Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/79

Rh Every blind in the house was shut. The hens walked about with an expression which showed that the family was away from home, and the cat looked out uneasy and suspicious from a high loft over the corn-house.

John walked a few steps down the road and looked at the two other houses. Shut up also; not a trace of life about them. The two Thatcher brothers, who married sisters, lived in these houses. "Well, I don't know what the Thatcher folks have got to do over at camp-meeting," thought John. "They 're all Baptists. They don't train in that crowd."

He had thought that he might while away the time by talking with Mrs. Susan Thatcher, who was a woman he had once almost thought he would like to marry. John was much vexed. He walked up and down the road and switched off the tops of golden rod and purple asters in a way that was really shameful. He was at his wit's ends: ten miles from home; Jerry waiting to be shod; not a human being to be found. But John Bassett's impatiences never lasted long. He was too good a pagan to fret and fume. He took Jerry out of his harness, led him into the barn, and gave him so delightful a rubbing down that the creature arched his shining neck and looked around at his masters hands, and would have purred if he could, he felt so comfortable. John patted him and talked to him as if he were a child.