"You kin make your first stop right there, at old Gillis's harness-shop. I want to look at some o' them things in his front winder."
Something or other must have winked at Vosh; for he was out of that cutter, and had his colt hitched in front of Gillis's, in about half his usual time.
"Lavawjer," she said to him as she paused on the sidewalk, "don't you ever buy a thing just for show. You mustn't ever let your vanity get the best of you."
Two minutes later she was holding in her right hand a very useful string of sleigh-bells, and saying to him,—
"Now, Lavawjer, if you're ever drivin' along after dark, you won't be run into. Anybody'll know you're there, by the jingle. I'll kinder feel safer about ye."
Vosh thought he had not often seen less vanity in any thing than there was in those bells, and he was thinking of going right out to put them on the sorrel, when his mother exclaimed,—
"There! that's what I've been a-lookin' for,—that there red hoss-blanket, with the blue border and the fringe. Jest tell me what the price of it is."
It was only a very little, the best blanket in the shop; and she said to her son,—
"I don't know but it's kinder showy. You can't exactly help that. But it won't do for you to let that colt of yourn git warm, drivin' him sharp, and then let him catch cold when you hitch him. You must take keer of him, and see't he has his blanket on. You'll find it mighty useful."
"Guess I will!" said Vosh, with a queer feeling that he ought to say something grateful, and didn't know how. He was thinking about it, when his mother said to him,—