"Get me out! Get me out!"
"Heave hard, Tunis! All together now!" gasped Cap'n Ira, as the younger man reached over the old woman's struggling heels and seized her around the waist.
"Up she comes!" continued the excited old man, as though he were bossing a capstan crew starting one of the Susan Gatskill's anchors.
Tunis Latham set Prudence Ball on her feet, but the old woman was forced to lean against the stalwart young man for a minute. She addressed her husband in some heat.
"Goodness gracious gallop! Why don't you sing a chantey over me, I want to know? You'd think I was a bale of jute being snaked out of a ship's hold. Good land!"
"There, there, Prudence!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira. "You're safe, after all! It—it was something awful!"
"I cal'late it was," rejoined the old woman rather bitterly. "And I didn't get them oats, after all."
"I'll 'tend to all that, Aunt Prue," said Tunis.
"If it hadn't been for that dratted Queen of Sheby"—Cap'n Ira glared malevolently at the rather surprised-looking countenance of the gray mare in her box—"you wouldn't have got into that jam."
"If it hadn't been for you taking that dose of snuff when I was expecting nothing of the kind, I wouldn't have dove into that feed box, Ira, and you know it very well."