Page:Dick Hamilton's Fortune.djvu/39

Rh grounds. Several men were at work, and the manner in which they hastened with their tasks when their employer approached spoke volumes for the way in which they regarded him.

Dick paused in the stable to admire the horses, of which his uncle kept several. Without thinking he pulled a wisp of hay from a bale and offered it to one of the animals.

"Don't do that!" exclaimed his uncle sharply. "You'll scatter it all over the barn. The man has just swept the place up, and I don't like a litter of dirt around."

He stopped to pick up some pieces of hay Dick had inadvertently dropped, and looked so cross that the boy wished he had kept out of the stable.

However, Mr. Larabee seemed a bit ashamed of himself a little later, for he showed Dick where he could find some withered apples to feed to the pigs.

"Only don't scatter 'em on the ground," he cautioned. "I hate to see apples thrown about. I keep a man to look after the orchard, and I like it nice and tidy."

Now Dick was not a careless youth, but he thought this was carrying things a little too far. However, he brightened up a bit when his uncle announced that he had to leave his nephew to his own devices for a time, as he had some duties to attend to.

Dick managed to while away the afternoon looking at the sights around the place, for his