Page:Saunders - Beautiful Joe, 1893.djvu/222

Rh We had to go very slowly up a narrow, rough road. The bushes scratched and scraped against the buggy, and Mr. Harry looked very much annoyed.

"No man liveth to himself," said Miss Laura, softly. "This man's carelessness is giving you trouble. Why doesn't he cut these branches that overhang the road?"

"He can't do it because his abominable laziness won't let him," said Mr. Harry. "I'd like to be behind him for a week, and I'd make him step a little faster. We have arrived at last, thank goodness."

There was a small grass clearing in the midst of the woods. Chips and bits of wood were littered about, and across the clearing was a roughly built house of unpainted boards. The front door was propped open by a stick. Some of the panes of glass in the windows were broken, and the whole house had a melancholy dilapidated look. I thought that I had never seen such a sad-looking place.

"It seems as if there was no one about," said Mr. Harry, with a puzzled face. "Barron must be away. Will you hold Fleetfoot, Laura, while I go and see?"

He drew the buggy up near a small log building that had evidently been used for a stable, and I lay down beside it and watched Miss Laura.