"Are you going to take the dog?" asked the man, as Rags darted up the
steps with sniffs and barks of ecstatic delight. "He ain't so handsome
but you can get another easy enough!" (Rags held his breath in suspense,
and wondered if he had been put under a roaring cataract, and then
ploughed in deep furrows with a sharp-toothed instrument of torture,
only to be left behind at last!)
"That's just why I take him," said Timothy; "because he isn't handsome
and has nobody else to love him."
("Not a very polite reason," thought Rags; "but anything to go!")
"Well, jump in, dog and all, and they'll give you the best free ride to
the country you ever had in your life! Tell 'em it's all right, Jim;"
and the train steamed out of the depot, while the kind man waved his
bandana handkerchief until the children were out of sight.
SCENE IV.
_Pleasant River._
JABE SLOCUM ASSUMES THE ROLE OF GUARDIAN ANGEL.
Jabe Slocum had been down to Edgewood, and was just returning to the
White Farm, by way of the cross-roads and Hard Scrabble school-house. He
was in no hurry, though he always had more work on hand than he could
leave undone for a month; and Maria also was taking her own time, as
usual, even stopping now and then to crop an unusually sweet tuft of
grass that grew within smelling distance, and which no mare (with a
driver like Jabe) could afford to pass without notice.
Jabe was ostensibly out on an "errant" for Miss Avilda Cummins; but, as
he had been in her service for six years, she had no expectations of his
accomplishing anything beyond getting to a place and getting back in the
same day, the distance covered being no factor at all in the matter.
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