This was before the days of baking-powder, and it was eight miles to the nearest town. "I'll tell you," answered Maria, with her teeth chattering. "Let Abe saddle old Blaze and go up to Doctor Spinner's. He always keeps such things on hand, and we can send for some more quinine at the same time." "And be about as likely to get soap and knitting-needles as anything else!" replied her mother, with a frown. "It's a pity a boy as old as Abe is can't be trusted to remember anything!" "Let Jimmy go," suggested Maria. "It's only three miles, and he can easily get back by dinner-time." "Yes," said Mrs. Perkins, "I don't know of any reason why he shouldn't be trusted with the horse, and he can be depended on to do the errand a sight better than Abe." Jimmy's freckled face beamed with delight. He had expected to spend the morning hoeing in the garden. He had been waiting the last half-hour for his father to call him and set him at work; but it was not the prospect of escaping a disagreeable task or of cantering along the road on the old blaze-faced horse that pleased him most. It was the fact that his mother and Maria regarded him as more trustworthy than Abe, and Abe was nearly grown. He had never before so completely appreciated his true worth nor felt such a sense of his own importance as when his mother entrusted him with the errand, and gave him a message for the doctor's wife. Maria's words of praise were still in his ears when he ran down the path, hitching up a broken suspender as he went. "What are you up to now?" inquired Abe, as Jimmy walked into the barn in a lordly way and took down the saddle. "Up to takin' a ride," answered Jimmy, in a way that nettled his older brother. "Not on that saddle, you ain't!" retorted Abe. "I'm goin' to mill." "Then you'll have to ride bareback," was the cool reply. "I'm goin' on an errand for mother, and, what's more, I'm goin' to have the saddle. Can't I, pa?" he asked, as his father came in. "No, Jimmy," answered his father, when both boys had stated the case. "Abe is bigger, and he's got the farthest to go." Abe laughed provokingly. "I don't care!" muttered Jimmy. "_You_ couldn't be trusted to do the errand. Mother said so. So you needn't laugh." Abe's face flushed. He knew his failing, and did not like to be reminded of it. "You can take Maria's side-saddle!" called Mr. Perkins, as he went on out to the corn-crib. "Better not," remarked Abe. "It's brand-new, and she'd feel awful bad if anything should happen to it. It might get spoiled." Jimmy did not want to take it, and had not intended to do so, but the spirit of contrariness seemed to have possession of him. That remark settled the matter. "You might spoil it," he said, "but I guess Maria'll trust me to bring it home safe, if I am ever so much smaller than you!" Presently, seated astride the new side-saddle, Jimmy rode up to the kitchen door.