“If I don’t know as much as such a clodhopper as you are, I’ll hoe weeds all day the Fourth, and you may go in my place to make the oration at Gainsboro.”
“Drat my pictur’, if I couldn’t shout to more puppose’n you can, I’d send a calf in my place,” muttered Job, starting back into the field in a high dudgeon.
Pluto Snyder was climbing back into the wagon, and he had no sooner gained his seat than he called out in his loud voice for Larry to let go of the horse’s bridle.
“Don’t let go,” pleaded Lucy; “please let him lead him to the foot of the hill?”
The animal was still restive, and even Pluto did not offer further objection to Larry’s assistance, now that he had some one else to share the responsibility with him.
When the foot of the descent had been reached and the horse, under ordinary conditions a very quiet creature, seemed to have got over its fright, Larry released his hold and stepped aside to let the wagon pass.
“Please accept my thanks for your help, Lawrence,” said Lucy, with a smile. She always called him by his full name. “I do not know what we should have done if it had not been for you.”
“Don’t give the lunkhead more credit than he deserves,” said Pluto Alexander. Then, seeming to feel that he ought to make some acknowledgment to his rescuer, he turned back to say:
“Quite clever in you, young fellow. You can come over to Gainsboro and hear my oration the Fourth.”
Larry made no reply, though he did not return to the field until the wagon and its occupants had disappeared around a bend in the road.