BUD'S MISHAPS.
When a horse takes it into his head to go home, with a view of having a
good meal, the attraction seems to become stronger from the moment he
makes the first move.
Bud Heyland's animal began with a very moderate pace, but he increased
it so rapidly that by the time the angry driver was on the run, the
quadruped was going almost equally as fast.
In the hope of scaring the brute into stopping Bud shouted:
"Whoa! whoa! Stop, or I'll kill you!"
If the horse understood the command, he did not appreciate the threat,
and, therefore, it served rather as a spur to his exertion, for he went
faster than ever.
It is well known, also, that under such circumstances the sagacious
animal is only intent on reaching home with the least delay, and he
does not care a pin whether his flight injures the vehicle behind him
or not. In fact, he seems to be better pleased if it does suffer some
disarrangement.
When, therefore, the animal debouched from the wood into the faint
light under the stars he was on a gallop, and the wagon was bounding
along from side to side in an alarming way. Bud was not far behind
it, and shouting in his fiercest manner, he soon saw that he was only
wasting his strength. He then ceased his outcries and devoted all his
energies to overtaking the runaway horse.
"It'll be just like him to smash the wagon all to flinders," growled
Bud, "and I'll have to pay for the damages."
As nearly as could be determined, horse and lad were going at the same
pace, the boy slightly gaining, perhaps, and growing more furious each
minute, for this piece of treachery on the part of the horse.
Some twenty yards separated the pursuer from the team, when a heavy,
lumbering wagon loomed to view ahead.
"Get out of the road!" called Bud, excitedly. "This hoss is running
away, and he'll smash you if you don't!"
At such times a farmer is slow to grasp the situation, and the old
gentleman, who was half asleep, could not understand what all the
rumpus was about, until the galloping horse was upon him. Then he
wrenched his lines, hoping to pull his team aside in time, but his
honest nags were as slow as their owner, and all they did was to get
themselves out of the way, so as to allow the light vehicle to crash
into that to which they were attached.
It is the frailer vessel which generally goes to the wall at such
times, though Bud's was armed with a good deal of momentum. As it was
the front wheel was twisted off, and the frightened horse continued
at a swifter gait than ever toward his home, while Bud, seeing how
useless it was to try to overtake him, turned upon the old farmer, who
was carefully climbing out of his wagon to see whether his property had
suffered any damage.
"Why didn't you get out the way when I hollered to you?" demanded the
panting Bud, advancing threateningly upon him.
"Why didn't you holler sooner, my young friend?" asked the old
gentleman, in a soft voice.
"I yelled to you soon enough, and you're a big fool that you didn't
pull aside as I told you. I hope your old rattle-trap has been hurt so
it can't be fixed up."
"I can't diskiver that it's been hurt at all, and I'm very thankful,"
remarked the farmer, stooping down and feeling the spokes and axletree
with his hands; "but don't you know it is very disrespectful for a boy
like you to call an old man a fool?"
Bud snarled:
"I generally say just what I mean, and what are you going to do about
it, old Hay Seed?"
The gentleman thus alluded to showed what he meant to do about it, for
he reached quietly upward and lifted his whip from its socket in the
front of the wagon.
"I say again," added Bud, not noticing the movement, and swaggering
about, "that any man who acts like you is a natural born fool, and the
best thing you can do is to go home----"
Just then something cracked like a pistol shot and the whip of the
old farmer whizzed about the legs of the astounded scapegrace, who,
with a howl similar to that which Fred Sheldon uttered under similar
treatment, bounded high in air and started on a run in the direction of
his flying vehicle.
At the second step the whip descended again, and it was repeated
several times before the terrified Bud could get beyond reach of the
indignant gentleman, who certainly showed more vigor than any one not
knowing him would have looked for.
"Some boys is very disrespectful, and should be teached manners," he
muttered, turning calmly about and going back to his team, which stood
sleepily in the road awaiting him.
"What's getting into folks?" growled Bud Heyland, trying to rub his
smarting legs in half a dozen places at once; "that's the sassiest old
curmudgeon I ever seen. If I'd knowed he was so sensitive I wouldn't
have argued the matter so strong. Jingo! But he knows how to swing a
whip. When he brought down the lash on to me, I orter just jumped right
into him and knocked him down, and I'd done it, too, if I hadn't been
afraid of one thing, which was that he'd knocked me down first. Plague
on him! I'll get even with him yet. I wish----"
Bud stopped short in inexpressible disgust, for just then he recalled
that he had his loaded revolver with him, and he ought to have used it
to defend himself.
The assault of the old gentleman was so sudden that his victim had no
time to think of anything but to place himself beyond reach of his
strong and active arm.
"I don't know what makes me so blamed slow in thinking of things,"
added Bud, resuming the rubbing of his legs and his walk toward
Tottenville, "but I must learn to wake up sooner. I'm sure I got in
some good work to-day, and I'll finish it up in style to-morrow night,
or my name ain't Nathaniel Higgins Heyland, and then I'm going to skip
out of this slow place in a hurry and have a good time with the boys.
What's that?"
He discerned the dim outlines of some peculiar looking object in the
road, and going to it, suddenly saw what it was.
"Yes, I might have knowed it!" he muttered, with another forcible
expression; "it's a wagon wheel; the second one off that
good-for-nothing one I hired of Grimsby, and I'll have a pretty bill to
pay when I get there. I 'spose I'll find the rest of the wagon strewed
all along the road; yes----"
Bud was not far wrong in his supposition, for a little further on he
came upon a third wheel, which was leaning against the fence, as though
it were "tired," and near by was the fourth.
After that the fragments of the ruined vehicle were met with
continually, until the angered young man wondered how it was there
could be so much material in such an ordinary structure.
"It's about time I begun to find something of the horse," he added,
with a grim sense of the grotesque humor of the idea; "I wouldn't care
if I came across his head and legs scattered along the road, for I'm
mad enough agin him to blow him up, but I won't get the chance, for
old Grimsby won't let me have him agin when I go out to take a ride
to-morrow night."
Things could not have been in a worse condition than when Bud, tired
and angry, walked up on the porch of the hotel and dropped wearily into
one of the chairs that were always there.
Old Mr. Grimsby was awaiting him, and said the animal was badly
bruised, and as for the wagon, the only portion he could find any trace
of was the shafts, which came bounding into the village behind the
flying horse.
Mr. Grimsby's principal grief seemed to be that Bud himself had not
shared the fate of the wagon, and he did not hesitate to so express
himself.
"The damages won't be a cent less than a hundred dollars," added the
angry keeper of the livery stable.
"Will you call it square for that?" asked Bud, looking at the man, who
was leaning against the post in front of him.
"Yes, of course I will?"
"Very well; write out a receipt in full and sign it and I'll pay it."
Mr. Grimsby scanned him curiously for a minute, and then said:
"If you're in earnest come over to my office."
Bud got up and followed him into his little dingy office, where he kept
a record of his humble livery business, and after considerable fumbling
with his oil-lamp, found pen and paper and the receipt was written and
signed.
While he was thus employed Bud Heyland had counted one hundred dollars
in ten-dollar bills, which he passed over to Mr. Grimsby, who, as was
his custom, counted them over several times.
As he did so he noticed that they were crisp, new bills, and looked as
if they were in circulation for the first time.
He carefully folded them up and put them away in his wallet with a grim
smile, such as is apt to be shown by a man of that character when he
thinks he has got the better of a friend in a bargain or trade.
And as Bud Heyland walked out he smiled, too, in a very meaning way.