“Just as if I should overload or ill-use a hoss! Look at old Bonyparty.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Why, him talking like that afore we started. I know what I’m about. You’d better lie down and cover yourself over with some sacks. Get a good sleep; I’ll call you when we get there.”
“What, and miss seeing the country?” I cried.
“Seeing the country! Lor’, what a baby you are, Mars Grant! What is there to see in that?”
I thought a great deal; and a glorious ride it seemed through the moonlight and under the dark shadows of the trees in the country lanes. Then there was the dawn, and the sun rising, and the bright morning once more, with the dew glittering on the grassy strands and hedgerows; and I was so happy and excited that Ike said, with one of his grim smiles:
“Why, anybody’d think you was going out for a holiday ’stead of helping to load a sand cart.”
“It’s such a change, Ike,” I said.
“Change! What sort o’ change? Going to use a shovel ’stead of a spade; and sand’s easy to dig but awful heavy. Here, get up; are you going to lie snoring there all day?”
He leaned over me and poked with the butt of the whip handle at Shock, but that gentleman only kicked and growled, and so he was left in peace.