“He looks kinder mean, don’t he?” Lou remarked. Then impulsively she ran after the wagon: “Say, mister, will you give us a lift?”
The old man pulled in his horses and regarded her sourly.
“What’ll you pay?” he demanded.
76“What’s in them crates,” she parried.
“Eggs.” The response was laconic. “What you gittin’ at, sis?”
“Who unloads them when you git to where you’re goin’?” Lou persisted.
“At the Riverburgh dock? I do, unless I’m late, an’ then I have to give a couple o’ them loafers around there a quarter apiece to help. I’m late to-day, an’ if you ain’t got any money to ride–Giddap!”
But Lou halted him determinedly.
“If you’ll give me and Jim–I mean my brother–a ride, he’ll unload the crates for you for nothin’ when we git there. You’ll be savin’ fifty cents, and the ride won’t cost you nothin’.”
“Well”–the old man considered for a moment–“I’ll do it, if it’s only to spite them fellers that’s allus hangin’ ’round the docks. Reg’lar robbers, they be. Quarter apiece, an’ chicken-feed gone up the way’t is. Git in.”