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“Are you in the humor for a lark, boys?” It was Dot, the very smallest
and as everybody knows, the most mischievous of all the Brownies, who
said it.
“We are that!” was the reply.
They were coming home from school, these Brownie boys, and dinner pails
and books were thrown down at once while they crowded around Dot to hear
of the prospective fun.
“You know that clover field to the right of the big stone house,” he
began, “well some time ago Grimes put up a sign which read ‘Horses taken
to Pasture.’ You should see the luck he has had. I guess as many as a
dozen horses are running around in that pasture field. It’s bad for
them to do nothing but eat all day, so I thought we would be doing a
good thing for them, and for ourselves too, if to-night, you know it is
moonlight, we borrow these horses and go for a ride.”
You should have heard the yells of delight with which this scheme was
greeted. No body but approved, except of course Croak, he always objects
to everything.
The plan was for them to meet at the school house at ten o’clock, then go
together to the pasture lot. A number of the Brownies were to bring ropes
which they would tie around the horses’ necks and haul them into the road.
The hour came; the Brownies met, and the work began. They had forgotten
saddles, but some of them crawled through the windows in the harness
maker’s shop and came back loaded with both saddles and bridles. Such a
time as they had getting them on, and so many Brownies had been invited
that there were not enough horses to go around so two and sometimes three
saddles must be put on one horse.
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All was ready at last and off they started. It was so funny to see them.
Some of them actually hung on to the stirrup straps. Things went pretty
smoothly at first, but Oh my! what a difference by and by. Saddles
slipped, bridles came undone, and the Brownie boys and even the poor
horses went over and rolled around in the mud. But the bitter must be
taken with the sweet so nobody dared complain, when the ride was over
and the horses and harness were put in their proper places, everybody
pronounced it one of the best frolics he had ever had in his life.