Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/57

Rh "Hey? Well?" said he.

"Take these folks up to the Baldwin place," Smith commanded; "and don't ye go losin' no wheels this time—ye got a young lady aboard." At which sally all the old men chuckled creakily.

But the young lady showed no apprehension, only some relief, as she stepped into the tottering surrey which Hop drove up beside the platform. As the old driver slapped the reins on the placid horse's woolly back, the station-agent turned to Smith.

"George," he said, "the little 'un ain't cracked. He's blind."

"Well, gosh!" said Smith, with feeling.

Winterbottom Road unrolled itself into a white length of half-laid dust, between blown, sweet-smelling bay-clumps and boulder-filled meadows.

"Is it being nice?" Kirk asked, for the twentieth time since they had left the train for the trolley-car.

Felicia had been thanking fortune that she'd remembered to stop at the Asquam Market and lay in a few provisions. She woke from calculations of how many meals her family could