"
"Does he know you've got this one?"
"Yes, and he's been blowing round town that he is waiting to pick me
up on the road some day and make my five hundred dollars look like a
pewter quarter."
"So you gave five hundred dollars for him, did you?" laughed the
widow.
"Is it too much?"
"Um-er," hesitated the widow, glancing along the graceful lines of the
powerful trotter, "I suppose not if you can beat the squire."
"Right you are," crowed the deacon, "and I'll show him a thing or two
in getting over the ground," he added with swelling pride.
"Well, I hope he won't be out looking for you today, with me in your
sleigh," said the widow, almost apprehensively, "because, you know,
deacon, I have always wanted you to beat Squire Hopkins."
The deacon looked at her sharply. There was a softness in her tones
that appealed to him, even if she had not expressed such agreeable
sentiments. Just what the deacon might have said or done after the
impulse had been set going must remain unknown, for at the crucial
moment a sound of militant bells, bells of defiance, jangled up behind
them, disturbing their personal absorption, and they looked around
simultaneously.
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