“And the p’ram-bilator?” Leigh asked. “When is it coming, mamma? and is it a very nice one? Does it go smoothly? and has it good springs?”
“I think it’s a very nice one,” mamma replied. She was pleased to see Leigh so interested about his little sister’s carriage. “But it won’t be here for some days—a week or so—as they have to change the linings.”
“Oh,” said Leigh to himself in a low voice, “all the better! I’ll have time to break him in a little.”
The next day, and every day after that for some time, Leigh was very busy indeed. He begged nurse to let him off going regular walks once or twice, because he had something he was making in the shed, where he and Artie were allowed to do their carpentering and all the rather messy work boys are so fond of, which it does not do to bring into the house. He was not “after any mischief” he told nurse, and she quite believed it, for he was a very truthful boy; but he said it was a secret he did not want to tell till he had got it all ready.
So nurse let him have his way, only she would not allow Artie to miss his walk too, for she did not think it safe to leave him alone with Leigh, with all his “hammering and nailing and pincering” going on. And I think nurse was right.
I wonder if you can guess what was Leigh’s “secret”—what it was he was so busy about? He did not tell either Artie or Mary; he wanted to “surprise” them.
The truth was, he was making harness for Fuzzy and trying to teach him to be driven. He had begun the teaching already by fastening the reins to an arrangement of strong cord round the dog’s body, and he was also making better harness with some old straps he had coaxed out of the coachman. He really managed it very cleverly.
It took him two or three days to get it finished, and in the meantime he “practised” with the cord. Poor Fuzzy! He was a big strong dog by this time, but still only a puppy. I am sure he must have wondered very much what all the tying up and pulling and tugging and “who-ho”-ing and “gee-up”-ing meant; but he was very good-tempered. I suppose he settled in his own mind that it was a new kind of play; and, on the whole—once he was allowed to start off running, with Leigh holding the reins behind him, trying to imagine he was driving Fuzzy, while it was really Fuzzy pulling him—he did not behave badly, though Leigh found “breaking him in” harder work than he had expected.
By the fourth day the “proper harness,” as Leigh called it, was ready. He had got the coachman’s wife, who was very fond of the children and very clever with her fingers, to stitch some of the straps which he could not manage to fasten neatly with boring holes and passing twine through, though that did for part. And as the coachman did not see that this new fancy could do any harm, he was rather interested in it too. So when it was all complete, and Fuzzy was fitted into his new attire, or it was fitted on to him, perhaps I should say, Mr and Mrs Mellor, and the grooms, and two or three of the under-gardeners all stood round admiring, while Leigh started off in grand style, driving his queer steed.
“If you had but a little cart now, Master Leigh,” said one of the boys; “it’d be quite a turn-out.”