"Don't that horse get exercise enough during the week? Don't he like his day of rest? How'd you like me to saddle you up and ride you round the block? I guess you'd like that pretty well, wouldn't you?"Gashwiler fancied himself in this bit of sarcasm, brutal though it was. He toyed with it. "Next Sunday I'll saddle you up and ride you round the block--see how you like that, young man.""It was our clothesline," said the lady. "I could tell it right off."With a womanish tenacity she had fastened to a minor inconsequence of the outrage. Gashwiler became practical.
"Well, I must say, it's a pretty how-de-do, That horse'll make straight back for the farm; we won't have any delivery horse to-morrow. Sue, you get out; I'll go down the road a piece and see if Ican head him off."
"He turned the other way," said Merton.
"Well, he's bound to head around for the farm. I'll go up the road and you hurry out the way he went. Mebbe you can catch him before he gets out of town."Mrs. Gashwiler descended from the car.
"You better have that clothesline back by seven o'clock to-morrow morning," she warned the offender.
"Yes, ma'am, I will."
This was not spoken in a Buck Benson manner.
"And say"--Gashwiler paused in turning the car--"what you doing in that outlandish rig, anyhow? Must think you're one o' them Wild West cowboys or something. Huh!" This last carried a sneer that stung.
"Well, I guess I can pick out my own clothes if I want to.""Fine things to call clothes, I must say. Well, go see if you can pick out that horse if you're such a good picker-out."Again Gashwiler was pleased with himself. He could play venomously with words.
"Yes, sir," said Merton, and plodded on up the alley, followed at a respectful distance by the Ransom kiddies, who at once resumed their vocal exercises.
"He throwed you off right into the dirt, didn't he, Merton? Mer-tun, didn't he throw you off right into the dirt?"If it were inevitable he wished that they would come closer. He would even have taken little Woodrow by the hand. But they kept far enough back of him to require that their voices should be raised.
Incessantly the pitiless rain fell upon him--"Mer-tun, he throwed you off right into the dirt, didn't he, Merton?"He turned out of the alley up Spruce Street. The Ransom children lawlessly followed, forgetting their good home, their poor, sick mother and the rules she had laid down for their Sabbath recreation.
At every moment the shrill cry reached his burning ears, "Mer-tun, didn't he throw you off?" The kiddies appeared to believe that Merton had not heard them, but they were patient. Presently he would hear and reassure them that he had, indeed, been thrown off right into the dirt.
Now he began to meet or pass early churchgoers who would gaze at him in wonder or in frank criticism. He left the sidewalk and sought the centre of the road, pretending that out there he could better search for a valuable lost horse. The Ransom children were at first in two minds about following him, but they soon found it more interesting to stay on the sidewalk. They could pause to acquaint the churchgoers with a matter of common interest. "He throwed Merton off right into the dirt."If the people they addressed appeared to be doubting this, or to find it not specific enough, they would call ahead to Merton to confirm their simple tale. With rapt, shining faces, they spread the glad news, though hurrying always to keep pace with the figure in the road.
