“I wonder if I am going the right direction?” he asked himself. “Bess, don’t you know?”
The mare whinnied an answer, but what it was, Dan, of course, could not tell.
“I’ll keep on until I come to a house,” he decided, “and then I’ll ask my way.”
About ten minutes after this he came to a lonely residence, standing beside the road. It was all dark, and the boy disliked to knock and arouse the inmates, but he felt it was a case of necessity. Dismounting, and taking care not to smash the bottle of medicine in his coat pocket, he pounded on the door. The persons inside must have been sound sleepers, for it was nearly five minutes before a window was raised, and a man, thrusting his head out, asked:
“Well, what’s the matter? What do you want?”
“I am sorry to trouble you,” said Dan, “but is this the road to Pokeville?”
“Land sakes no!” exclaimed the man. “You’re five miles out of your way. What’s the trouble?”
“I am taking some medicine to a sick woman over there, and I looked at a sign post some five miles back. I thought it said Pokeville was in this direction.”
“I see, you made the same mistake other persons make. There’s a town called Hokeville, which is on this road. Lots of people look at the sign in a hurry, and think it says Pokeville.”
“I should think they’d make the letters big enough so people could read them easily,” remarked Dan.