"Oh, of course! I never can do anything right!"
"Were you in the wagon when they ran away?"
"No, I wasn't," replied Tom, sulkily, "and lucky for me I wasn't."
"I dare say you left them standing without being tied at all," said Jeduthun, "or else you left them alone when the train came along."
It turned out that this was really the case. Tom had left the team standing unfastened at the door of the sawmill in Shortsville, while he gossipped, or, as Jeduthun said, "loafed," about the train, notwithstanding he had been warned against that very thing. The engine whistled sharply "down brakes;" the horses started, and there being no one to check them they ran directly into the stream, and but for the most energetic assistance would have been drowned. As it was, they were both hurt, and one of them so badly that it died during the night. It was a valuable animal, and Mr. Antis was naturally indignant, especially as Tom showed no sort of regret or repentance.
"Well, I've got my walking-paper," said Tom, coming into the garden where Eben was picking cucumbers for pickling, "and I ain't sorry, either. I expect father will scold, but he may as well scold about that as anything else."
"Got your walking-paper?" repeated Eben, looking up. "You don't mean that Mr. Antis has discharged you, do you? Take care I don't step on the cucumber vines."
"Bother your cucumber vines!" said Tom. "Yes, I am discharged, and I wish I had discharged him first. That's all I care about it. I never did like the mill, anyhow, and I'm glad to be out of it. Now, you see if I don't get a place in Hobartown."
"But what was it about? The horses, I suppose?"
"Yes, of course. Mr. Antis has been over to Shortsville, and they told him that it was all my fault, and a lot more about my racing horses on the road. I don't care; I couldn't help their running into the creek."