And so they started and the horse went along in a leisurely manner as was his wont. Once he strayed off to the roadside to crop the verdant mead and as Minerva pulled on the wrong rein she nearly upset the wagon. But she was quick to learn, and before they had gone a mile Ethel said she drove as if she had been doing it all day.
They found that the horse had the pleasing habit of picking up apples that lay in the road—for their way ran by several apple trees, and there were windfalls in plenty. As he was not checked, every time this happened Ethel felt as if they were going to be pitched out head foremost, but they made their first mile in safety and then the horse, reaching a level stretch “got a gait on him” and trotted along in good shape for nearly half a mile.
When they came to the place called “long hill” Ethel got out so that the horse would have less difficulty in making the descent.
Minerva, innocent as a child as to the proper thing to do, did not tighten the check rein nor did she take in the slack in the reins, but resting her hands idly in her lap chirruped to the horse as she had heard James do, and he began the “perilous descent.”
Half way down he saw a bit of hay in the road, and being of a mind to eat it, he lowered his head at the very moment that he stepped on a loose stone, and the next minute Minerva was over the dashboard, and the horse and she lay in the road together.
She was the first one to pick herself up. In fact she was the only one to do it, as Ethel was several rods away and almost too frightened to stir.
“Quick, Mis. Vernon, come and sit on his head.”
Ethel told me that she did not like the idea at all, but it was a case that called for but one decision. The horse had been loaned to her and if she could save its life by sitting on its head she meant to do it, although she did hope that Minerva would relieve her from time to time.
“I thought we’d divide it up into watches,” she told me, “and I did hope that some wood team would come along soon.”
The horse struggled to rise, but as the hill was steep he found it hard to do and in a minute my wife had seated herself as elegantly as she could on his head, and probably smoothed her skirts over her shoe tops after the manner of womankind.