{Illustration: BOBADAY'S NARROW ESCAPE.}
“You would have 'em,” said Bobaday, kicking the pile. “I didn't think they's good, anyhow.”
“They looked just like our little hickories,” said aunt Corinne, twisting her mouth at the acrid kernel, “that used to lay under that tree in the pasture. And their shells are as sound.”
But there was compensation in two saplings which submitted to be rode as teeters part of the idle afternoon.
Grandma Padgett had put away the tea things before Zene returned. He brought with him a wagon-maker from one of the villages on the 'pike. The wagon-maker, after examining the disabled vehicle, and getting the dimensions of the other hind wheel which Zene had forgotten to take to him, assured the party he would set them up all right in a day or two.
Grandma Padgett was sitting on a log knitting.
“We'd better have kept to the 'pike,” she remarked.
“Yes, marm,” responded Zene.
“The toll-gates would be a small expense compared to this.”
“Yes, indeed, marm,” responded Zene, grimacing piteously.