Chapter 9 THE PUNG RIDE

The grocer's boy had delivered all of his parcels except two large paper bags which he had pushed over near the dasher. Patricia began to bring out the cushions, and the boy tossed them in upon the straw which lay upon the floor of the pung. Then Patricia and Arabella climbed in, the boy cracked his whip, the horse sprang forward with a surprising jolt, then settled down to a comical amble.

How cold it was! Arabella had wondered at the number of shawls which Patricia had taken. Now she was very glad to wrap two around her, while Patricia wore the other two.

"G'lang!" shouted the boy, and again the horse gave an amazing hop which sent the pung forward with a lurch, and rolled the two girls over upon the straw. Patricia thought it a joke, but Arabella, never very good-tempered, was actually angry.

"O dear!" she cried, "I think it's just horrid to be shaken up so. Well, I don't think you're very nice to laugh about it, Patricia. I wouldn't like to take any one out to a sleighride, and have 'em banged around,-oh, o-o!"

It was a "thank-you-ma'am" in the middle of the road that caused Arabella's angry speech to end in a little shriek.

It was useless for Patricia to try to hide her merriment. She could not help laughing. She rarely felt sorry for any one's discomfort, and really Arabella did look funny.

In the shake-up, her hat had been pushed over to one side of her head, but she did not know that, and her old-fashioned little face looked smaller than usual, because of the two heavy shawls which were crowded so high that she appeared to have no neck at all. Small as her face was, it could show a great deal of rage, and as she drew her shawls tighter around her, and glared at Patricia, she looked odd enough to make any one laugh.

"You look as if you'd like to spit like a cat," laughed Patricia, and just at that moment the boy who was driving turned to ask which way he should go.

"I got ter take them bags over ter the big old house what's painted the color er this pung, an' stands between a old barn an' a carriage shed. Know where 'tis?" he asked.

"Indeed, I don't," declared Patricia.

"Wal, I was goin' ter say that I kin git there by two different roads, an' I'd go the way ye'd like best ter go ef ye knew which that was," he said.

"I only know I want the ride, and this road is stupid and poky. Go the way that has the most houses on it," Patricia answered, and the boy turned into another avenue, and soon they were passing houses enough, such as they were!

Small houses that were dingy, and held one family, and larger ones that must have held three tribes at least, judging by the number of washings which hung upon the dilapidated piazzas.

"G'lang!" shouted the boy, but the nag had heard that too often to be impressed, and he only wagged one ear in response, but took not a step quicker.

Arabella was cold and provoked that she had come. Patricia was excited, and felt that she was having a frolic, and even Arabella's glum face could not quiet her; indeed, the more she looked at her, the more inclined was she to laugh.

Arabella felt aggrieved.

"The idea of laughing at me," she thought, "when I should think I might laugh at her for inviting me to ride in a sleigh that is only a pung!"

Then something happened which made Arabella forget that she was provoked with Patricia, because she suddenly became so vexed with some one else.

A short, stubby boy with a mass of hay-colored hair, ran out from a yard that they were passing.

"Ho! Look at the girlth a-havin' a ride out! Look at the horthe! My, thee hith bonthe thtick out! Gueth they feed him on thawdutht an' shavingth, don't they, Mandy?"

"Oh, look at 'em! Look at 'em! Them's some er the private school; don't they look grand ridin' in Bill Tillson's grocery wagin?" shouted Mandy.

"I wonder if that horthe would jump if I fired a thnowball?"

"Don't ye do it!" shouted the driver.

"Better not, Chub!" cried Mandy, thinking that perhaps the fun had gone far enough.

The fact that he had been told not to made Chub long to do it.

"Here's the place," said the driver, and, grasping one of the bags, he jumped from the team and ran into the house with the parcel. The reins lay loosely upon the horse's back.

Chub, who had kept pace with the team, now paused to choose the most interesting bit of mischief. Should he make a grab at the loose-lying reins, and by jerking them surprise the horse, or would he be more frisky if the half-dozen snowballs which he had been making were all hurled at him at once?

Before he could decide, the boy came out of the house, and jumping into the pung, gathered up the reins, and attempted to turn the team towards home. Chub thought if he were to have any fun, he must get it quickly.

"Heighoh! You Jumpin' Ginger!" he shouted, at the same time letting fly the six snowballs. The frightened nag reared, and turning sharply about, tipped the pung, completely emptying it of passengers and freight.

"That'th a thpill! Girlth an' onionth! Girlth an' onionth!" shouted Chub, but Mandy, who was older, knew quite enough to be frightened, that is, frightened for her own safety. If the little girls were hurt, would some one blame her or Chub?

The driver had stopped the thoroughly terrified horse, the pung was not injured, so he thought he might see if the children were harmed.

Mandy had helped Arabella to her feet, and picked up her shawls, which had fallen off. She was more frightened than hurt, but her feelings were injured. Patricia, brushing the snow from her cloak, spoke her thoughts very plainly.

"Chub's a perfectly horrid boy," she said, "and we might have broken our necks."

"Ye didn't, though," said Mandy.

"And I shouldn't wonder if Ma had him put in the big lock-up," she said, "for scaring our horse, and tipping us out on the road. We may get reumonia for being thrown into the snow."

