"Grandpa's found it out and he's hopping," said the boy. "I always told you he would be, you know, and now it's come. If he ever catches me with you again he swears he'll give it to me like hell. He pressed tightly against the ladder and wagged his head defiantly. "But he needn't think he can bully me like that--not if I know it!" "Well, he mustn't catch you again," returned Christopher, not troubling to soften his scorn of such cheap heroics; "we must manage better next time. Did you think to remind him, by the way, that I once took the trouble to save your life?" "That's a fact, I didn't think of it. What would he have said, I wonder?" Christopher raised his eyebrows. "Knocked your front teeth out, perhaps. He's like that, isn't he?" "Oh, he's awfully fond of me, you know," protested the boy; "but it's his meddling ways that I can't stand. What business is it of his who my friends are? He hasn't got to take up with 'em, has he? Why, what he hates is for me to want to be with anybody but himself or Aunt Saidie. He'd like to keep me dangling all day to his coat tails, but it's not fair, and I won't have it. I'll show him whether I'm to be kept a kid forever or not!" "There's spirit for you!" drawled Christopher with a laugh, as he applied the currycomb to the mare's flank. "You just wait till you hear the worst," returned the other, with evident pride in the thunderbolt about to be delivered. "He swears he's going to send me to school tomorrow at sunrise." "You don't say so?" ejaculated Christopher. "Oh, but he'll do it, too--the only way to get around him is to fall ill, and I can't work that tomorrow. I played the trick last week and he saw through it. I've got to go, that's certain; but I'm going to make him sorry enough before he's done. Why couldn't he let me keep on studying with Mr. Morrison, as the doctor said I ought to? What's the use of this blamed old Latin and Greek, anyway? Nobody about here knows them, and why should I set myself up for a precious numbskull of a scholar? I'd rather be a crack shot like you any day! I tell you one thing," he finished, sucking in his breath in a way that had annoyed Christopher from the first, "I've half a mind to run away or fall ill after I get there!" Christopher turned suddenly, slapped the mare on the flank, and came out of the stall, the currycomb still in his hand. His shirt sleeves were rolled above his elbows, and the muscles of his arms stood out like cords under the sunburned skin, which showed a paler bronze from the wrists up. He was flushed from leaning over, and his clothes smelled strongly of the stable. "If you do, come to me, " he said lightly, "and I'll hide you in the barn till the storm blows over. It wouldn't last long, I reckon."