Along the shady, grassy lane Ted drove Nicknack. The lane led to the cherry grove where hundreds of trees had been in blossom.
Now the blossoms had fallen off, and in place of each one was a little round green ball, that, when the sun had warmed it and the rain had wet it, would turn into a beautiful, big black or red cherry. Grandpa Martin’s cherries were known all around Elmburg, and even on the other side of Clover Lake, as the best in that part of the country.
“And maybe we can ride to Clover Lake after we go to the cherry grove,” said Jan, as they jogged along the lane where the yellow dandelions looked like spots of gold in the green, velvet grass.
“Maybe,” assented her brother. “I don’t know whether Nicknack is afraid of water or not.”
“He wasn’t the day Trouble sat down in it after he broke the eggs,” laughed Jan. “Besides, this wagon is so like a boat that maybe it will float on the lake.”
“Maybe!” agreed Ted.
It surely was a queer cart, with two hind wheels alike, but with two different sizes for the front ones. As it rolled along first the left front end would rise up and then the right would do the same. If one had stood back of them and looked at the two Curlytops, with Trouble seated between his brother and his sister, one would have thought them on the back of a camel or an elephant. That was the way the goat cart swayed, up and down and sidewise.
But the wheels stayed on, which was more than Ted’s father and grandfather had dared to hope at first. And the harness, though much patched and made from many bits of straps and ropes, stayed on the back of Nicknack. So that the goat pulled the cart along after a fashion.
“And he guides good, too,” said Ted, as he pulled first on the left-hand cord and then on the right. “See how easy it is, Jan.”
A sort of muzzle of straps had been put around Nicknack’s nose, and on either side of it was a long cord. The cords were the reins, Ted not having been able to find light leather straps that were long enough. But the cord-reins did very well.