"Well, what'd you call it, if you don't call it fun?" said Rob, in a vexed tone.
Nelly did not answer.
"Why don't you say?" cried Rob.
"I'm thinking," replied Nelly: "I guess there isn't any name for it. I don't know any."
Just at this moment, they heard the tinkle of bells ahead, and in a second more loud shouts and cries. They walked faster. The wagon had been out of their sight for some time. As they turned a sharp bend in the road now, they saw it; and they saw also another wagon brought to a dead halt in front of it. The wagon which was coming down was loaded high with packages of shingles. It was drawn by six mules. They had bells on their necks, so as to warn people when they were coming. Mr. March and Deacon Plummer had heard these bells, but they had not known what they meant: if they had, they would have drawn off into one of the wider bends in the road, and waited. Now here the two wagons were, face to face, in one of the very worst places in the road, just where it seemed barely wide enough for one wagon alone. The rock rose up straight on one side, and the precipice fell off sharp on the other. To make matters worse, Pumpkinseed, who hated the very sight of a mule, and who did not like the shining of the bright, yellow shingles, began to rear and to plunge. The driver of the mule team sat still, and looked at Mr. March and the Deacon surlily without speaking. Mr. March and the Deacon looked at him helplessly, and said:—
"What are we going to do now?"
"Didn't yer hear me a-coming?" growled the man.
"No, sir," said Mr. March, pleasantly: "we are strangers here, and did not know what the bells meant."
At this the man jumped down: he was not so angry, when he found out that they were strangers. He walked down the road a little way, and looked, and shook his head; then he walked back in the direction he had come from; then he came back, and said:—
"There's nothin' for it, mister, but you'll have to unharness your team. My mules'll stand; I'll help you."