"Oh, this ain't bad for a mountain road," the young farmer declared, calmly.

"Oh, oh!" squealed 'Phemie, the wheel on her side suddenly sinking into a deep rut, so that she slid to the extreme end of the board.

"Better ketch holt on me, Miss," advised Lucas, crooking the arm nearest 'Phemie. "You city folks ain't useter this kind of travelin', I can see."

But 'Phemie refused, unwilling to be "beholden" to him, and the very next moment the ponies clattered over a culvert, through which the brown flood of a mountain stream spurted in such volume that the pool below the road was both deep and angry-looking.

There was a washout gullied in the road here. Down went the wheel on 'Phemie's side, and with the lurch the young girl lost her insecure hold upon the plank.

With a screech she toppled over, plunging sideways from the wagon-seat, and as the hard-bitted ponies swept on 'Phemie dived into the foam-streaked pool!

CHAPTER VI

NEIGHBORS

Lucas Pritchett was not as slow as he seemed.

In one motion he drew in the plunging ponies to a dead stop, thrust the lines into Lyddy's hands, and vaulted over the wheel of the farm wagon.

"Hold 'em!" he commanded, pulling off the long, snuff-colored overcoat.

Flinging it behind him he tore down the bank and, in his high boots, waded right into the stream.

Poor 'Phemie was beyond her depth, although she rose "right side up" when she came to the surface. And when Lucas seized her she had sense enough not to struggle much.

"Oh, oh, oh!" she moaned. "The wa--water is s-so cold!"

"I bet ye it is!" agreed the young fellow, and gathering her right up into his arms, saturated as her clothing was, he bore her to the bank and clambered to where Lyddy was doing all she could to hold the restive ponies.

"Whoa, Spot and Daybright!" commanded the young farmer, soothing the ponies much quicker than he could his human burden. "Now, Miss, you're all right----"

"All r-r-right!" gasped 'Phemie, her teeth chattering like castanets.

"I--I'm anything _but_ right!"

"Oh, 'Phemie! you might have been drowned," cried her anxious sister.

"And now I'm likely to be frozen stiff right here in this road. Mrs.

Lot wasn't a circ.u.mstance to me. She only turned to salt, while I am be-be-coming a pillar of ice!"

But Lucas had set her firmly on her feet, and now he s.n.a.t.c.hed up the old overcoat which had so much amused 'Phemie, and wrapped it about her, covering her from neck to heel.

"In you go--sit 'twixt your sister and me this time," panted the young man. "We'll hustle home an' maw'll git you 'twixt blankets in a hurry."

"She'll get her death!" moaned Lyddy, holding the coat close about the wet girl.

"Look out! We'll travel some now," exclaimed Lucas, leaping in, and having seized the reins, he shook them over the backs of the ponies and shouted to them.

The remainder of that ride up the mountain was merely a nightmare for the girls. Lucas allowed the ponies to lose no time, despite the load they drew. But haste was imperative.

A ducking in an icy mountain brook at this time of the year might easily be fraught with serious consequences. Although it was drawing toward noon and the sun was now shining, there was no great amount of warmth in the air. Lucas must have felt the keen wind himself, for he was wet, too; but he neither shivered nor complained.

Luckily they were well up the mountainside when the accident occurred. The ponies flew around a bend where a grove of trees had shut off the view, and there lay the Pritchett house and outbuildings, fresh in their coat of whitewash.

"Maw and Sairy'll see to ye now," cried Lucas, as he neatly clipped the gatepost with one hub and brought the lathered ponies to an abrupt stop in the yard beside the porch.

"Hi, Maw!" he added, as a very stout woman appeared in the doorway--quite filling the opening, in fact. "Hi, Maw! Here's Mis' Hammon's nieces--an'

one of 'em's been in Pounder's Brook!"

"For the land's sake!" gasped the farmer's wife, pulling a pair of steel-bowed spectacles down from her brows that she might peer through them at the Bray girls. "Ain't it a mite airly for sech didoes as them?"

"Why, Maw!" sputtered Lucas, growing red again. "She didn't _go_ for to do it--no, ma'am!"

"Wa-al! I didn't know. City folks is funny. But come in--do! Mis' Hammon's nieces, d'ye say? Then you must be John Horrocks Bray's gals--ain't ye?"

"We are," said Lyddy, who had quickly climbed out over the wheel and now eased down the clumsy bundle which was her sister. "Can you stand, 'Phemie?"

"Ye-es," chattered her sister.

"I hope you can take us in for a little while, Mrs. Pritchett," went on the older girl. "We are going up to Hillcrest to live."

"Take ye in? Sure! An' 'twon't be the first city folks we've harbored,"

declared the lady, chuckling comfortably. "They're beginnin' to come as thick as spatters in summer to Bridleburg, an' some of 'em git clear up this way---- For the land's sake! that gal's as wet as sop."

"It--it was wet water I tumbled into," stuttered 'Phemie.

Mrs. Pritchett ushered them into the big, warm kitchen, where the table was already set for dinner. A young woman--not so _very_ young, either--as lank and lean as Lucas himself, was busy at the stove. She turned to stare at the visitors with near-sighted eyes.

"This is my darter, Sairy," said "Maw" Pritchett. "She taught school two terms to Pounder's school; but it was bad for her eyes. I tell her to git specs; but she 'lows she's too young for sech things."

"The oculists advise gla.s.ses nowadays for very young persons," observed Lyddy politely, as Sairy Pritchett bobbed her head at them in greeting.

"So I tell her," declared the farmer's wife. "But she won't listen to reason. Ye know how young gals air!"

This a.s.sumption of Sairy's extreme youth, and that Lyddy would understand her foibles because she was so much older, amused the latter immensely.

Sairy was about thirty-five.

Meanwhile Mrs. Pritchett bustled about with remarkable spryness to make 'Phemie comfortable. There was a warm bedroom right off the kitchen--for this was an old-fashioned New England farmhouse--and in this the younger Bray girl took off her wet clothing. Lyddy brought in their bag and 'Phemie managed to make herself dry and tidy--all but her great plaits of hair--in a very short time.

She would not listen to Mrs. Pritchett's advice that she go to bed. But she swallowed a bowl of hot tea and then declared herself "as good as new."

The Bray girls had now to tell Mrs. Pritchett and her daughter their reason for coming to Hillcrest, and what they hoped to do there.

"For the land's sake!" gasped the farmer's wife. "I dunno what Cyrus'll say to this."

It struck Lyddy that they all seemed to be somewhat in fear of what Mr.