"Jedediah Rittenhouse Pullman. I live down there in that yellow brick house behind the maple-trees."
"You don't say! Why, if you'd ha' let your name drag after you, the back end of it wouldn't but just be coming out of the front gate now. Can you drive cows?"
"That's what I have to do every night and morning. 'Tain't everybody can drive our brindled heifer neither."
Jed was thinking again. He had made up his mind that the stranger was a head taller than Grandfather Pullman—in fact, that he was taller than any other man in the world, except old Mr. Myer, the maple-sugar man, and he had to stoop to get into his own house.
"You don't say! Well, I'm down here alone, and I've got a loaded team to drive, and I've bought a cow, and I want a smart boy to drive her home for me."
"How far is it?"
"Only to Topham. Little more'n twelve mile. I'll send ye home by somebody. Pay ye well, too. Will you go?"
Jed hesitated a moment, but it was only because he seemed to be listening to a great rattle of fire-crackers to come—a cow-load of them.
"Course I'll go, if mother'll let me."
"We'll see her about it right away. You're just the boy I want. Give you four shillings."