But Maggie had expected this and was prepared. "Jess! Sarah! Bell!" she cried, "come out here quick and settle this old donkey! He's gone balky again!"
There was a chorus of shrieks, a swish of skirts down the garden path, and reinforcements in the shape of three more young ladies emerged from the gate and fell upon the rebellious mail-carrier. They climbed into the shaking old buckboard and Maggie seized the reins and turned old Bella up the hill again.
"Now, we'll drive you clean back to Lakeview, if you don't speak up smart and say you'll take it!" she cried.
But Coonie did not mind. Mr. Basketful was by this time in the middle of the road, so he prolonged the encounter as long as possible.
"Go ahead," he said, settling himself comfortably in his seat; "you'll soon be at the Oa, if you keep on. I bet that's where Jessie wants to go to see what's the latest news from Don Neil."
"Yes, and you want to go up the hill and talk to 'Liza Cotton," retorted Jessie.
"That's it," laughed Maggie, pulling the old horse almost into the ditch, "you'd trot off with a bundle quick enough if she asked you."
Coonie roared. "Well, that's true. Haw! Haw! I'd start off that quick I'd never git stopped. Gosh! but ain't she the old scorpion!" he exclaimed with feeling, "Say, if her an' me was the only folks left in the world, I'd kill her an' live alone. See here, you scalawags, clear out an' leave that poor brute alone, an' I'll take your trash."
It was a surrender. The victorious quartette leaped from the buckboard and retired, with many admonitions for his guidance in his future dealings with them, warnings which Coonie pretended not to hear.
His shoulders sagged again as he slowly approached the post-office. He paused a few moments on the bridge, to gaze meditatively into the water, then he spent some time gesticulating to an imaginary person down at the mill-dam, and at last, slowly and with every appearance of insupportable weariness, dragged up to the post-office door.