“I’m afraid to, he won’t know any better than to run right up to them, and they will bite or kick him; perhaps they’ll all take after him, get him into a ring and pen him in the corner of the fence and kill him.”
“Put one of ‘em in his place, and let us see what they will do.”
They turned old Frank in, the colt ran right up and began to smell of him. Frank smelt of the colt, seemed glad to meet, and did not offer to bite or kick him. Frank was just from work, hungry and wanted to feed, but the colt wouldn’t let him, kept thrusting his nose in Frank’s face and bothering him, when the old horse gave him a nip, taking the larger portion of the colt’s neck into his great mouth. The little creature screamed with pain and ran off, but soon came back and began feeding close by, just as Frank did, the latter taking no further notice of him.
“They’ll do well enough,” said Mr. Whitman, who was looking on. “Frank won’t hurt him, he was only teaching him manners, you can leave ‘em together.”
They eventually became great friends, and after they had fed to the full would stand in the corner of the fence or under the willows, the colt nestled under Frank’s breast, and the latter with his head over the colt’s back.
The colt would follow James like a dog; and sometimes when Frank would take a notion not to be caught James would call the colt to him and start for the barn, and the old horse would follow them right into the stable.
Mr. Whitman had an offer for wheat at a high price, and kept Mr. Conly and hired another man (as he had two barn floors) to help thresh, threshing being then all done with the flail, or else the grain was trampled out by cattle. The evenings were now getting to be quite long. James therefore began to study, and Mr. Conly assisted him and heard him recite. This was a golden opportunity for James, and he made the most of it. While devoting every leisure moment to study, James was not unmindful of his crop, there was not a weed to be seen among his potatoes, and I should not dare to say how many times the fingers of James and Bertie and Maria had been thrust into the hills on a voyage of discovery, and their conclusions, as reported by Maria to her mother, were most satisfactory. The soil indeed was full of great cracks, caused by the growth and crowding of the potatoes.
When Mr. Whitman found that Mr. Conly was disposed to assist James, and that James fully appreciated the privilege, he so arranged his work as to afford him every possible opportunity, and the boys were ever ready to take an additional burden upon themselves for the same purpose. One evening Arthur Nevins came in to see the boys, and said he had been to the mill that day and saw a notice posted up that Calvin Barker was buying potatoes for a starch mill, and would pay cash and a fair price for first-rate potatoes sound and sorted, no cut ones. Potatoes were cheap, there was not much of a market for them, and the traders would pay but part cash and the rest in goods.
“Now is your chance, James,” said the grandfather, “you want the money and don’t want goods.”
They brought only seventeen cents per bushel, but there were one hundred and sixteen bushels and a half, and after returning a bushel and one half to Mr. Whitman to replace the seed received of him, and paying Bertie for the colt, James had eighteen dollars and fifty cents left. In addition to this were several bushels of small and cut potatoes that he put in the cellar to give the colt.