Part 7 (2/2)

”I makes old Gray jump the straw pile, and I coround! Yes,” acknowledged Zene forbearingly, ”they run Maybe they run toward the house, and ot a-holt of old White's hitch-strap andthe road real lively It wasn't till towards mornin' that I turned off into the woods and tied up for a nap Yes, I slept _part_ of the night in the wagon”

Robert sifted all these harrowing circu the horses,” he hazarded ”Don't folks ever unhitch other folks' horses to put 'em in their stable?”

Zene dren the corners of his mouth to express impatience

”But I'd hated to been there,” Robert hastened to add

”I guess you would,” Zene observed in a lofty, but mollified way, ”if you'd seen the pile of bones I passed down the road a piece from that house”

”Bones?”

”Piled all in a heap at the edge of the woods”

”What kind of bones, Zene?”

”Well, I didn't get out to handle 'em But I see one skull about the size of yours, with a cap on about the size of yours”

This was all that any boy could ask Robert uttered a derisive ”Ho!”

but he sat and meditated with pleasure on the pile of bones It cast a liht have been harit much rest,” concluded Zene ”I could drop off sound now if I'd let myself”

”I'll drive,” proposed Bobaday

Zene reluctantly considered this offer The road ahead looked ser unless you run into a fence corner,” he reett can,” said Robert indignantly

Zene wagged his head as if unconvinced He never intended to let Robert Day be a big boy while he stayed with the faran'marm kno to handle a horse Now if I's to crawl back and take a nap, and you's to run the team into any accident, I'd have to bear all the blame”

Robert protested: and when Zene had shi+fted his responsibility to his satisfaction, he crept back and leaned against the goods, falling into a sound sleep

The boy drove slowly forward It seeils They drowsed along with their heads down through a landscape that shi+ apples in the ho red ones that used to fall and split asunder with their oeight, waking hiainst the sod

What boy hereafter would gather the sheep-noses, and watch the early June's every day until their green turned suddenly into gold, and one bite was enough tobetter in life! He used to keep the chest in his room floored with apples They lay under his best clothes and perfumed them His nose knew the breath of a russet, and in a dark cellar he could smell out the bell-flower bin The real poor people of the earth must be those who had no orchards; who could not clap a particular co back red and yellow s in ridges, or pairs, or dotting the grass everywhere Robert was half-asleep, drea like the buzz of bees around the cider-press He and aunt Corinne used to sit down by the first tub of sweet cider, each with two straws apiece, and watch their faces in the rosy juice while they drank Cider froround, poured out of a pitcher into a glass, had not the ecstatic tang of cider through a straw The Bees ca of diluted honey; andwith bent bodies, around the dripping press

Their buzz increased to a roar Robert Day woke keenly up to find the old white and the old gray just creeping across a railroad track, and a loco at full speed towards them

CHAPTER VIII LITTLE ANT RED AND BIG ANT BLACK

A breath's delaythe lines and shouting at the top of his voice, he braced hiray The respectable beast leaped with astonish The fore wheels cleared the track, and Bobaday's head was filled with the prolonged cry of the locoon received a crash which threw the boy out at the side, and Zene quite across the gray's back