He sat down to consider. His situation was certainly an embarrassing one. Of course he could not go home in his shirt, and the only alternative was to wear the odious gown. It was hard to make up his mind to that. He preferred to wait awhile to see if help would not come from some quarter. Sam began to get tired in his perch.
"Why don't the fellow dress and go home?" he muttered.
At length Ben made up his mind that it must be done, and, with a hearty anathema on the author of his perplexity, robed himself in the dress. Sam nearly exploded with laughter as he saw Ben arrayed in the gown, which fell lank around him. Ben gazed ruefully at his extraordinary figure, and then at the hoop-skirt. He concluded that he would not look quite so badly with that addition. He therefore fitted it on as well as he could, and adjusted his dress by the help of some pins which he found sticking in the dress.
"I wish I had a hood or something to hide my face," muttered Ben, dismally. "I might pass for a girl then. Now folks will stare at me as if I was mad, and if any one sees me I shall never hear the last of it."
Certainly Ben's black felt hat did not look much in keeping with the faded calico dress, now properly filled out by the hoop-skirt, which swayed from side to side as he walked.
"Oh, it's too rich!" thought Sam, almost choking with suppressed laughter. "What a sensation he will make in the village!"
Just then Ben's foot got caught somehow, and he fell sprawling. He gathered himself up with furious energy, and did not observe that there was a conspicuous stain of mud on his dress. He took a roundabout way, so as to remain under cover of the woods as long as he could.
