The way on’t wuz: It bein’ early when Ardelia got here, Bial proposed to take her out for a drive and she consented. He got a livery horse, and buggy, and they say that the livery man knew jest what sort of a creeter the horse wuz, and knew it wuz liable to break the buggy all to pieces and them to, and he let ’em have it for goin.’ But howsumever, whether that is so or not, when they got about five or six milds from Saratoga the horse skeert out of the road, and throwed ’em both out.
It wuz a bank of sand that skeert it, a high bank that wuz piled up by a little hovel that stood by the side of the road. The ground all round the hut wuz too poor to raise anything else but sand, and had raised sights of that.
A man and woman, dretful shabby lookin’, wuz a standin’ by the door of the hut, and the man had a shovel in his hand, and had been a loadin’ sand into a awful big wheelbarrow that wuz a standin’ by—seemin’ly ready to carry it acrost the fields, to where some man wuz a mixin’ some motar, to lay the foundations of a barn.
Wall, the old man stood a pantin’ by the side of the wheelbarrow, as if he had indeed got on too heavy a load. It wuz piled up high. The horse shied, and Ardelia wuz throwed right out onto the bank of sand, Bial by the side of her. And the old man and woman came a runnin’ up, and callin’ out, “Bial, my son, my son, are you wounded?”
And there it all wuz. Ardelia see the hull on it. The Banker wuz before her, and she wuz a layin’ on the bank. And the banker wuz a doin’ a heavy business, if anybody doubted it, let ’em take holt and cart a load on it acrost the fields.
Wall, Ardelia wuz jarred fearful, in her heart, her ambition, her pride, and her bones. And as the horse wuz a fleein’ far away, and no other conveyance could be found to transport her to the next house (Ardelia wouldn’t go into his’n), and night wuz approachin’ with rapid strides, the old Banker jest unloaded the load of sand (good old creeter, he would have to load it all over agin), and took Ardelia into the wheelbarrow, and wheeled her over to the next house and unloaded her.
The old Banker told Ardelia that when his neighbor got home he would take her back to Saratoga, which he did. He had been to the village for necessaries, but he turned right round and carried her back to Mr. Pixleyses. And I s’pose Ardelia paid him, mebby as high as 75 cents. As for Bial, he tramped off into the house, and she didn’t see him agin, nor didn’t want to. Wall, I s’pose it wuz durin’ that ride on the wheelbarrow, that Ardelia’s ambition quelled to softer emotions. I s’pose so. She never owned it right up to me, but I s’pose so.
Bial Flamburg hadn’t lied a word to her. In all her agony she realized that. But she had built a high towerin’ structure of ambition on what he said, and it had tottered. And as is natural in times of danger, the heart turns instinctively to its true love, she thought of Abram Gee, she wanted him. And as if in answer to her deep and lovin’ thought, who should come out to the buggy to help her out at Mr. Pixleyses gate, but Abram Gee? He had come unexpected, and on the eight o’clock train, and wuz there waitin’ for her.