There was something so frank and manly about him that the girls liked him at once. But if Calvin Smalley made such a good impression, the horse which he had brought over for the girls to drive to town was less fortunate. He was a hoary, moth-eaten looking creature that might easily have been the first white horse born west of the Mississippi. In looking at him you would be left with a lingering doubt in your mind as to whether he had originally been white or had turned white with age. He tottered so that each step threatened to be his last The wagon to which he was fastened with a patched and rotten harness had probably been on the scene some years before he was born. Migwan was much taken aback when she inspected him. “I wouldn’t dare attempt to drive that beast all the way to town,” she thought to herself. “He’d never get beyond the first bend in the road. And if he did make it he’d go so slowly that my berries would be out of season before I got to my customers.”
“Isn’t he rather—old?” she said, aloud. “I’m afraid he isn’t able to work much.”
Calvin blushed fiery red and his eyes sought the ground in distress. “It’s a shame,” he said, fiercely, “to try to hire out such a horse. I don’t blame you for not wanting it.” Without another word he climbed into the wagon and urged the feeble horse back to his home pasture.
“Didn’t you feel sorry for that poor boy?” said Migwan. “He felt ashamed clear down to his shoes at having to bring that old wreck of a horse over. I should have died if I had been in his place. He’s such a nice looking boy, too. I suppose his uncle is one of those stingy, grasping farmers who work everybody to death on the place. Anybody who plants vegetables in his front yard must be stingy. That horse probably couldn’t work on the farm any more so he thought he would make some money out of it by hiring it to us. He must have thought girls didn’t know a horse when they saw one. I didn’t exactly fall in love with Mr. Smalley when I went over. He wasn’t a bit friendly like Mr. Landsdowne.”
“I foresee where we will have little to do with our neighbors in the Red House,” said Sahwah. “I’m sorry, because I like to have lots of people to visit, and like to have them running in at odd times, the way Mr. Landsdowne appeared.”
“Let’s not have any hard feelings against Calvin Smalley, though,” said Migwan. “He isn’t to blame for his uncle’s stinginess. I dare say he isn’t very happy over there. Let’s have him over as often as we can.”
“Spoken like a true Winnebago,” said Nyoda, approvingly.
“But in the meantime,” said Migwan, in perplexity, “what are we going to do for a horse and wagon to take our things to town?”
“Why not use our car?” said Gladys. The machine she had come in was still in the barn at Onoway House. “It’s a good thing I learned to run the big one—father said I might use it all summer if I would be a good girl and stay at home when they went out west.”
“Could we get everything in?” asked Migwan.