“Now, see how quick you can go,” John Jr. continued, adding as an incentive to haste, that if Bill would get the pony stabled before old Cæsar, who had gone to Versailles, should return, he would give him ten cents.
Bill needed no other inducement than the promise of money, and without stopping to find his hat, he started off bare-headed, upon the run, returning in the course of an hour and claiming his reward, as Cæsar had not yet got home.
“All right,” said John Jr., tossing him the silver. “And now remember to keep your tongue between your teeth.”
Bill had kept too many secrets for his young master to think of tattling about something which to him seemed of no consequence whatever, and he walked off, eying his dime, and wishing he could earn one so easily every day.
Meantime John Jr. sought out ’Lena, to whom he said, “And so you are going to ride to-morrow morning?”
“How did you know ?” she asked, and John, looking very wise, replied, that “little girls should not ask too many questions,” adding, that as he supposed she would of course want Fleetfoot, he had ordered Bill to have her at the door early in the morning.
“Much obliged,” answered ’Lena. “I was about giving it up when I heard the pony was in the Grattan woods, for Cæsar is so cross I hated to ask him to go for her; but now I’ll say nothing to him about it.”
That night when Cæsar was eating his supper in the kitchen, his mistress suddenly appeared, asking, “if he had received any orders to go for Fleetfoot.”
The old negro, who was naturally cross, began to scowl, “No, miss, and Lord knows I don’t want to tote clar off to the Grattan woods to-night.”
“You needn’t, either, and if any one tells you to go don’t you do it,” returned Mrs. Livingstone.