Judge, then, of his feelings, when one Sunday in September, Master Fandy whispered to him, rather loudly, while coming out of church, "There she is" (pointing to a pretty little tot of seven summers)—"that's the very girl who said it!"
Ben stared at her, speechless with disgust.
"I might have known," he thought, "that the little goose would call a baby like that, a girl!"
So much for Ben's private feelings. Concerning the race, the six—among themselves—enjoyed exceedingly the unexpected recoil of their little joke. I say six, for in this matter Ed Tyler was unanimously suspected by the others of being on the fence. They never could tell whether he was laughing at them or with them. Donald was sure that it was the very best thing he ever heard of in his life. Outcalt protested he wouldn't have missed it for the world; and Ben Buster, laughing rather ruefully, declared that he never knew the "beat of it" but once; and that was one day when he had slipped into Jones's cider-yard and taken a good, long drink, through a straw, from a barrel marked "sweet cider," as he thought. "I tell you, fellows," was Ben's concluding remark, "if I wasn't sold that time, I'll give in. I was so warm and thirsty that I took a good, long pull before I found out that it wasn't cider at all, but vinegar, sour enough to take a man's head off. What made it worse was, the barrel was marked 'sweet-cider vinegar,' after all. It's a blamed shame the way a fellow gets caught sometimes!"
CHAPTER XXIII.
YANKEE AND DOODLE.
Donald and Dorothy exchanged but four words on the subject of the sham race after it was over, but these were very expressive:
Donald."Well, madam!"
Dorothy."Well, sir!"