The little wiry man sank into the furthest corner and pulled out from his pocket a newspaper, which he tried to read. But Mrs.

Beaseley, beginning on the statement of what she had suffered waiting for Mr. Tisbett, and every minute since the journey was begun, Mr. Filbert never got more than ten lines down the first page.

At last, after picking up a little girl, and a boy who spent his time in thrusting out his head from the swinging vehicle to stare enviously up at Joel, the stage-coach rattled in fine fashion, bringing everybody to the doors and windows, into Strawberry Hill, and pulled up at the tavern. Here all the pa.s.sengers got down; Mrs. Beaseley insisting that she ought to pay but half price, considering all things, and with very black looks, when Mr. Tisbett coolly waited till every cent was in his palm. The little thin man skipped nimbly out of the coach, and, with a backward alarmed look at her, hurried to get into a wagon waiting a little distance off, in which Mr. Tisbett deposited the hair trunk.

"Say, how'd you get up there?" asked the boy, tumbling out of the coach to stare up at Joel. The small girl, who was going to spend Sunday at her grandmother's, got out with dignity, carrying her best clothes in a bundle. She stopped a minute to hear what Joel said.

"I stepped up," said Joel; "how'd you s'pose?"

"How'd he let you?" persisted the boy, pointing with a dingy thumb to the stage-driver. "He never let me."

'"Cause he did," said Joel, curtly, "that's the reason."

"Oh!" said the boy, and Mr. Tisbett coming back, he moved off.

But he still continued to watch.

"Now, says I, we'll hop down," cried Mr. Tisbett, which Joel proceeded to do in a trice, glad enough to stretch his legs.

"Here, David, give us your hand." And the stage-driver soon had little David on the ground. "Now, Bill and Jerry, it's your turn." And very soon Mr. Tisbett was busy in unbuckling straps and tackling, to release the big horses, Joel in a wild delight getting dreadfully in the way, and being, as he thought, an immense help. Little David stood off and watched the proceeding, longing to help too, but too timid to say so. The other boy rushed up. "Oh, let me help!" he cried, thrusting a tousled head in between the two busy with the harness.

The stage-driver shot him a keen look. "It will be time enough for you to help in this ere job, Jim," he said, "when I ask you."

So Jim slunk off, to stare at a distance again. And at last the horses were led off to the big barn to get their dinner of oats and hay, and then Mr. Tisbett drew Joel and David away.

But this was a hard task, for Joel hung over Bill and Jerry in delight, watching every mouthful. "Can't I climb up on his back and sit there while he eats?" he begged, pointing at Bill, while even little David much preferred the old barn with its sweet odor, and the big haymows, to any other place.

"No, you can't," said Mr. Tisbett, answering Joel. "And you ain't a-goin' to be in this barn. I can't leave you here alone.

Your Ma wouldn't like it. And besides, you've got to have somethin' to eat. I always get my dinner here. So come along; you're my company to-day, an' I told Mrs. Pepper not to put you up anything to eat."

Strangely enough, at the mention of dinner, Joel still clung to the hope of remaining with the horses. Seeing which, the stage-driver wasted no more words, but picked an end of his jacket in his fingers and bore him off. Once within the cosey little dining room, with the green paper shades flapping in the summer breeze, and seated at the table with the tavern-keeper's wife bustling around to lay on the hot dishes, Joel thought differently, and had a hard time to keep his tongue still. Little Davie watched everything silently, with wide-open blue eyes.

"I'm goin' to hev ham an' eggs," said Mr. Tisbett. "Fried on both sides, Mrs. Green, an' plenty of 'em."

"All right," said the tavern-keeper's wife, with a smile for the jolly stage-driver who always made it pleasant for them all when he took his dinner there once a week. "Now, what's these boys goin' to have?"

"As good a dinner as you've got in the house, Mrs. Green," said Mr. Tisbett, heartily; "these are the little Pepperses, and they live over to Badgertown, Marm." He said this with an air much as he might have announced, "This is the Lord Mayor of London," if he had been called upon to introduce that functionary.

