As this was an eventful evening in the fortunes of the colonists of
Break o’ Day, and it is best to keep as square a front as is possible
with the date, it seems necessary to record at this time a peculiar
incident which befell another member of the party. If not as serious
a situation as that of Little Hickory’s, it held enough of horror and
terror to satisfy at least the participant.
Larry Little, upon finding that Rob was his master in the athletic
trial, quietly accepted the situation and became a loyal follower of
him whom he could not lead. Some are born to be rulers, it would seem,
while others must content to be followers. It is needless to say that
the latter class is quite as essential and fully as creditable as the
former.
Larry had gone to work for a Mr. Howlitt on a farm just out of the
village, and did not return to his home at night, as Rob did. If he
found farm work pretty hard at first, and he blistered his hands, went
to bed at night with an aching back, to feel tired and sleepy in the
morning, he did not murmur very loud. He had taken hold in earnest,
resolved to make the most of it.
Mr. Howlitt was a well-to-do farmer, having one other hand to help him
besides Larry. He had no boys of his own, but this deficit was more
than made up, as Larry soon came to think, by having one of the most
charming daughters in the world.
Lucy Howlitt was an exceedingly pretty girl, in her seventeenth year,
and, what was better, a very sensible one. If Larry had felt a deep
yearning for Joe Willet longer than he could remember, this affection
was transferred inside of two weeks to Lucy Howlitt, and he was happy.
That is, Larry would have been happy if he had been sure he was the one
favored by her.
Unfortunately for his peace of mind, he had a rival. What seemed to be
worse for him, this aspirant for the very smiles and friendship that he
coveted was an audacious, educated, quick-witted, well-dressed youth,
who was the son of a rich man, and who was at that time studying law
with the purpose of practicing that profession. But, with all this in
his favor, he was an arrant coxcomb, and a favorite with only a small
circle of acquaintances.
His name was Pluto Alexander Snyder, as he invariably signed it, giving
a sort of double twist to the S and an unmeaning curl underneath the
whole signature.
Larry sized him up as a snob, but trembled in the fear that he was
likely to lose in the race against such a competitor. To add to
his discomfiture, Pluto Snyder, who was at least three years older
than Larry, was raising a mustache, though he had not yet succeeded
in coaxing a growth of over half a dozen hairs under each nostril.
As these were of a very light color they did not make a very strong
impression.
As for the young law student, it should be said Larry’s presence
did not for a moment disturb his peace of mind. In fact, he did not
consider the “ragged boor” worth the dignity of being considered a
rival for the hand of the sweet Lucy Howlitt, forsooth!
Larry had at least one opportunity to display his superiority over his
supercilious rival, even if it was in an humble manner.
Pluto Snyder lived in an adjoining town, though less than a mile and a
half away, and it was his delight to take Lucy out to rides on pleasant
afternoons whenever she would go, which seemed unnecessarily often to
watchful Larry. But, if priding himself upon being able to drive a
horse upon the road, Pluto had never mastered the intricacies of that
common wearing apparel of the animal known as the harness. The terms of
hames, saddle, girth, bits, etc., were less understood by him than the
expressions of Blackstone were to the poor boy digging in the field by
the roadside with a load at his heart which troubled him more than his
hard work.
Thus one day, as he was returning from one of those pleasure trips,
accompanied by Miss Howlitt, by some means the girth became unbuckled,
and, descending a hill at that time, the thills of the wagon were
thrown up so that the horse was frightened and threatened to run.
Pluto, more alarmed than the animal, shouted for it to stop, and
pulling on one rein, steered the team into the ditch.
The horse grew more unmanageable, and the driver leaped to the ground,
forgetful of his companion, while he continued to make his mixed cries.
By this time Lucy was frightened, and her cries were added to those of
her companion, though she did not jump from the wagon.
Fortunately, Larry was working in the adjoining field, in company
with Job Westcott, the hired man, and he ran to the assistance of the
couple, followed by Job.
Seeing what the trouble was, though himself a novice in the matter of
harnesses, Larry called out for young Snyder to stop pulling on the
reins. He then ran to the horse’s head, and led it back into the road.
Job then reached the spot, and seeing the girth dangling in the air,
buckled that, and looked the harness over without discovering any other
difficulty.
“Blamed ijit!” he said, “if you had as much sense as the hoss and let
him take his own way, you’d come out better.”
This nettled Pluto, who exclaimed, loudly:
“If I don’t know as much as such a clodhopper as you are, I’ll hoe
weeds all day the Fourth, and you may go in my place to make the
oration at Gainsboro.”
“Drat my pictur’, if I couldn’t shout to more puppose’n you can, I’d
send a calf in my place,” muttered Job, starting back into the field in
a high dudgeon.
