"But the time he started the 'Stable fer Business Horses,' was the funniest yet," and she laughed until her eyes filled with tears, and she dried them with the lower part of the palms of her hands, rubbing them red.
"The boss told him not to take anything but business horses. What he meant was, to be sure not to let in any fancy high-steppers, fer fear they'd get hurt or sick, an' he'd have trouble about 'em Well, pa didn't understand at first, an' he wouldn't take no mules, an' most all the business horses around there was mules, an' when drivers'd ask him why he wouldn't feed 'em 'er take 'em in, he jest had t' fix up the funniest stories y' ever heard. He tole one man that he hadn't laid in the kind o' feed mules eat, n' the man told him he was the biggest fool to talk he ever see. The mule-man he—"
Francis King had arisen, and started awkwardly toward Gertrude, with her hand extended.
"I think we ought to go," she said, uneasily, her large eyes burning with mortification, and an oppressed sense of being at a disadvantage.
"So soon?" said Gertrude, smiling as she took her hand, and laid her other arm about the shoulders of Ettie, who had hastened to place herself in the group. "I was so entertained that I did not realize that perhaps you ought to go before it grows late—oh," glancing at a tiny watch in her bracelet, "it is late—too late for you to go way down there alone. I will send James, or—"
"Allow me the pleasure, will you not?" asked Avery, bowing first to Gertrude, and then toward Francis, and Gertrude said:—
"Oh, thank you, if—" but Ettie clapped her hands in glee.
"Well, that's too rich! Just as if we didn't go around by ourselves all the time, and—Lord! pa says if anybody carries me off he'd only go as far as the lamp-post, and drop me as soon as the light struck me! Now Fan's pretty, but—" she laughed, and made clawing movements in the air. "Nobody'll get away with Queen Fan's long's she's got finger-nails 'n teeth." She snapped her pretty little white teeth together with mock viciousness, and laughed again. "I'd just pity the fellow that tried any tomfoolery with Queen Fan. He'd wish he'd died young!"
They all laughed a bit at this sally, and Avery said he did not want Miss King to be forced to extremities in self-protection while he was able to relieve her of the necessity.
When James closed the door behind the laughing group, he glanced at Miss Gertrude to see what she thought of it, but he remarked to Susan later on, that "Miss Gertrude looked as if she was born 'n brought up that way herself. She didn't show no amusement ner no sarcasm in her face. An' as fer Mr. Avery, it was nothing short of astonishing, to see him offer his arms to those two Guilders as they started down the avenue."