“Say!” cried Frank, laughing at Marty’s story. “We don’t want to crawl on behind this load of hay all the afternoon. What’s the matter with the fellow?”
“He’s wot they call a road hog,” proclaimed Marty. “Hey, you! get out of the way, will you?”
Janice tooted the horn again, but with no result. The driver of the hay wagon evidently had no intention of turning aside an inch from the middle of the road for the automobile. Of course, when heavily loaded it is often difficult for a teamster to turn out; but the road rules demand it and the automobile party was quite within its rights when Janice signaled for a share of the roadway.
“Wait!” exclaimed Frank. “Isn’t there a wider place in the road right ahead, in front of Elder Concannon’s?”
“You’re right!” cried Marty. “We’ll fool him there. And crackey! I’d like to tell him what I think of him when we go by.”
“You be still, Marty,” was his cousin’s threat, “or I’ll not take you out again. We must not quarrel with the country people, no matter how mean they may be—— Why, see there! he’s turning right into the Elder’s barnyard gate.”
“By jinks!” ejaculated Marty, “it was the old Elder himself. No wonder he wouldn’t turn out for us—he hates these buzz-carts so. You’d oughter heard him layin’ down the law about ’em in Sunday School class last Sunday. Your ears ought to have burned, Janice.”
“I’m sorry the old gentleman does not approve of the car,” sighed Janice. “And we were just getting to be such good friends, too! Perhaps—perhaps Daddy’s present is going to bring me more trouble than pleasure, after all.”
But this last she said too low to be heard by her companions. She was thinking of the widening breach between herself and Nelson Haley.