I asked Gibbie questions, to which he gave the most prolonged and elaborate answers. I am sure he had composed and arranged them all as he drove down. He told me every item of home news; everything rose color; potatoes dug and very fine, "about t'ree hundred bushil." "Great crop of hay," he having saved it all. More peas than I "could 'stroy." He spoke of Bonaparte altogether as "the Cap'en," which showed me they were on good terms, a most unusual thing. All the cows in fine condition, he reported, but when I asked about Heart, the Guernsey heifer I was so anxious to raise, he said a sad accident happened and she was dead.

After we crossed the ferry the horses looked so downhearted that I asked if Ruth had had any holiday. No, he said, Ruth had been driven every day; but Romola had done nothing since I left home.

"What," I said, "not been in harness since September 20?"

"No, ma'am, just been out in de fiel' de eat grass."

"Mercy on us," I cried, "and you brought her on this twenty-six mile drive to-day?"

"Needn't to fret, ma'am, Uncle Bonapa'te feed um well, he give um twenty-eight year o' co'n jes' fo' we sta'at dis mo'ning."

I began at once to feel anxious about Romola and drove slower and slower. She would turn and bite at her side from time to time and travelled with her head down. Finally when we were five miles from home she threw herself violently down. Romola is such a good creature; she managed not to break a strap of the harness, nor the pole, only she nearly toppled Ruth over, but by falling against her she saved the pole.

I sprang out and had the harness taken off quickly and got her up and led her out of the road into a grassy place in the woods just in time, for she threw herself down again, rolling over and over and groaning and tossing herself about—a genuine case of colic.

First I told Gibbie to run home and bring Nana as quickly as he could. Then I considered that it must take at least two hours, even if he ran, which I knew he would not do, and to be left on the highway alone, the buckboard loaded with my possessions, with a sick horse, would be a trying ordeal for me and would really be tempting Providence in the way of tramps, so I said:—

"No, don't go yet a while; perhaps some one will come whom I can send."