"The mischief is done already, Job, so you may as well have your lunch, for you can't tip us up any farther." And she sat there quite patiently, in spite of her strained position, until Job had devoured the mullein in a leisurely fashion. Then she reined him back into the road, remarking, "It isn't fair for poor Job to do all the work and not have any of the fun, is it?" "I'll tell you, Mrs. Adams," suggested Alan; "let's all get out and put Job into the carriage, and draw him a mile or two, just to rest him." "You shan't make fun of Job!" said Polly indignantly. "You didn't like what Jean said to you, and now you go and say, Job is o-l-d and s-l-o-w." "What in the world do you spell the words for, Poll?" asked Jean. "I never have been able to make out." "Why, Job knows what you are saying, as well as anybody, and may be he is sensitive about it," replied Polly, to the great amusement of the girls. "We might read 'Pilgrim's Progress' to him, then," said Jean wickedly. "Perhaps it would teach him to go ahead, if he knows so much." "Poor old Job! his going days are nearly over, aren't they, Joby?" said Mrs. Adams caressingly, as she rubbed the whip up and down over his glossy side. "Well, he's a poor, tired old fellow with a heavy load, so perhaps we'd better turn here and go home." This proceeding met with Job's full approval. He had been walking more and more slowly, as if overcome by the effort which he had been forced to make, and seemed scarcely able to totter onward, stumbling at every stone. But with the change of direction, his life came back to him, and with a whisk of his tail and an ungainly flourish of his hind legs, he started off at a trot, turning neither to the right nor the left, but only intent on reaching home and supper. "There!" said Mrs. Adams in a tone of disgust; "when Job does that I just want to whip him. He has played that trick on me over and over again, and still I am always deceived by it. It isn't more than two weeks since Polly and I were driving to the Glen, one very warm day. It was a strange road, and all at once Job was taken ill in such a queer way; he staggered and almost fell. Polly and I were so frightened, for we thought he was going to die, right then and there. We jumped out and walked along beside him, leading him and petting him. The road was so narrow that we couldn't turn him around, without going on ever so far; nobody was in sight, and we were both of us just ready to cry from sheer nervousness. At last we came to where we could turn him, and backed him around as carefully as could be. What did the old goose do but put down his head and give it the funniest sideways toss, and then trot off towards home, leaving us standing there in the road." "What did you do? did you walk home?" asked Alan, while the girls laughed. "No, indeed! We made him stop for us, and he had to trot the rest of the way, you may be sure. Go on, Job!" urged Mrs. Adams, shaking the lines violently.