Bobbins jerked his head around and snapped his whip over the leaders’ ears. “These are the people,” he said.
“Who?” asked Belle Tingley.
“The Caslons.”
“But they’re real nice looking people,” Helen exclaimed, in wonder.
“Well, they’re a thorn—or a pair of thorns—in my father’s flesh. You’d better not boost them before him.”
“And they don’t want to sell their old home?” queried Ruth, softly. Then to herself, she whispered: “And who could blame them? I wouldn’t sell it, either, if it were mine.”
CHAPTER XI—TOBOGGANING IN JUNE
The four horses climbed briskly after that and brought the yellow coach to an old stone gateway. At the end of the Caslon farm the stone wall had begun, and now it stretched ahead, up over the rise, as far as anything was to be seen. Indeed, it seemed to melt right into the sky.
Bobbins turned the leaders’ noses in at the gateway. Already it was shown that the new owner had begun to improve the estate. The driveway was an example of what road-making should be—entirely different from the hap-hazard work done on the country roads.
There were beautiful pastures on either hand, all fenced in with wire—“horse high, bull strong, and pig tight,” as Bobbins explained, proudly. There were horses in one pasture and a herd of cows in another. Beyond, sheep dotted a rocky bit of the hillside, and the thin, sweet “baa-as” of the lambs came to their ears as the coach rolled on.