Page:Dorothy Canfield--Hillsboro People.djvu/53

 and forty-three cents—he counted it over carefully, sticking out his tongue like a schoolboy doing a sum, and when he had finished he began to laugh and snap his fingers and sing out in his high, cracked old voice:

We're goin' to go a skylarkin'! Little Jo Mallory is going to the county fair with his Granther Pendleton, an he's goin' to have more fun than ever was in the world, and he'

"But, gran'ther, father said we mustn't! I protested, horrified.

"But I say we shall! I was your gre't-gran'ther long before he was your feyther, and anyway I'm here and he's not—so, march! Out to the barn!'

"He took me by the collar, and, executing a shuffling fandango of triumph, he pushed me ahead of him to the stable, where old white Peggy, the only horse left at home, looked at us amazed.

But it'll be twenty-eight miles, and Peg's never driven over eight!' I cried, my old-established world of rules and orders reeling before my eyes.

"Gran'ther improvised a sort of whooping chant of scorn as he pulled the harness from the peg. 'It'll do her good to drink some pink lemonade—old Peggy! An if she gits tired comin' home, I'll git out and carry her part way myself!'

"His adventurous spirit was irresistible. I made no further objection, and we hitched up together, I standing on a chair to fix the check-rein, and gran'ther doing wonders with his one hand. Then, just as we were—gran'ther