“Ah, ha!” said I, “now I see why Mrs. Temple was so anxious to come to-night!”
“Stuff!” said that amiable woman.
The girl was looking into the ashes on the hearth. “Sleigh rides!” she said. “I suppose you all go jingling about the lovely country in sleighs all winter! Do you know, I never had a sleigh ride in my life?”
“No!” cried Bert. “Don’t seem possible. Speakin’ o’ sleighs, did I ever tell you about old Deacon Temple, my great uncle? He used ter hev a story he sprung on anybody who’d listen. Cricky, how he did welcome a stranger ter town! ’Cordin’ ter this story, he wuz once drivin’ along on a fine crust, when his old hoss run away, an’ run, an’ run, an’ finally upset the sleigh over a wall into a hayfield whar they was mowin’, an’ he fell in a haycock an’ didn’t hurt himself at all. Then the stranger would say: ’But how could they be mowin’ in Massachusetts in sleighin’ time?’ and the Deacon would answer: ’They wa’n’t. The old mare run so far she run into Rhode Island.’”
Mrs. Temple rose. “Bert, you come home,” she said, “before you think of any more o’ them old ones.”
“Oh, jest the woodchuck,” Bert pleaded.
Miss Stella and I insisted on the woodchuck, so Bert sank back luxuriously, and narrated the tale. It had happened, it seems, to his grandfather and this same brother, the Deacon, when they were boys. “The old place wuz down by the river,” said Bert, “an’ there was a pesky ’chuck they couldn’t shoot ner trap, he wuz so smart, who hed a burrow near the bank. So one day grandad seen him go in, an’ he called the Deacon, an’ the two of ’em sot out ter drown the critter. They lugged water in pails, takin’ turns watchin’ and luggin’, for two hours, dumpin’ it into the hole till she was nigh full up. Then they got too tuckered ter tote any more, an’ sat down behind a bush ter rest. Pretty soon they seen the old woodchuck’s head poke up. He looked around, careful like, but didn’t see the boys behind the bush, so he come all the way out and what do you think he done?”
“Tell us!” cried Miss Stella, leaning forward, her eyes twinkling.
“He went down ter the river an’ took a drink,” said Bert.
“Won’t you copy the wisdom of the woodchuck?” I asked, when the laugh had subsided.