“What’ll I do if anything happens, Mr. Casey?” “Sit on his head and holler fer help.” “Oh, of course,” said Ethel. “I read that in a book.” Minerva went off in an ecstacy of laughter. “What are you laughing at, Minerva?” asked Ethel. “I was wonderin’ how you’d get up to his head.” “Why, Mr. Casey means if he falls down. Don’t you, Mr. Casey?” “’Deed an’ I do. But he won’t fall down. He’s strarng as a horse an’ gentle as a—as a litter of kittens. He knows it’s a leddy behind him, an’ he’ll have plisant thoughts of you arl the way down. But don’t use the whip. After bleedin’ he’s a bit skitterful.” We had had the horse several times at a pinch and Ethel knew that he always cautioned against use of the whip, although th’ould scut’s hide was as tough as that famous one “found in the pit where the tanner died.” “You take the reins, Minerva,” said Ethel. Minerva took them and pulled them up so tight that she almost yanked the horse into the wagon. “Oh, he’ll never stumble. A loose rein an’ a kind worrd an’ th’ whip in the socket an’ll he go like the breezes of Ballinasloe. Good bye an’ God bless you.” And so they started and the horse went along in a leisurely manner as was his wont. Once he strayed off to the roadside to crop the verdant mead and as Minerva pulled on the wrong rein she nearly upset the wagon. But she was quick to learn, and before they had gone a mile Ethel said she drove as if she had been doing it all day. They found that the horse had the pleasing habit of picking up apples that lay in the road—for their way ran by several apple trees, and there were windfalls in plenty. As he was not checked, every time this happened Ethel felt as if they were going to be pitched out head foremost, but they made their first mile in safety and then the horse, reaching a level stretch “got a gait on him” and trotted along in good shape for nearly half a mile. When they came to the place called “long hill” Ethel got out so that the horse would have less difficulty in making the descent. Minerva, innocent as a child as to the proper thing to do, did not tighten the check rein nor did she take in the slack in the reins, but resting her hands idly in her lap chirruped to the horse as she had heard James do, and he began the “perilous descent.” Half way down he saw a bit of hay in the road, and being of a mind to eat it, he lowered his head at the very moment that he stepped on a loose stone, and the next minute Minerva was over the dashboard, and the horse and she lay in the road together.