Mr. Borland looked keenly, but in vain, for any trace of merriment on the half-hidden face. "I drove the butcher boy's horse once or twice, too. And I managed all right, except when it backed up—I hate to drive them when they're backing up," the boy added seriously, with the air of an experienced horseman.
Mr. Borland laughed. "That's jest where it comes in," he said; "any one can drive anything when it's goin' ahead—it's when things is goin' back that tries your mettle. I'll see what I can do. Some of our horses drives frontwards—horses is pretty evenly divided between the kind that goes frontwards and them that won't," he mused aloud as he walked away. "I've struck a heap of the last kind—they backed up pretty hard when I was your age," Harvey could just overhear as he plucked the dead vines from another mound and outthrew its lurking treasures.
IV
THE RICHES OF THE POOR
The retreating figure had no sooner gained the house in the distance than Harvey began to cast glances, eager and expectant, towards the road that skirted the outer edge of the field in which he was working. Once or twice he straightened up, wincing a little with the ache that long stooping brings, and peered intently towards the top of a distant hill beyond which he could not see. Suddenly his eye brightened, and a muffled exclamation of pleasure broke from his lips, for the vision he longed for had appeared. Yet it was commonplace enough—only a coloured sunbonnet, some four or five feet from the ground, and swaying a little uncertainly in the noontide light. But it was moving nearer, ever nearer, to the waiting boy, who knew the love that lent strength to the little feet and girded the tiny hands which bore something for himself.
The girlish form was now well beyond the curving hill, trudging bravely on; and Harvey saw, or thought he saw, the happy smile upon the eager face, the pace quickening as she caught sight of her brother in the distance. Harvey's eyes filled with tenderness as he gazed upon the approaching child; for the poor, if they love and are loved again, know more of life's real wealth than the deluded rich.
A few minutes more and she was at the bars, panting but radiant. Harvey ran to lay them down, taking the bundles from her hands. "Oh, but my arms ache so," the girl said, as she sank upon the grass; "it must be lovely to have a horse."
"Some day we will," her brother returned abruptly. "You just wait and see—and then you won't ever walk anywhere. But you oughtn't to carry these all this way, Jessie; I could bring it in my pocket just as well."
The girl's face clouded a little. "But then it gets so cold, Harvey—and what's in there ought to be nice and warm," she said hopefully, nodding towards the pail. "Mother heated the can just when we put it in, and I came as fast as ever I could, so it wouldn't cool—and I held it in the hot sun all the time," she concluded triumphantly, proud of her ingenuity.
"That's lovely, Jessie," replied the boy; "and you're quite right," he went on, noticing the flitting sign of disappointment. "I just hate cold things—and I just love them hot," he affirmed as he removed the lid.