"Told you it was too heavy for you," he muttered.
"It's as light as a feather, mother," called John Henry.
He ran around to the wood-shed and got a little wheelbarrow and loaded the potato-sack into that.
"There! you can carry it easier this way," he said; and Jim Mills trundled off, without any thanks save an acquiescent grunt. Jim Mills had so few favors shown him that sometimes they seemed to awaken within him an indignant surprise, instead of gratitude.
John Henry was so abstracted during dinner that his mother feared he was ill, and wished him to take some tincture of rhubarb. After dinner he went out in the barn, and curled himself up in the hay-mow to think. During the next two days he seemed to be in a brown study. Monday, the day before Christmas, Jim Mills brought the wheelbarrow home, and John Henry beckoned him into the barn.
"Look here, Jim; you'd better go to that tree to-morrow night."
"What for, I'd like to know?"
"Oh, 'cause you'd better."
"Why had I better? I ain't going to tramp half a mile to that old school-house to get a candy-bag and an orange and a girl's book."
"Say, Jim, you go."