“How far is it to my father's?” the poor boy then asked.
“Well, about ninety dollars, with the yoke,” said the farmer. “Whoa, back!”
At this Andy felt so vexed, and weary, and bewildered, that he could not help sobbing aloud.
“What!” said the farmer, angrily; “making fun of me?” And he drew up his whip to strike.
“O, I wasn't making fun!” said Andy, frightened.
“You stopped me, and asked how much corn I feed my oxen; and I told you. Then where I feed them; and I told you that. Then their names; and I said, Star and Stripe. Then what I would sell them for; and I gave a civil answer. And now you're laughing at me!” said the farmer, raising his whip again.
Then Andy perceived that, whenever he said anything, he seemed to say something else, and that his weeping appeared to be laughter, and that, if he stayed there a moment longer, he would surely get a whipping. So he started to run, with the owner of the oxen shouting at his heels.
“There! take that for being saucy to an old man!” cried the farmer, fetching him a couple of sharp cuts across the back. Then he returned to his oxen, and drove them away; while Andy got off from the fallow as soon as he could, weeping as if his heart would break.
Seeing not far off a beautiful field of clover, the boy thought he would go and lie down in it, and rest.
He had never seen such clover in his life. It was all in bloom with blue and red and white flowers, which seemed to glow and sparkle like stars among the green leaves. How it waved and rippled and flashed in the sunshine, when the wind blew! Andy almost forgot his grief; and surely he had quite forgotten that nothing was now any longer what it appeared, when he waded knee-deep through the delicious clover, and laid himself down in it. No sooner had he done so than he saw that what he had mistaken for a field was a large pond, and he had plunged into it all over like a duck.