“How much would you charge?” asked Harry.
“Well, I do’no’,” said the boy. “It’s goin’ to be considerable trouble, and it’s a good five miles the shortest way, and hard travellin’, too, some of the way. I should think ’twould be worth thirty-five cents, anyhow.”
“We’ll pay you fifty,” said John, “if you’ll hurry up with your team.”
“I’ll have to ask ma first,” the boy replied.
He went to the house, and the two outside heard a low-toned conversation, and a woman looked out at them from behind some half-closed blinds. Then out came Jimmy with a rush and said he could go. He took pains to get his hoe from the garden, which he cleaned by rubbing off the dirt with his bare foot before hanging it up.
“Have ye got much luggage?” he asked. “’Cause if ye have we c’n take the rack wagon. The express wagon’s better, though, if ye haven’t got much. That old rack’s pretty heavy.”
The lighter vehicle, which proved to be a small market wagon, was plenty large enough, and into that was hitched the stout farm-horse, and the three boys clambered up to the seat.
“Git up!” cried Jimmy, cracking his whip, and away they rattled down to the depot.
“Now,” said Jimmy, “they’s two ways of gettin’ where you want to go, and when you get there they’s two places where you can go to. The road over Haley’s Hill is the nearest, but it’s so darn steep I’d about as soon drive up the side of a meeting-house steeple.”
“Then you’d rather go the other road, I suppose.”