“Don’t—O dear!—Mamsie will feel—don’t, Peletiah,” he begged, plunging frantically after him.
David deserted his big fish, having sat down on the grass by its side, happy in the thought of taking it home to Mamsie, to run up and mingle his entreaties with those of Joel.
“I shall stay and catch a bigger fish than David’s,” announced Ezekiel, preparing to select another worm.
“I am going home,” declared Peletiah, stalking off. Instead of taking the wood-path, he turned into a meadow where a number of cows were grazing.
Joel, with no thought of the fish-pole he was leaving behind but only that he must prevent Peletiah from taking such a dreadful tale to the parsonage, plunged after him. And Davie, recklessly abandoning the big fish, followed in the greatest distress.
Peletiah kept swinging his fish-pole and stalked on.
Suddenly there was a great noise. It was just like a roar of wind—then a queer sound, and that was a bellow, and an old bull, that didn’t like anybody, least of all a boy, to come swinging things around in the field that belonged to him and to the cows, gave a snort and came charging down across the meadow.
Joel saw him first. “The bull—the bull!” he screamed.
Peletiah, quite lost to everything but the story he was carrying to the parsonage, kept on his dignified way, swinging his fish-pole triumphantly.
Joel took a long breath. By turning off he could run by a cross-cut and perhaps make the bull forget Peletiah. Then he swung his arms, and made an awful noise. The bull didn’t like this a bit better, for here were two impudent boys instead of one. So he stopped just a second, trying to decide which one to go for first, and Peletiah, turning, for once in his life was anything but slow in the way he made for the fence. This decided the bull, who now gave his whole attention to Joel, and the small boy pattering after.