Crowded Out o Crofield | Page 5

him
when the gray critters came a-powderin' down the road past the
house"--and then she wiped her eyes again, and so did Aunt Melinda,
and they both stooped down at the same moment, saying, "Jack's safe,
Sally," and picked up the small girl, who was crying, and kissed her.
The gray team was surrendered to its owner as soon as it reached the
road at the foot of the bridge, and again Jack was loudly praised by the
miller. The rest of the Ogden family seemed to be disposed to keep
away, but the tall blacksmith himself was there.
"Jack," said he, as they turned away homeward, "you can go fishing
this afternoon, just as I said. I was thinking of your doing something
else afterward, but you've done about enough for one day."
He had more to say, concerning what would have happened to the
miller's horses, and the number of pieces the wagon would have been
knocked into, but for the manner in which the whole team had been
saved.
When they reached the house the front door was open, but nobody was
to be seen. Bob and Jim, the two small boys, had not yet returned from
seeing the gray span taken to the mill, and the women and girls had
gone through to the kitchen.

"Jack," said his father, as they went in, "old Hammond'll owe you that
fifty dollars long enough. He never really pays anything."
"Course he doesn't--not if he can help it," said Jack. "I worked for him
three months, and you know we had to take it out in feed. I learned the
mill trade, though, and that was something."
Just then he was suddenly embarrassed. Mrs. Ogden had gone through
the house and out at the back door, and Aunt Melinda had followed her,
and so had the girls. Molly had suddenly gone up-stairs to her own
room. Aunt Melinda had taken everything off the kitchen stove and put
everything back again, and here now was Mrs. Ogden back again,
hugging her son.
"Jack," she said, "don't you ever, ever, do such a thing again. You
might ha' been knocked into slivers!"
Molly had gone up the back stairs only to come down the front way,
and she was now a little behind them.
"Mother!" she exclaimed, as if her pent-up admiration for her brother
was exploding, "you ought to have seen him jump in, and you ought to
have seen that wagon go around the corner!"
"Jack," broke in the half-choked voice of Aunt Melinda from the
kitchen doorway, "come and eat something. I felt as if I knew you were
killed, sure. If you haven't earned your dinner, nobody has."
"Why, I know how to drive," said Jack. "I wasn't afraid of 'em after I
got hold of the reins."
He seemed even in a hurry to get through his dinner, and some minutes
later he was out in the garden, digging for bait. The rest of the family
remained at the table longer than usual, especially Bob and Jim; but, for
some reason known to herself, Mary did not say a word about her
meeting with Miss Glidden. Perhaps the miller's gray team had run
away with all her interest in that, but she did not even tell how carefully
Miss Glidden had inquired after the family.

"There goes Jack," she said at last, and they all turned to look.
He did not say anything as he passed the kitchen door, but he had his
long cane fishing-pole over his shoulder. It had a line wound around it,
ready for use. He went out of the gate and down the road toward the
bridge, and gave only a glance across at the shop.
"I didn't get many worms," he said to himself, at the bridge, "but I can
dig some more if the fish bite. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they
don't."
Over the bridge he went, and up a wagon track on the opposite bank,
but he paused for one moment, in the very middle of the bridge, to look
up stream.
"There's just enough water to run the mill," he said. "There isn't any
coming over the dam. The pond's even full, though, and it may be a
good day for fish. I wish I was in the city!"
CHAPTER II.
THE FISH WERE THERE.
Saturday afternoon was before Jack Ogden, when he came out at the
water's edge, near the dam, across from the mill. That was there, big
and red and rusty-looking; and the dam was there; and above them was
the mill-pond, spreading out over a number of acres, and ornamented
with stumps, old logs, pond-lilies, and weeds. It was a fairly good pond,
the best that Cocahutchie Creek could do for Crofield, but Jack's