"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Green, much impressed, "I'll do my best.

Well now, I've got boiled dinner an' a raspb'ry shortcake. Do you think they'd like that?" She appealed to the stage-driver.

"Yes sir-_ree_!" cried Joel, smacking his lips; "we don't have anything but potatoes and salt for our dinner. Oh, David!"

he seized little Davie's arm tightly, "raspberry shortcake, she said; that's what Polly was telling about she hoped we could have sometime."

XVII

THE FIGHT AT STRAWBERRY HILL

"Now, then," exclaimed Mr. Tisbett, when dinner was over, and the little Peppers declared they couldn't eat any more, "I'm a-goin'

to set out on th' porch a minute or two. I allers let Bill an'

Jerry rest a full hour," pulling out the big silver watch again.

"When I'm a man," cried Joel, leaning back in his chair, wishing he could eat some more raspberry shortcake, "I'm goin' to have a watch just like yours, Mr. Tisbett."

"I thought you were going to have horses just like Bill an'

Jerry," said Mr. Tisbett, in surprise.

"Oh, I am!" cried Joel, in alarm at being misunderstood; "exactly like Bill and Jerry."

"You ain't goin' to have horses an' a watch!" cried the stage-driver, keeping very sober. "You must choose between the two."

"Then I'll take the horses," decided Joel, quickly.

"You've got two, Mr. Tisbett," observed David, quietly.

"Eh? Oh, so I have!" cried Mr. Tisbett. "Well, p'r'aps we'll let Joe have 'em both, then; that is, if he's a good boy. Well, can't either on you eat any more? What a pity, an' Mrs. Green has such good things."

The tavern-keeper's wife cried out that some way her raspb'ry shortcake wasn't quite so light as what she had day before yest'day. "La, Mr. Tisbett!" she exclaimed, smoothing her ap.r.o.n delightedly, "if you'd only happened along then, 'twould 'a'

melted in your mouth."

"This suits me to a T," said Mr. Tisbett. "Now, Joel, if you and David will play round here real pretty, an' be good boys, I'll set on th' porch an' pa.s.s th' time o' day with the folks."

The little Peppers promising they would be as good as could be, Mr. Tisbett slouched off to the big arm-chair, where he always took his accustomed rest at Strawberry Hill while the horses were put up in the barn. Joel ran back to tell Mrs. Green, "I like you,--I do; you make awful nice things," and David echoed the same, as they both scampered out of the house.

"I declare, they're as pretty-behaved children's I ever see,"

confided the tavern-keeper's wife to the rest of the family who were at home, the tavern-keeper himself being away for the day.

"Poor things, although they were so hungry, an' they don't get much to eat at home, they didn't grab an' pick at things." And she made up her mind to put up a little bundle of her sugar cookies for them to eat on the way back.

"I wish we could have taken some of the raspberry shortcake home to Polly," mourned Davie, speaking out what had been running in his mind all through the dinner. "She's never tasted any."

"Well, we couldn't," said Joel, with a qualm of conscience because he hadn't thought of it before; "Mamsie's told us it isn't nice to speak of taking things home. Hurry up, Dave," as they raced on. "I know it," said little Davie. But he sighed, nevertheless.

"Now where'll we go?" asked Joel, leaning breathless against the big maple on the edge of the back dooryard.

"Mr. Tisbett said we were to play round here," said little Davie.

"Of course," a.s.sented Joel, in a superior way "Well, let's peek in th' barn the first thing."

"Oh, Joe, we mustn't go in!" exclaimed little David, holding him back. "Mr. Tisbett said we weren't to be in the barn."

"I know it," said Joel, twitching away. "I said peek, Dave. Mr.

Tisbett didn't say not to do that." So both boys got as far as they could on the threshold of the big sweet-smelling barn, without stepping over the sill, and craned their necks to get a sight of the two black horses.

"I can't see 'em! O dear me!" cried Joel, grumpily. "I wish there was a window we could climb up to."

"We can hear 'em eating," said little David, taking great satisfaction in that.