"He's doing splendiferous. Only for him we wouldn't be here, so don't spurn the ladder by which we climb," cried Ivy.

"Well, he'd make a better ladder than anything else, he's so bony; besides that he'd rather stand still any day and let us climb him!"

"You ungrateful Mat! But, Oh, girls and boys, to sit and let the air blow upon us, and feast our eyes on the glorious sunrise and the lovely green fields and flowers! The air is like champagne I tasted once, kind of thin and clear and nippy and refreshing!"

"If I knew you were a boozer, Miss Bonner, nothing would have induced me to undertake the management of this nervous racer. If the air brings on an attack of the delirium tremenjous, how can I manage the two of you?"

"Just manage your own tongue, Mr. Lee, but that would be an impossibility," said Ivy.

"Talking of wine and things reminds me of Claude," said Laura. "I overtook him coming down street the other day and we walked together.

He stopped to peer in at the bars of the jail. 'I'd hate to be put in a stall like the poor drunkards.' (He called them Dunkards.) 'And I'm sure you never will, Claude,' said I. He threw back his shoulders and said, 'Well, I drank root-beer till I was six years old and then swore off and haven't drank a drop since!' I could have screeched!"

Hugh laughed heartily.

"The little scamp! He insisted on taking the pledge when I did last year! The temperance lecturer was here. He was a speaker, I can tell you! When he cried that ancient warning:

'Young men, Ahoy there!

'What is it?'

'The rapids are below you.'

I could see some of our old soaks shrinking in their seats; and when he wound up, 'Shrieking, howling, blaspheming, over they go,' it was simply immense! There was such a stampede for the platform that you'd think we were drowning, and scrambling for life-buoys. I knew from the way Mother spoke when I set out for the hall that she would like me to pledge myself. Someway I didn't see any use in it, but that lecturer made me see lots of things, so I up and followed old man Potter who hadn't drawn a sober breath ever since I could remember. Claude clung to my coat-tails. "I want a ribbon, too!" he screamed. The lecturer gave one look at the little shaver and the crowd roared as he pinned a badge on the boy's coat. Ah, here we are at the patch!"

Mat turned the horse into a lane leading to the left.

"Here's your bonnet, Alene," cried Laura. "Don't forget the buckets, boys!"

Mat tied Old Hurricane to the fence beneath a shady tree and they started for the nearest clump of bushes, each carrying a tin cup, which, when filled with berries, was to be emptied into one of the buckets placed at a convenient spot.

Alene gave a gasp of joy, when parting the branches she found an abundance of delicious fruit. Her first scratch, a tiny one on the back of her hand, was proudly exhibited to the others.

"How many have you eaten?" inquired Laura.

"Not a one!"

"Show your tongue, little girl," said Ivy in a doubting tone. "Why, you poor thing, you haven't tasted one! Look at mine," she opened her mouth.

"Poor Mrs. k.u.mp!" said Alene.

The others laughed.

"Oh, there will be plenty for her. Eat all you wish, Alene; Mat and Hugh are noted pickers, there's no fear of our taking home empty buckets," said Laura.

Alene's lips were soon in the same state as Ivy's. The air had given her a sharp appet.i.te, and when in the course of the morning, Laura found a package of sandwiches and tarts hidden under the seat of the surrey, she declared that nothing had ever tasted quite so good as the portion she disposed of, along with her tin of clear cold water from a neighboring well.

While enjoying luncheon her eyes wandered over the berry patch which sloped gently upward to the road. A great many children and a few men and women were scattered over the field, stripping the bushes.

Across the patch a barred gate led to fields of pasture, and some of the boys on the safe side of the fence were goading a great red bull into a state of frenzy.

As he tossed his head and bellowed, stamping and goring the ground, Alene was glad there was a strong fence between them. She thought she recognized among the mischievous lads one of the crowd they had pa.s.sed on the road in the early morning.

The girls brushed away the crumbs of the feast and went back to the bushes, while the boys returned the borrowed water bucket to its owner, who lived a short distance up the lane.

Alene was busy picking the ripe berries from an unusually heavy-laden branch, rejoicing to see her measure filling so rapidly, when she heard a terrified shriek.

She jumped to her feet, letting the cup fall from her grasp, and turned to find the other girls standing with horror-stricken faces, gazing across the patch. In a moment she knew what had happened. The wide, barred gate had become unfastened in some way, probably by one of the boys. It was standing wide open and the angry bull had come through and was seen tearing like a mad creature in the middle of the patch.

Everyone sought places of safety, the small children clinging to their elders with frightened cries, while one or two of the more courageous young men who tried to head the animal and turn him back to his pasture were compelled to fly, to escape injury.

The three girls stood for a moment as if paralyzed; then Laura grasped Ivy's arm.

"Quick, quick, to the fence! He's coming straight upon us!"

"It's my red dress," gasped Ivy.

Alene glanced round. She saw they were not far from the fence but that it would be necessary to skirt a row of thick-grown bushes in order to reach it. Could they do so in time?

In the meantime Mat and Hugh, returning leisurely along the lane, were startled into activity by the sight that met their view. Their gaze at once sought the place where they had left the girls. It was deserted; but not far away, Ivy's dress made a bright spot that immediately held their glance, and the bull apparently had singled it out for attack; his mad flight led straight in the path of the girls.

The boys, with one impulse, made a dash across the fence; with clenched hands and set teeth they stumbled onward; but alas, they were too far away to render any help!

CHAPTER XVIII

TO THE RESCUE

And then an unlooked-for actor appeared upon the scene; a boyish figure, supple and well built, sprang, as if miraculously, out of a dense clump of bushes, just beyond the terror-stricken girls.

With a ringing shout he darted straight in front of the infuriated brute, and flung his coat defiantly in its eyes. Angry and snorting, it tossed the coat aside and started after its tormentor.

The trembling girls, thus suddenly and unexpectedly rescued from their peril, found new anxiety for the safety of their brave deliverer.

With bated breath they watched him as, having succeeded in diverting the attention of the enemy, he half circled the field with the maddened creature in hot pursuit, so close at times that he felt its hot breath on his neck.

Always heading in one direction, toward the open gate of the pasture field, the boy led the race, and finally breathless and almost exhausted, he gained the goal.

Through the gate he ran and gave, as he cleared it, a sudden jump to one side, while the momentum of the bull carried it forward and beyond him. A moment later he stood in the friendly gra.s.s of the berry-patch, with the gate closed securely between him and the foe.

"It's Mark Griffin!" cried Ivy.

"Yes, I knew him at once," returned Alene.

The three girls clapped their hands joyfully, starting a round of applause. Soon from every part of the patch came cheers and shouts and whistling; a small boy, who perhaps was the cause of all the trouble, scrambled from a tree near the big gate with a whoop that would have startled an Indian brave. He ran across the field, picked up the coat from where it lay on the ground almost in ribbons, and returned it to its owner.

With a humorous glance at the crumpled and gra.s.s-stained object Mark flung it over his shoulder and, followed by the urchin and one or two other boys, started away from the field and was soon out of sight down the lane.

"He wouldn't wait a minute," explained Hugh apologetically, when he and Mat returned to the girls.