Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/255

Rh "Well I'll teach you English while you learn me arithmetic."

The aunts promptly objected to Rebecca's accepting Jo's offer to drive her to and from school, as they did not wish to be put under obligations to neighbors they considered as objectionable as the Bollings, but they could not but concede that it simplified matters and finally gave a grudging consent to the arrangement.

Rebecca was to meet the Bollings at the mill every morning and they were to drop her there on the way home. Spottswood offered to see that Rebecca got to the bridge on time.

When school opened Spot's own dapper mare was ordered to be hitched to his red-wheeled buggy and immediately after breakfast on school mornings uncle and niece would spin over the red clay road, arriving at the trysting place in time to see the Bollings come jogging along the lane.

Betsy and Jo drove a horse known as the grey colt, hitched to a disreputable-looking old phaeton whose better days had been so long ago that brother and sister could not recall them. The grey colt might have become grey with old age, had he not been born that way. But the young Bollings made no complaint of their turnout, being thankful that they had some means of