Pluto Snyder was climbing back into the wagon, and he had no sooner
gained his seat than he called out in his loud voice for Larry to let
go of the horse’s bridle.
“Don’t let go,” pleaded Lucy; “please let him lead him to the foot of
the hill?”
The animal was still restive, and even Pluto did not offer further
objection to Larry’s assistance, now that he had some one else to share
the responsibility with him.
When the foot of the descent had been reached and the horse, under
ordinary conditions a very quiet creature, seemed to have got over its
fright, Larry released his hold and stepped aside to let the wagon pass.
“Please accept my thanks for your help, Lawrence,” said Lucy, with a
smile. She always called him by his full name. “I do not know what we
should have done if it had not been for you.”
“Don’t give the lunkhead more credit than he deserves,” said
Pluto Alexander. Then, seeming to feel that he ought to make some
acknowledgment to his rescuer, he turned back to say:
“Quite clever in you, young fellow. You can come over to Gainsboro and
hear my oration the Fourth.”
Larry made no reply, though he did not return to the field until the
wagon and its occupants had disappeared around a bend in the road.
“It don’t take much of a block to make a fool,” said Job, as Larry
rejoined him. “Quite clever in him to allow you th’ privilege of goin’
to hear him orate.”
“What does he mean?” asked Larry.
“Oh, jess that he’s going to stump th’ crowd at the Fourth celebration
at Gainsboro. I sh’u’d like to know what fool got him to ’orate,’ but I
s’pose his dad got him the chance, which it were easy to do, with his
money.”
“D’you s’pose Lucy will ever marry him?” Larry asked, before he could
realize what he was saying.
“I dare say; money cuts a mighty big figger with some.”
Larry dropped the conversation there, but the thought of the coming
Fourth of July celebration remained with him all the afternoon.
“I s’pose he will take Lucy there,” he mused, “and he will cut a big
swell. I wish I could take her with me,” and then, frightened by the
mere thought, he hoed away at the grass and weeds with such force that
Job called out to him to “go easy, afore ye get tuckered.”
A few days later Larry fairly frightened himself by saying to Lucy that
he wished he could go to Gainsboro the Fourth. She seemed almost as
surprised as himself, saying:
“It would be nice, Lawrence, but have you any clothes to wear?”
Seeing his confusion, she bit her lip for saying as much, and ran away
to be by herself. He sought the companionship of Job, feeling very
crestfallen.
Still, it would look as if good was to come of this little incident,
for within a week Mr. Howlitt said to Larry:
“How would you like a day off, eh, Larry? You have been a faithful boy,
and to-morrow I am going to Middletown to look over the market, so that
you may go, too, by driving Old Jerry over with a load of truck. I am
owing you a little money, and if you want to it will be a good time for
you to get a suit of clothes. I do not know how the minx knows it, but
Lucy thinks you would like to go to Gainsboro on the Fourth.”
Larry wondered if his blushes showed through his coat of tan, as he
stammered his reply.
Larry’s enjoyment of that trip to Middletown was doubled when he found
that Lucy was to accompany her father. He received another pleasant
surprise when Mr. Howlitt placed ten dollars in two new, crisp bills,
in his hands as soon as the load of farm products had been sold.
“Do with it as you wish, lad,” he said, and Larry lost no time in
hastening to a ready-made clothing store, where he bought a new suit of
clothes, and even shoes and underwear. It took all of his money, and
the outfit was a plain one, but serviceable, and it is safe to say that
Larry will never buy another which will give him half the pleasure of
that one.
On his way home, and he started some time ahead of Mr. Howlitt and
Lucy, as Old Jerry was a slow horse under ordinary circumstances, he
could think of nothing else. Time and again he took up the bundle to
examine it from the outside, and then tossed it back into the bottom of
the wagon, saying over to himself:
“It is mine!”
Finally the idea entered his busy brain that it would be a fine thing
to appear at home in his new suit. Why not put it on now? He was riding
along a road where there was no house for a long distance, and he would
risk meeting a team. Accordingly, almost before he realized what he was
doing, he had stripped off his old coat, and never thinking in his wild
exuberance of spirits that he might ever need to wear it again, flung
it as far as he could into the bushes, crying out:
“Lay there, old coat, and may you rest in peace!”
Casting hasty glances up and down the road to see that no team was in
sight, he sent one after another of his remaining garments into the
bushes, until he stood in the wagon as unclothed as at the time of his
birth!
Anxious now to don his new suit he reached down in the wagon to take up
the bundle, when to his horror he could not find it!
It had been jostled out of the wagon and was gone!
In the midst of this startling plight the sound of carriage wheels
behind him caught his attention. Glancing wildly backward, he found
that he was being followed by the last persons on earth that he would
care to meet at that time--Pluto Snyder and Lucy Howlitt!