“We’re ready for you now, ma’am.”
“Are you positively certain that Patches won’t go to ‘sunfishing’ with me?” she demanded, as she poised herself on the edge of the buckboard. He flashed a pleased grin at her, noting with a quickening pulse the deep, rich color in her cheeks, the soft white skin, her dancing eyes—all framed in the hood of the rain cloak she wore.
He reached out his hands to her, clasped her around the waist and swung her to the place on the saddle formerly occupied by Aunt Martha. If he held her to him a little more tightly than he had held Aunt Martha the wind might have been to blame, for it was blowing some stray wisps of her hair into his face and he felt a strange intoxication that he could scarcely control.
And now, when she was safe on his horse and there was no further danger that she would refuse to ride with him, he gave her the answer to her question:
“Patches wouldn’t be unpolite to a lady, ma’am,” he said quietly, into her hair; “he wouldn’t throw you.”
He could not see her face—it was too close to him and his chin was higher than the top of her head. But he could not fail to catch the mirth in her voice:
“Then you lied to Willard!”
“Why, yes, ma’am; I reckon I did. You see, I didn’t want to let Patches get all muddied up, ridin’ over to Willard.”
“But you are riding him into the mud now!” she declared in a strangely muffled voice.
“Why, so I am, ma’am,” he said gleefully; “I reckon I’m sure a box-head!”