When they got back again to the top of the hill, Tommy’s father wanted to know if they had had enough, but Tommy told him he never could have enough. So they coasted down again and again, until at length his father thought they had better be going home, and Johnny said he had to go home, too, “to help his mother.”
“How do you help?” asked Tommy’s father, as they started off.
“Oh, just little ways,” said Johnny. “I get wood—and split it up—and go to Mr. Bucket’s and get her things for her—draw water and feed the cow, when we had a cow—we ain’t got a cow now since our cow died—and—oh—just a few little things like that.”
Tommy’s father made no reply, and Tommy, himself, was divided between wonder that Johnny could call all that work “just a few little things,” and shame that he should say, “ain’t got,” which he, himself, had been told he must never say.
His father, however, presently asked, “Who is Mr. Bucket?”
“Don’t you know Mr. Bucket?” said Johnny. “He keeps that grocery on Hill Street. He gave me the box I made this old thing out of.”
“Oh,” said Tommy’s father, and turned and looked the sled over again.
“What was the matter with your cow?” asked Tommy.
“Broke her leg—right here,” and Johnny pulled up his trousers and showed just where the leg was broken below the knee. “The doctor said she must be killed, and so she was; but Mr. Bucket said he could have saved her if the ’Siety would’ve let him. He’d ’a just swung her up until she got well.”