The horses were beginning to draw at the tugs when the boy heard a horse galloping on the road behind him. He looked back. One of the neighbor boys, Bill Symonds, was riding furiously down the hill. The boy turned quickly about in the seat as if he had not seen Bill and tried to hurry the horses. What did Bill want, anyway? It was like him to blunder along when he wasn’t wanted! His big, greasy face shaded by the long hair falling unkempt over his forehead had always made the boy dislike Bill. He tightened the reins.
“Hey, Frank, wait a minute!” Bill slid awkwardly from the colt’s back.
The boy twisted the reins about the levers and turned in the seat.
“How are you, Bill,” he answered without animation.
Bill tied the colt, a bay, to the willows.
“Well, what do you think of my new colt?” He came closer and lounged forward against the fence. “I broke him in myself—all alone, too! Now, that was a job, Lord! You ought t’ seen him buckin’ an’ standin’ on his hind legs!”
They were silent for a moment. Bill amused himself by flinging clods at the colt, which jumped wildly each time one struck him, his body quivering, his eyes white and distended.
After a few clods Bill turned to the boy.
“I guess maybe I’ll be leavin’ soon.”
The boy looked up quickly.