Jimmy, Lucy, and All | Page 3

girls!"
The ride was a long one, forty miles at least. The passengers had dinner
at a little inn, the elegant horses were placed in a stable; and the tallyho
started again at one o'clock with a black horse, a sorrel horse, and two
gray ones.
The afternoon wore on. The horses climbed upward at every step; and
though the journey was delightful, the passengers were growing rather
tired.
"Wish I could sit on the seat with the king-ductor," besought little Eddo,
moving about uneasily.
"That isn't a conductor, it's a driver. Conductors are the men that go on

the steam-cars,--the 'choo choo cars,'" explained Jimmum. Then in a
lower tone, "They don't have any cars up at Castle Cliff, and I'm glad of
it."
Lucy did not understand why he should be glad, and Jimmy added in a
lower tone:--
"Because--don't you remember how some little folks used to act about
steam-engines? They might do it again, you know."
"Yes, I 'member now. But that was a long time ago, Jimmy. He
wouldn't run after engines now."
"Who wouldn't?" inquired young Master Eddo, forgetting the
"king-ductor" and turning about to face his elder brother. "Who
wouldn't run after the engine, Jimmum?"
"Nobody--I mean you wouldn't."
"No, no, not me," assented Eddo, shaking his flaxen head.
And there the matter would have ended, if Lucy had not added most
unluckily: "'Twas when you were only a baby that you did it, Eddo.
You said to the engine, 'Come here, little choo choo, Eddo won't hurt
oo.' You didn't know any better."
"'Course I knew better," said Eddo, shaking his head again, but this
time with an air of bewilderment. "I didn't say, 'Come here, little choo
choo.' No, no, not me!"
"Oh, but you did, darling," persisted Lucy. "You were just a tiny bit of
a boy. You stood right on the track, and the engine was coming, 'puff,
puff,' and you said, 'Come here, little choo choo, Eddo won't hurt oo!'"
"I didn't! Oh! Oh! Oh! When'd I say that? Did the engine hurt me?
Where did it hurt me? Say, Jimmum, where did the engine hurt me?"
putting his hand to his throat, to his ears, to his side.
The more he thought of it, the worse he felt; till appalled by the idea of

what he must have suffered he finally fell to sobbing in his mother's
arms, and she soothed his imaginary woes with kisses and cookies. For
the remainder of the journey he was in pretty good spirits and found
much diversion in watching the gambols of the two dogs following the
tallyho. One was a Castle Cliff dog, black and shaggy, named Slam; the
other, yellow and smooth, belonged to the "king-ductor" or driver, and
was called Bang. Slam and Bang often darted off for a race and Eddo
nearly gave them up for lost; but they always came back wagging their
tails and capering about as if to say:--
"Hello, Eddo, we ran away just to scare you, and we'll do it again if we
please!"
It was a great day for dogs. Ever so many dogs ran out to meet Slam
and Bang. They always bit their ears for a "How d'ye do?" and then
trotted along beside them just for company. Eddo found it quite
exciting. One was a Mexican dog, without a particle of hair, but he did
not seem to be in the least ashamed of his singular appearance.
Edith said it was an "empty country," and indeed there were few houses;
but there must have been more dogs than houses, for the whole journey
had a running accompaniment of "bow-wow-wows."
The farther up hill the road wound the steeper it grew; and Jimmy
exclaimed more than once:--
"This coach is standing up straight on its hind feet, papa! Just look!
'Twill spill us all out backward!"
But it did nothing of the sort. It took them straight to Castle Cliff,
"nearly six thousand feet above the level of the sea," and there it
stopped, before the front door of the hotel. It was about half-past five
o'clock in the afternoon, and Mr. Templeton, who had been looking out
for the tallyho, came down the steps to meet his guests.

II

THE FIRST DINNER
Mr. Templeton's wife was just behind him. They both greeted the party
as if they had all been old friends. The house, a large white one, stood
as if in the act of climbing the hill. In front was a sloping lawn full of
brilliant flowers, bordered with house-leek, or "old hen and chickens,"
a plant running over with pink blossoms. Kyzie had not expected to see
a garden like this on the mountain.
At one side of the house, between two black oak trees, was a