"Don't you ever wear boots?" he asked.
"Not if I k'n help it. Them kids now, they won't neither, 'n I don't blame 'em. Last boots Ma sent for was found all over the manure heap, so the old man said he'd buy no more boots, an' a good job too. The only thing as scares me is double-gees: spikes all roads and Satan's face on three sides. Ever see double-gees?"
Len was leading three ponderous horses. He started peering on the road, the horses marching just behind his quick little figure. Then he found a burr with three queer sides and a sort of face on each side with sticking-out hair.
He was a funny kid, with his scraps of Latin and tags of poetry. Jack wondered that he wasn't self-conscious and ashamed to quote poetry. But he wasn't. He chirped them off, the bits of verse, as if they were a natural form of expression.
They had led the horses to another stable. Len again gave the ropes to Jack, disappeared, and returned leading a saddled stock-horse. Holding the reins of the saddle-horse, the boy scrambled up the neck of one of the big draft-horses like a monkey.
"Which are you goin' to ride?" he asked Jack from the height. "I'm taking three an' leading Lucy. You take the other three."
So he received the three halter ropes.
"I think I'll walk," said Jack.
"Please y'self. You k'n open the gates easy walkin'; and comin' back I'll do it, 'n you k'n ride Lucy an I'll ride behind pinion so's I can slip down easy."
Yes, Lennie was a joy. On the return journey, when Jack was in the saddle riding Lucy, Len flew up behind him and stood on the horse's crupper, his hands on Jack's shoulders, crying: "Let 'er go!" At the first gate, he slid down like a drop of water, then up again, this time sitting back to back with Jack, facing the horse's tail, and whistling briskly. Suddenly he stopped whistling, and said: