Crowded Out o Crofield | Page 4

about."
There were wheel-marks down from the street, at the left of the bridge,
where many a team had descended to drink the water of the
Cocahutchie, but it required all Jack's strength on one rein to make his
runaways take that direction. They had thought of going toward the
mill, but they knew the watering-place.
Not many rods below the bridge stood a clump of half a dozen gigantic

trees, remnants of the old forest which had been replaced by the streets
of Crofield and the farms around it. Jack's pull on the left rein was
obeyed only too well, and it looked, for some seconds, as if the
plunging beasts were about to wind up their maddened dash by a wreck
among those gnarled trunks and projecting roots. Jack drew his breath
hard, and there was almost a chill at his young heart, but he held hard
and said nothing.
Forward--one plunge more--hard on the right rein--
"That was close!" he said. "If we didn't go right between the big maple
and the cherry! Now I've got 'em!"
Splash, crash, rattle! Spattering and plunging, but cooling fast, the gray
team galloped along the shallow bed of the Cocahutchie.
"I wish the old swimming-hole was deeper," said Jack, "but the water's
very low. Whoa, boys! Whoa, there! Almost up to the hub--over the
hub! Whoa, now!"
And the gray team ceased its plunging and stood still in water three feet
deep.
"I mustn't let 'em drink too much," said Jack; "but a little won't hurt
'em."
The horses were trembling all over, but one after the other they put
their noses into the water, and then raised their heads to prick their ears
back and forth and look round.
"Don't bring 'em ashore till they're quiet, Jack," called out the deep,
ringing voice of his father from the bank.
There he stood, and other men were coming on the run. The tall
blacksmith's black eyes were flashing with pride over the daring feat
his son had performed.
"I daren't tell him, though," he said to himself. "He's set up enough

a'ready. He thinks he can do 'most anything."
"Jack," wheezed a mealy voice at his side, "that's my team--"
"I know it," said Jack. "They 're all right now. Pretty close shave
through the trees, that was!"
"I owe ye fifty dollars for a-savin' them and the wagin," said the miller.
"It's wuth it, and I'll pay it; but I've got to owe it to ye, jest now. Times
are awful hard in Crofield. If I'd ha' lost them hosses and that wagin--"
He stopped short, as if he could not exactly say how disastrous it would
have been for him.
There was a running fire of praise and of questions poured at Jack, by
the gathering knot of people on the shore, and it was several minutes
before his father spoke again.
"They're cool now," he said. "Turn 'em, Jack, and walk 'em out by the
bridge, and up to the mill. Then come home to dinner."
Jack pretended not to see quite a different kind of group gathered under
the clump of tall trees. Not a voice had come to him from that group of
lookers-on, and yet the fact that they were there made him tingle all
over.
Two large, freckle-faced, sandy-haired women were hugging each
other, and wiping their eyes; and a very small girl was tugging at their
dresses and crying, while a pair of girls of from twelve to fourteen,
close by them, seemed very much inclined to dance. Two small boys,
who at first belonged to the party, had quickly rolled up their trousers
and waded out as far as they could into the Cocahutchie. Just in front of
the group, under the trees, stood Mary Ogden, straight as an arrow, her
dark eyes flashing and her cheeks glowing while she looked silently at
the boy on the wagon in the stream, until she saw him wheel the grays.
Even then she did not say anything, but turned and walked away. It was
as if she had so much to say that she felt she could not say it.

"Aunt Melinda! Mother!" said one of the girls, "Jack isn't hurt a mite.
They'd all ha' been drowned, though, if there was water enough."
"Hush, Bessie," said one of the large women, and the other at once
echoed, "Hush, Bessie."
They were very nearly alike, these women, and they both had long
straight noses, such as Jack's would have been, if half-way down it had
not been Roman, like his father's.
"Mary Ann," said the first woman, "we mustn't say too much to him
about it. He can only just be held in, now."
"Hush, Melinda," said Jack's mother. "I thought I'd seen the last of