II

The two boys shrieked with excitement as they beheld the coincidence of

this strange return. They burst into the stable, making almost as much

noise as Duke, who had become frantic at the invasion. Sam laid hands

upon a rake.

"You get out o' there, you ole horse, you!" he bellowed. "I ain't

afraid to drive him out. I----"

"_Wait_ a minute!" shouted Penrod. "Wait till I----"

Sam was manfully preparing to enter the stall.

"You hold the doors open," he commanded, "so's they won't blow shut and

keep him in here. I'm goin' to hit him with----"

"Quee-_yut_!" Penrod shouted, grasping the handle of the rake so that

Sam could not use it. "Wait a _minute_, can't you?" He turned with

ferocious voice and gestures upon Duke. "_Duke!_" And Duke, in spite of

his excitement, was so impressed that he prostrated himself in silence,

and then unobtrusively withdrew from the stable. Penrod ran to the

alley doors and closed them.

"My gracious!" Sam protested. "What you goin' to do?"

"I'm goin' to keep this horse," said Penrod, whose face showed the

strain of a great idea.

"What _for_?"

"For the reward," said Penrod simply.

Sam sat down in the wheelbarrow and stared at his friend almost with

awe.

"My gracious," he said, "I never thought o' that! How--how much do you

think we'll get, Penrod?"

Sam's thus admitting himself to a full partnership in the enterprise

met no objection from Penrod, who was absorbed in the contemplation of

Whitey.

"Well," he said judicially, "we might get more and we might get less."

Sam rose and joined his friend in the doorway opening upon the two

stalls. Whitey had preëmpted the nearer, and was hungrily nuzzling the

old frayed hollows in the manger.

"May be a hundred dollars--or sumpthing?" Sam asked in a low voice.

Penrod maintained his composure and repeated the new-found expression

which had sounded well to him a moment before. He recognized it as a

symbol of the non-committal attitude that makes people looked up to.

"Well"--he made it slow, and frowned--"we might get more and we might

get less."

"More'n a hundred _dollars_?" Sam gasped.

"Well," said Penrod, "we might get more and we might get less." This

time, however, he felt the need of adding something. He put a question

in an indulgent tone, as though he were inquiring, not to add to his

own information but to discover the extent of Sam's. "How much do you

think horses are worth, anyway?"

"I don't know," said Sam frankly, and, unconsciously, he added, "They

might be more and they might be less."

"Well, when our ole horse died," said Penrod, "papa said he wouldn't

taken five hundred dollars for him. That's how much _horses_ are

worth!"

"My gracious!" Sam exclaimed. Then he had a practical afterthought.

"But maybe he was a better horse than this'n. What color was he?"

"He was bay. Looky here, Sam"--and now Penrod's manner changed from the

superior to the eager--"you look what kind of horses they have in a

circus, and you bet a circus has the _best_ horses, don't it? Well,

what kind of horses do they have in a circus? They have some black and

white ones, but the best they have are white all over. Well, what kind

of a horse is this we got here? He's perty near white right now, and I

bet if we washed him off and got him fixed up nice he _would_ be white.

Well, a bay horse is worth five hundred dollars, because that's what

papa said, and this horse----"

Sam interrupted rather timidly.

"He--he's awful bony, Penrod. You don't guess that'd make any----"

Penrod laughed contemptuously.

"Bony! All he needs is a little food and he'll fill right up and look

good as ever. You don't know much about horses, Sam, I expect. Why,

_our_ ole horse----"

"Do you expect he's hungry now?" asked Sam, staring at Whitey.

"Let's try him," said Penrod. "Horses like hay and oats the best, but

they'll eat most anything."

"I guess they will. He's tryin' to eat that manger up right now, and I

bet it ain't good for him."

"Come on," said Penrod, closing the door that gave entrance to the

stalls. "We got to get this horse some drinkin'-water and some good

food."

They tried Whitey's appetite first with an autumnal branch which they

wrenched from a hardy maple in the yard. They had seen horses nibble

leaves, and they expected Whitey to nibble the leaves of this branch,

but his ravenous condition did not allow him time for cool

discriminations. Sam poked the branch at him from the passageway, and

Whitey, after one backward movement of alarm, seized it venomously.

"Here! You stop that!" Sam shouted. "You stop that, you ole horse,

you!"

"What's the matter?" called Penrod from the hydrant, where he was

filling a bucket. "What's he doin' now?"

"Doin'! He's eatin' the wood part, too! He's chewin' up sticks as big

as baseball bats! He's crazy!"

Penrod rushed to see this sight, and stood aghast.

"Take it away from him, Sam!" he commanded sharply.

"Go on, take it away from him yourself!" was the prompt retort of his

comrade.

"You had no biz'nuss to give it to him," said Penrod. "Anybody with any

sense ought to know it'd make him sick. What'd you want to go and give

it to him for?"

"Well, you didn't say not to."

"Well, what if I didn't? I never said I did, did I? You go on in that

stall and take it away from him."

"_Yes_, I will!" Sam returned bitterly. Then, as Whitey had dragged the

remains of the branch from the manger to the floor of the stall, Sam

scrambled to the top of the manger and looked over. "There ain't much

left to _take_ away! He's swallered it all except some splinters.

Better give him the water to try and wash it down with." And, as Penrod

complied, "My gracious, look at that horse _drink_!"

