“Wall, now, I d’clar!” cried Peg admiringly, “so you be, now I come to think of it, Cap’n. You’re hefty, too—big an’ hefty.”
He pulled the little boy up beside him with a grunt as of a mighty effort. As he did so the blue letter slipped out of the small pocket, which was only half big enough to hold it, and dropped unnoticed to the ground. Then the wagon with a creak and a rattle started on once more.
“You c’n see,” said Peg gravely, “how the horses hes to pull now’t you’re in.”
“Didn’t they have to pull’s hard as that before I got in?” inquired Jimmy. “Honest, Peg, didn’t they?”
“Why, all you’ve got to do is to look at ’em, Cap’n,” chuckled Peg. “I’m glad it ain’t fur or they’d git all tuckered out, an’ I’ve got to plough to-day. Say, Cap’n, the wind’s blowin’ fer business ain’t it? You’d better look out fer that military hat o’ your’n.”
“It does blow pretty hard,” admitted Jimmy; “but my hat’s on tight.”
He glanced back vaguely to see a glimmer of something blue skidding sidewise across the road into the tangle of huckleberry and hard-hack bushes; then he turned once more to the man at his side.
“I’ve got a birfday present for Barb’ra,” he said eagerly.
“A birthday present fer Barb’ry? ’Tain’t her birthday, too, is it?” inquired Peg, clucking to his horses.
“No, it’s my birfday; but I got Barb’ra a birfday present with my fi’ cents. I’m six.”