Part 20 (1/2)
”It would have been something else that sent him off in this way, if it hadn't been beets,” grumbled Mr. Pinkney. ”He was about due for a break-away. I should have paid more attention to him myself. But business was confining.
”Oh, well; we always see our mistakes when it is too late. But that boy needs somebody's oversight besides his mother's. She is always afraid I will be too harsh with him. But she doesn't manage him, that is sure.”
”We'd better catch the rabbit before we make the rabbit stew,”
chuckled Neale O'Neil. ”Sammy is a good kid, I tell you. Only he has crazy notions.”
”Pooh!” put in Agnes. ”You need not talk in so old-fas.h.i.+oned a way.
You used to have somewhat similar 'crazy notions' yourself. You ran away a couple of times.”
”Well, did I have a real home and a mother and father to run from?”
demanded the boy. ”Guess not!”
”You've got a father now,” laughed Agnes.
”But he isn't like a real father,” sighed Neale. ”He has run away from me! I know it is necessary for him to go back to Alaska to attend to that mine. But I'll be glad when he comes home for good--or I can go to him.”
”Oh, Neale! You wouldn't?” gasped the girl.
”Wouldn't what?” he asked, surprised by her vehemence.
”Go away up to Alaska?”
”I'd like to,” admitted the boy. ”Wouldn't you?”
”Oh--well--if you can take me along,” rejoined Agnes with satisfaction, ”all right. But under no other circ.u.mstances can you go, Neale O'Neil.”
CHAPTER XVI--THE DEAD END OF NOWHERE
Mr. Pinkney and Neale went to work to hoist the motor-car into the road again. No easy nor brief struggle was this. A dozen times Agnes started the car and the wheels slipped off the poles or Neale or Mr.
Pinkney lost his grip.
Before long they were well bespattered with mud (for there was considerable water in the ditch) and so was the automobile. Neale and their neighbor worked to the utmost of their muscular strength, and Agnes was in tears.
”Pluck up your courage, Aggie,” panted her boy friend. ”We'll get it yet.”
”I just feel that it is my fault,” sobbed the girl. ”All this slipping and sliding. If I could only just get it to start right--”
”Again!” cried Neale cheerfully.
And this time the forewheels really got on solid ground. Mr. Pinkney thrust his lever in behind the sloughed hind wheel and blocked it from sliding back.
”Great!” yelled Neale. ”Once more, Aggie!”
She obeyed his order, and although the automobile engine rattled a good deal and the car itself plunged like a bucking broncho, they finally got all the wheels out of the mud and on the firm road.
”Crickey!” gasped Neale. ”It looks like a battlefield.”
”And we look as though we had been in the battle all right,” said Mr.