"Ye can't 'rest Chub; he ain't nothin' but a big baby," said Mandy, "an' what's reumonia, anyway?"

Patricia would not reply. The driver helped them to pick up the cushions, but the bag of onions, which he had forgotten to take to the big house, he left where they lay in the road. They were too widely scattered to be gathered up.

Chub found a huge one, and commenced to eat it as eagerly as if it had been a luscious bit of fruit.

"Thith ith fine," he said as he took a big bite from the onion.

"That Chub's a regular little pig," Patricia said, as they rode off, but her words were not heard by Mandy or Chub, for the youthful driver was shouting a loud warning to Chub to throw no more snowballs for fear of a sound thrashing followed by arrest, while Chub, afraid to throw the snowballs, hurled after the pung the worst names that he could think of.

"That horthe ith thlow ath a old moolly cow! It'th an old thlow-poke! What a thkinny nag! That horthe eath nothin' but newthpaper and thtring!" he yelled.

"That Chub is just a horrid-looking child," said Patricia, "an' he's the Jimmy boy's brother, but nobody'd ever think it."

"Who's the Jimmy boy?" Arabella asked.

"Why, don't you know the boy that we see sometimes at Dorothy Dainty's house?"

Arabella shook her head.

"I mean the one that wears a cap with a gold band on it, and a coat with brass buttons, and tries to walk like a man when Mr. Dainty sends him out with parcels," explained Patricia.

"Oh, I know," said Arabella, "but he's real nice looking, and Dorothy says her father thinks he's smart. I shouldn't think he could be brother to that little pig or that Mandy girl."

"Well, he is, and one thing Dorothy said one day I couldn't understand. She said that one reason why her father was so kind to Jimmy is because Jimmy helped to get Nancy Ferris home one time when she was stolen from them. Did you ever hear 'bout that? I don't see how just a boy could do that, do you?"

No, Arabella did not see, nor had she heard the story, but she had seen Jimmy, and she wondered that he belonged to such a family as that which produced Mandy and Chub.

"Ye're 'most home," declared the driver, "an' soon's I've landed ye I'll hev ter scoot."

"But you'll have to take Arabella home; she lives 'way over the other side of the town," insisted Patricia.

"Oh, no, no, he won't!" said Arabella. "I'd rather walk all the way than have Aunt Matilda know that I've been sleighing."

"Why, how funny!" and Patricia stared in surprise.

"It's funnier now than it would be when Aunt Matilda found it out."

"Why?" Patricia asked.

"Because," said Arabella, "whenever I've been out, and she thinks I've taken cold, she boils some old herb tea, and makes me drink it hot, and I have to be bundled in blankets, and she makes such a fuss that I wish I hadn't gone anywhere at all."

"I guess you'd better not tell her," Patricia advised, to which Arabella replied:

"I just don't intend to."

And while Dorothy and Nancy were standing before a blazing fire in the sitting-room at the stone house, recounting the beauties of the sky, the branches fringed with glittering icicles, the squirrels that raced across the hard crust of snow, and indeed, every lovely bit of road or forest which they had seen, Arabella, shivering as she hurried along, saw the bright lights, and rushed past the great gate, across the avenue and in at her own driveway. She hoped that every one would be talking when she entered. She intended to join in the conversation, and she thought if she could manage to talk very, very fast, Aunt Matilda might not ask where she had been. But she did.

Arabella had removed her hat and cloak, and trying very hard to stop shivering, she pushed aside the portière, and stood in the glow of the shaded lamp.

"Warmer weather to-morrow, the paper says, and I guess we shall all be glad to have it," Aunt Matilda was saying.

"It w-would be f-fine to h-h-have it w-w-warmer," said Arabella, her teeth chattering so that she thought every one must hear them rattle.

Over her paper Aunt Matilda's bright eyes peered at the little girl who shivered in spite of her effort to stand very still.

"Where have you been, Arabella? You're chilled through. I say, where have you been?"

"I've just taken quite a long walk," Arabella replied.

"If you've taken a long walk as late as this in the afternoon, you've come some distance. Have you been spending this whole afternoon at that Lavine girl's house?"

"No'm," said Arabella, "I haven't been in her house any of the afternoon; I've been out-of-doors."

Aunt Matilda threw up her hands in amazement, as if a number of hours in the open air ought to have actually killed Arabella, whereas, she really was alive, but exceedingly chilly.

Then the very thing happened which Arabella had told Patricia would happen.

Aunt Matilda had her old-fashioned notions regarding the care of children, and Arabella was sent to bed, packed in blankets, after having drank a pint bowl full of the worst-tasting herb tea which Aunt Matilda had ever brewed.

She had thought that she might drink half of it, and then throw the rest away, but as if guessing her intention, Aunt Matilda stood close beside her to be sure that not a drop was wasted.

"It's no use to make such an outrageous face, Arabella," she remarked, "for the worse it tastes the more good it's sure to do."

"But I'd 'most rather have a cold than take that stuff," wailed Arabella.

"That's the time you don't have your choice," was the dry reply.

And indeed she did not, for besides taking the despised herb tea, she awoke the next morning with a heavy cold that kept her away from school for the whole of the next week.