Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/80

70 "There, there, old fellow," he said, "eat your oats. You shall have four fine new shoes presently; and then we won't get caught this way again very soon."

Jerry whinnied back and did his best to be entertaining; but where was there ever a mortal man who did not weary of wordless affection? John began to be sadly bored. He looked over at the camp-meeting hill, where thin columns of smoke were curling up above the tops of the trees. The Middleburg camp-ground is one of the oldest in New England; it has been used as such for twenty years, and there are some eighty cottages in the "circle." People go there in June, and live in their cottages for two months or more before the camp-meeting week begins. John had often thought he would like to see what kind of a life it was that the Methodist people led on their religious picnics, as the worldly were in the habit of calling them. He began to consider within himself whether this were not a capital chance for doing it without any loss of self-respect on his part. He would go over and see if he could find Hiram Peet. This was not going to camp-meeting. Oh, no!

The camp-meeting grove was not more than a quarter of a mile from the forge. At John Bassett's goodly stride, this distance was quickly walked; and almost before he fairly realized what he had made up his mind to do, John found himself in the throng of people pouring through the