“It belongs to the man I work for.”
“Oh, I know you now. You’re Dan Hardy, and you live out to Mr. Savage’s farm. Well, he’ll have a nice bill from me, I can tell you. There was fourteen dozen eggs in that basket, and I was takin’ ’em to Hank Lee’s store to trade fer groceries. Now I don’t believe there’s half a dozen eggs left. He’ll have to pay fer ’em, that’s what he’ll have t’ do!”
“Did the bull run into you, Mrs. Dowden?” asked Dan anxiously, as he recognized the old lady.
“No, Dan, he didn’t exactly run into me, but when I saw the savage critter comin’ I just sot my basket of eggs down in the middle of the road, an’ I ran under a fence until he got by.”
“Then how did the eggs get broken?”
“Why, that savage black critter jest stomped up and down on that basket of eggs until they are what you see now—nothin’ but a mess of whites an’ yallers. That bull jest did it out of spite, ’cause I s’pose he couldn’t eat ’em. Then he gives a bellow, stuck his tail up in the air, and run on. Oh, he’ll do a lot of damage ’fore he gits through.”
“I’m sorry,” began Dan.
“I don’t s’pose it’s your fault,” said Mrs. Dowden, as she managed to rescue one whole egg from the mess. “But I’ll have the law on Peter Savage, if he don’t pay me fer these eggs, an’ they’re wuth thirty cents a dozen now at store prices, too. Land sakes! I never see a bull stomp on eggs afore, an’ I don’t want to see it ag’in.”
But Dan did not stay to hear what the elderly lady had to say. He left her standing in the middle of a little lake of whites and yellows, and continued on his way after the bull.
As Dan was hurrying along a straight stretch of road, with the bull some distance ahead of him, he saw a man walking just in advance of the animal. The man had come across lots and emerged upon the highway without seeing the bull.