Part 51 (1/2)

It was the next morning, after he had been working there with a fixed, concentrated pucker between his eyes for almost three hours, that a small boy from the next house appeared.

'Say, Crosby.' he began, 'there's a lady lives up there on the hill road--you know, after you've crossed the long bridge and turned up on the hill road?' Crosby nodded. 'Well, there's a lady lives up there says she'll be glad to help you. You know, for the pony you're trying to get.

I was telling her about it yesterday, and she said she didn't know anything about the breakfast food, but she'd be glad to help you just the same.'

'But I've sent the names already,' explained Crosby, looking perplexed with fortune's almost immoderate favors.

'Well, send hers alone. Can't you do that?'

Crosby meditated. 'What house did you say she lived in?'

'It's the only house up there on the hill road. You know! The big, white house. You couldn't miss it.'

'I guess I better go up there then.'

He glanced out to the street, where the sun simmered on the white, hot road, and wiped some little beads of perspiration from his forehead.

Then he walked slowly out through the yard.

When, what seemed a long time afterwards, he dragged himself in from the simmering, white street again, his legs pulling listlessly behind him, he even forgot, for the time being, what the walk had all been about, and sat down vacantly on the cool step in the shade, his cheeks burning a deep, dull red. Then he remembered and pulled himself up again. And that evening another letter started on its way to the Pony Man.

The next morning he waked up with a confused consciousness that something important was hanging over him. Gradually it came back quite clearly. It was the twentieth. And then, for the first time, he became aware of facing a quite unheralded question of challenge. _Was there any doubt about the pony's coming?_ His long list of subscription names flashed before his eyes, his big, s.h.i.+ning pile of money, his mother's smile, the post-office man's 'whew!' of admiration before he made out the money-order, the promises in the letter if he began 'right away' and worked--and he had worked all the time ever since! There was but one possible answer to that question. The pony would come--to-day--before night.

He stumbled gayly down the stairs as he thought of all that he was going to do that morning in the barn. It was such a strange, rickety little affair, that barn; it did seem to look so much more like a shed than anything else, that he was continually haunted by his father's words: 'Barn? I'm afraid she wouldn't recognize it.' But he could make it clean, anyway, if it wasn't new. He looked up at the battered manger, from his kneeling position on the floor, as he scrubbed with soap and water, and wondered what he could do about that. Something he was sure.

Why, there were plenty of ways to do things if you only had sense. He thought he must be mistaken when he heard his mother calling him to dinner; but then, when he stopped and looked around, he felt a tired glow of satisfaction. The walls and floor of the old stall had not changed color, as he had hoped they would by was.h.i.+ng, but they looked damp, and clean, too. Across the battered front of the manger was tacked a s.h.i.+ning but crooked piece of clean, brown paper, and inside was a fresh little pile of gra.s.s and three large, round ginger-cakes beside it. But Crosby's eyes traveled most lovingly to a small row of implements which hung down from the wall, at one side, from nails which he had pounded in. Of course ponies had to be groomed, and he looked up proudly at the small, clean brush, hanging by a string and suggestive no longer of the sink; at the worn whisk-broom next; at the broken comb; and finally at a little, shrunken last winter's glove, with its fingers cut off evenly, which completed the line. He would wear that glove when he did his daily grooming.

'I'll finish everything after dinner,' he meditated, and went in.

When he came back, a saucer of milk trembled dangerously in one hand, and with a faint, half-conscious smile flickering about his mouth, he put it down on the floor in the corner.

'She'll be thirsty when she gets here,' he reasoned; and then, half apologetically, he glanced down at a big, loose bunch of summer goldenrod, supported by the other hand. Standing high on his toes, he propped it very jauntily over a time-worn beam just opposite the door.

'To look nice when she comes in,' he whispered; and then he cast round a final look, sighed a tired sigh of satisfaction--and went out and closed the door.

He wandered about restlessly that afternoon, and finally, with a queer, light feeling in his head, that he a.s.sociated dimly with the long walk on the hill road the day before, he turned out of the yard and struck off across the street in the direction of the railroad station. He wanted to inquire about trains and the station was near. Besides, he knew the station-master, and he would tell him just what he wanted to know.

To be sure! The station-master was both alert and intelligent.

'A pony from New York?' he echoed. 'You're expecting a pony from New York? Well, now I hope you aren't going to be disappointed about it! You say it was to leave New York to-day? Well, there's a New York-Boston train that gets in here at half-past six. That's the last one there is.

So if there's any pony coming, she'll be on that train, won't she? Yes, if she's coming at all, she'll be on that train.'

'Half-past six? What time is it--now?' questioned Crosby.

'It's just half-past four. Now, you don't want to hang round here for two hours. No, you run home and make yourself easy. I pa.s.s your place on my way home to supper, and if you're outside I'll let you know whether there's anything for you. But I wouldn't get my hopes up too high.'

Crosby looked up gratefully. He had not even heard the last sentence. He was already making his way out of the station and back home again, wondering just how he could spend all that time.

Two hours later, his father came swinging up the walk. Crosby, sitting on the gra.s.s close to the sidewalk, hardly saw him. He thought he saw some one else--away down the walk--moving slowly towards him.

'Hullo, Crosby,' began his father cheerfully. 'What you doing? Looking at the view?'