“But we weren’t going to start till six.”
“Didn’t know for sure Jehoshaphat was goin’ then,” says he.
“Then my finding it out did amount to somethin’?” says I.
“You bet it did, Plunk,” says he, and he got up and banged me on the back. “You can just b-b-bet it did.”
Well, I felt some better after that, and went off, leaving Mark and Zadok to talk about their old plan that they were so close-mouthed about. I shouldn’t have been put out, though, for I found out afterward that Mark hadn’t told me because it would be such a big disappointment to me if it didn’t come out right. I might have known there was a good reason. Mark Tidd was the sort of fellow who always thinks about other folks’ feelings.
There wasn’t any train that would take us from Wicksville to Sunfield, so there was nothing to do but drive. Mark brought along his father’s horse and buggy. Since Mr. Tidd got rich he kept a horse. He could have afforded half a dozen automobiles if he’d wanted to, but he didn’t have them. It wasn’t because he was stingy, for he didn’t care anything in particular about money. It was just because he was such a simple-minded, dreamy sort of man. And Mrs. Tidd was that sensible there wasn’t anybody like her. They lived in the same house and lived in the same way they had lived when they were poor. It seemed like all their money hadn’t made a cent’s worth of difference in them.
Well, Mark drove up to my house just before five o’clock, and we started out. Binney and Tallow were around to see us off, and Mark told them to keep watch and telephone to the hotel in Wilkinstown as soon as Skip started and leave a message for us. Wilkinstown was nine miles over toward Sunfield. Then we started off.
You’d never believe it, but just as we were getting into Wilkinstown the horse went lame. We got out and looked him over, but we didn’t know enough about horses to tell what the matter was, so we drove on slow and cautious to the livery barn.
The man there took a look at the horse and mentioned some kind of a thing that gets the matter with a horse’s foot and said the horse mustn’t be driven again for at least a week. Not for a week! That was a pretty kettle of fish.
“H’m!” says I to Mark. “Looks like we walk back.”