But Henry refused to stand still. The flapping paper still clung to his agitated head. He reared and pranced, jerking the sulky back and forth, its wheels still wedged in the ruts. Bailey sprang to the ground to pick up the reins. He seized them, but fell as he did so. The tug at his bits turned Henry's head, literally and figuratively. He reared and whirled about. The sulky rose on two wheels. The screaming Mrs. Beasley collapsed against its downward side. Another moment, and the whole upper half of the sulky--body, seat, curtains, and Debby--tilted over the lower wheels, and, the rusted bolts failing to hold, slid with a thump to the frozen road. The wind, catching it underneath as it slid, tipped it backward. Then Henry ran away. Miss Dawes, left alone in the house at the foot of the hill, had amused herself for a time with the Beasley library, which partially filled a shelf in the sitting room. But “The Book of Martyrs” and “A Believer's Thoughts on Death” were not cheering literature, particularly as the author of the latter volume “thought” so dismally concerning the future of all who did not believe precisely as he did. So the teacher laid down the book, with a shudder, and wandered about the room, inspecting the late Mr. Beasley's portrait, the photographs in splintwork frames, the “alum basket” on the mantel, the blue castles, blue trees, and blue people pictured on the window shades, and other works of art in the apartment. She even peeped into the parlor, but the musty, shut-up smell of that dusky tomb was too much for her, and she sat down by the sitting-room window, under the empty bird cage, to look up the road and watch for the return of the sulky and its occupants. Sitting there, she was a witness of the alarming catastrophe on the hilltop, and reached the front gate just in time to see Henry go galloping by, dragging the four wheels and springs of the sulky, while, sprawled across the rear axle and still clinging to the reins, hung a familiar, howling, and most wickedly profane individual by the name of Bangs. The runaway dashed on toward the blacksmith shop. Phoebe, bareheaded and coatless, ran up the hill. Before she reached the crest, she was aware of muffled screams, which sounded as if the screamer was shut up in a trunk. “O-o-oh!” screamed Mrs. Beasley. “O-o-oh! Ow! Let me out! Help! I'm stuck! My back's broke! He-e-lp!” The upper part of the sulky, with its boxlike curtained top, lay on its side in the road. From somewhere within the box came the groans and screams. The gale swept the hilltop, and, for a quarter mile to leeward, the scenery was animated by soaring, fluttering copies of the Blazeton Courier, that swooped and ducked like mammoth white butterflies.