He said that would do almost as well as the cellar, and the food would
keep until to-morrow. I wanted to slip down and put it in the
Underground Station; but Leon said father must be spending a lot of
money right now, and he might go there to get some, so that wouldn't be
safe. Then he cleaned my face, and I told him when he got his right,
and we slipped from the back door, crossed the Lawton blackberry patch,
and went to the house from the orchard. Leon took an apple and broke
it in two, and we went in eating as if we were starving. When father
asked us where in this world we had been, Leon told him we thought it
would be so awful long before the fourth or fifth table, and we hadn't
had much breakfast, and we were so hungry we went and hunted something
to eat.
"If you'd only held your horses a minute," said father; "they were
calling you to take places at the bride's table."
Well for land's sake! Our mouths dropped open until it's a wonder the
cake and chicken didn't show, and we never said a word. There didn't
seem to be anything to say, for Leon loved to be with grown folks, and
to have eaten at the bride's table would have been the biggest thing
that ever happened to me. At last, when I could speak, I asked who had
taken our places, and bless your heart if it wasn't that mealy-faced
little sister of Peter's, and one of the aunts from Ohio. They had
finished, and Sally was upstairs putting on her travelling dress, while
the guests were eating, when I heard Laddie ask the Princess to ride
with him and Sally's other friends, who were going to escort her to the
depot.
"You'll want all your horses. What could I ride?"
"If I find you a good horse and saddle will you go?"
"I will. I think it would be fine sport."
Laddie turned and went from sight that minute. The Princess laughed
and kept on making friends with every one, helping wait on people,
thinking of nice things to do, and just as the carriage was at the gate
for father and mother, and Sally and Peter, and every one else was
untying their horses to ride in the procession to the village, from
where I was standing on the mounting block I saw something coming down
the Little Hill. I took one look, ran to the Princess, and almost
dragged her.
Up raced Laddie, his face bright, his eyes snapping with fun. He rode
Flos, was leading the Princess' horse Maud, and carrying a big bundle
under his arm. He leaped from the saddle and fastened both horses.
"Gracious Heaven! What have you done?" gasped the Princess.
"Brought your mount," said Laddie, quite as if he were used to going to
Pryors' after the sausage grinder or the grain sacks. But the Princess
was pale and trembling. She stepped so close she touched him, and he
immediately got a little closer. You couldn't get ahead of Laddie, and
he didn't seem to care who saw, and neither did she.
"Tell me exactly what occurred," she said, just as father does when he
means to whale us completely.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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