They gave Whitey four buckets of water, and then debated the question

of nourishment. Obviously, this horse could not be trusted with

branches, and, after getting their knees black and their backs sodden,

they gave up trying to pull enough grass to sustain him. Then Penrod

remembered that horses like apples, both "cooking-apples" and

"eating-apples," and Sam mentioned the fact that every autumn his

father received a barrel of "cooking-apples" from a cousin who owned a

farm. That barrel was in the Williams' cellar now, and the cellar was

providentially supplied with "outside doors," so that it could be

visited without going through the house. Sam and Penrod set forth for

the cellar.

They returned to the stable bulging, and, after a discussion of

Whitey's digestion (Sam claiming that eating the core and seeds, as

Whitey did, would grow trees in his inside), they went back to the

cellar for supplies again--and again. They made six trips, carrying

each time a capacity cargo of apples, and still Whitey ate in a

famished manner. They were afraid to take more apples from the barrel,

which began to show conspicuously the result of their raids, wherefore

Penrod made an unostentatious visit to the cellar of his own house.

From the inside he opened a window and passed vegetables out to Sam,

who placed them in a bucket and carried them hurriedly to the stable,

while Penrod returned in a casual manner through the house. Of his

_sang-froid_[30-1] under a great strain it is sufficient to relate

that, in the kitchen, he said suddenly to Della, the cook, "Oh, look

behind you!" and by the time Della discovered that there was nothing

unusual behind her, Penrod was gone, and a loaf of bread from the

kitchen table was gone with him.

Whitey now ate nine turnips, two heads of lettuce, one cabbage, eleven

raw potatoes, and the loaf of bread. He ate the loaf of bread last and

he was a long time about it; so the boys came to a not unreasonable

conclusion.

"Well, sir, I guess we got him filled up at last!" said Penrod. "I bet

he wouldn't eat a saucer of ice-cream now, if we'd give it to him!"

"He looks better to me," said Sam, staring critically at Whitey. "I

think he's kind of begun to fill out some. I expect he must like us,

Penrod; we been doin' a good deal for this horse."

"Well, we got to keep it up," Penrod insisted rather pompously. "Long

as _I_ got charge o' this horse, he's goin' to get good treatment."

"What we better do now, Penrod?"

Penrod took on the outward signs of deep thought.

"Well, there's plenty to _do_, all right. I got to think."

Sam made several suggestions, which Penrod--maintaining his air of

preoccupation--dismissed with mere gestures.

"Oh, _I_ know!" Sam cried finally. "We ought to wash him so's he'll

look whiter'n what he does now. We can turn the hose on him acrost the

manger."

"No; not yet," said Penrod. "It's too soon after his meal. You ought to

know that yourself. What we got to do is to make up a bed for him--if

he wants to lay down or anything."

"Make up a what for him?" Sam echoed, dumfounded. "What you talkin'

about? How can----"

"Sawdust," said Penrod. "That's the way the horse we used to have used

to have it. We'll make this horse's bed in the other stall, and then he

can go in there and lay down whenever he wants to."

"How we goin' to do it?"

"Look, Sam; there's the hole into the sawdust-box! All you got to do is

walk in there with the shovel, stick the shovel in the hole till it

gets full of sawdust, and then sprinkle it around on the empty stall."

"All _I_ got to do!" Sam cried. "What are you goin' to do?"

"I'm goin' to be right here," Penrod answered reassuringly. "He won't

kick or anything, and it isn't goin' to take you half a second to slip

around behind him to the other stall."

"What makes you think he won't kick?"

"Well, I _know_ he won't, and, besides, you could hit him with the

shovel if he tried to. Anyhow, I'll be right here, won't I?"

"I don't care where you are," Sam said earnestly. "What difference

would that make if he ki----"

"Why, you were goin' right in the stall," Penrod reminded him. "When he

first came in, you were goin' to take the rake and----"

"I don't care if I was," Sam declared. "I was excited then."

"Well, you can get excited now, can't you?" his friend urged. "You can

just as easy get----"

He was interrupted by a shout from Sam, who was keeping his eye upon

Whitey throughout the discussion.

"Look! Looky there!" And undoubtedly renewing his excitement, Sam

pointed at the long, gaunt head beyond the manger. It was disappearing

from view. "Look!" Sam shouted. "He's layin' down!"

"Well, then," said Penrod, "I guess he's goin' to take a nap. If he

wants to lay down without waitin' for us to get the sawdust fixed for

him, that's his lookout, not ours."

On the contrary, Sam perceived a favorable opportunity for action.

"I just as soon go and make his bed up while he's layin' down," he

volunteered. "You climb up on the manger and watch him, Penrod, and

I'll sneak in the other stall and fix it all up nice for him, so's he

can go in there any time when he wakes up, and lay down again, or

anything; and if he starts to get up, you holler and I'll jump out over

the other manger."

Accordingly, Penrod established himself in a position to observe the

recumbent figure. Whitey's breathing was rather labored but regular,

and, as Sam remarked, he looked "better," even in his slumber. It is

not to be doubted that, although Whitey was suffering from a light

attack of colic, his feelings were in the main those of contentment.

After trouble, he was solaced; after exposure, he was sheltered; after

hunger and thirst, he was fed and watered. He slept.

The noon whistles blew before Sam's task was finished, but by the time

he departed for lunch there was made a bed of such quality that Whitey

must needs have been born faultfinder if he complained of it. The

friends parted, each urging the other to be prompt in returning, but

Penrod got into threatening difficulties as soon as he entered the

house.