Page:Chandler Harris--The chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann.djvu/107

 the servants in Boston. I told him I would give him any reasonable amount if he would go out and discipline Minervy Ann, just to show me how it was done. It would have been better than a circus. You heard her, didn't you, Hamp?"

Hamp chuckled good-naturedly. "Yasser, I did, an' it make col' chills run over me ter hear how Minervy Ann went on. She cert'n'y did try herse'f dat day."

The Major smiled a little proudly as I thought, slapped the horse—a bob-tailed black—with the left rein, and we went skimming along the level, sandy street at a three-minute gait. In a short while we were at the Major's house, where I received a warm welcome from his daughter, whom I had known when she was a school-girl. She was now Mrs. Paul Conant, and even more beautiful as a matron than she had been as a girl. I had also known her husband, who had begun his business career in the town a year or two before I left, and even at that time he was one of the most prominent and promising young business men in the town.

He had served in the army the last year of the war, and the service did him a world of good, physically and mentally. His faculties were broadened and enlarged. Contact with all sorts and conditions