleek coat, only blinking his big, soft brown eyes.
“He isn’t very sociable, I don’t think,” grumbled Tavia.
“Of course he is,” said Nat. “He’s as good-natured as he can be.”
“How are you going to tell? He doesn’t wag his tail when you pat him on
the head--see there!”
“Aw, give him time,” laughed Ned. “Don’t you know it takes a dachshund
several minutes to transmit ecstacy along the line to the terminus?”
They went along to Tavia’s house gaily. The boys remained to supper,
and it was only after that comfortable meal, and while the boys were
in Mr. Travers’ “office,” where he smoked his evening pipe, the girls
being busy clearing the table and washing dishes, that Nat sang out:
“Hi, Doro! did you hear about your redhead?”
“What about him?” cried Dorothy and Tavia.
“Mr. Travers says he got the G. B. after letting those oxen run away.”
“Oh, never!” cried Tavia, coming to the door.
“You were sore on him yourself, Tavia,” reminded Bob Niles.
“But you didn’t discharge him, Father?” questioned the tender-hearted
girl.
“No. It was Simpson. But I could not very well interfere,” said Mr.
Travers.
“Why not? It wasn’t fair!” urged Tavia.
“I am sure Simpson knows best. Though I liked Tom,” said her father. “I
cannot interfere between the foreman and the men. If I did I’d soon
have neither overseers nor workmen, but a strike on my hands,” and he
laughed.
“I think it is too bad, sir,” said Dorothy, gravely. “Really, it was not
his fault at all that we were run away with.”
“He left you alone with the beasts,” Ned declared.
“He was called by those other men to help,” Tavia retorted.
“Well, he’s gone, I fear,” said Mr. Travers, shaking his head.
“Not out of town, father?”
“I reckon so. Tom comes and goes. He is a good man, although he’s
young; but he’s unsettled. Lots of these workmen are. They go from
place to place. He is fit to take charge himself, I believe, of a steel
construction gang; but, as the boys say, ‘something got his goat.’ He
doesn’t work at his trade any more. It is a dangerous trade, and he
probably had an accident----”
“Steel construction--bridge building, do you mean, sir?” asked Dorothy,
suddenly.
“Why, yes--I suppose so.”
“And he is red-haired!” gasped Dorothy. “Oh, what’s his name, Mr.
Travers?”
“Tom Moran; he’s worked for me before--”
“Oh, Doro!” cried Tavia.
“Oh, Tavia!” echoed Dorothy.