CHAPTER V LUCAS PRITCHETT

The Bray girls walked up the village street, which opened directly out of the square. It might have been a quarter of a mile in length, the red brick courthouse facing them at the far end, flanked by the two hotels. When “court sat” Bridleburg was a livelier town than at present.

On either hand were alternately rows of one, or two-story “blocks” of stores and offices, or roomy old homesteads set in the midst of their own wide, terraced lawns.

There were a few pleasant-looking people on the walks and most of these turned again to look curiously after the Bray girls. Strangers–save in court week–were a novelty in Bridleburg, that was sure.

Market Street was wide and maple-shaded. Here and there before the stores were “hitching racks”–long wooden bars with iron rings set every few feet–to which a few horses, or teams, were hitched. Many of the vehicles were buckboards, much appreciated in the hill country; but there were farm wagons, as well. It was for one of these latter the Bray girls were in search. The station agent had described Lucas Pritchett’s rig.

“There it is,” gasped the quick-eyed ’Phemie, “Oh, Lyd! do look at those ponies. They’re as ragged-looking as an old cowhide trunk.”

“And that wagon,” sighed Lyddy. “Shall we ride in it? We’ll be a sight going through the village.”

“We’d better wait and see if he’ll take us,” remarked ’Phemie. “But I should worry about what people here think of us!”

As she spoke a lanky fellow, with a lean and sallow face, lounged out of the post-office and across the walk to the heads of the disreputable-looking ponies. He wore a long snuff-colored overcoat that might have been in the family for two or three generations, and his overalls were stuck into the tops of leg-boots.

“That’s Lucas–sure,” whispered ’Phemie.

But she hung back, just the same, and let her sister do the talking. And the first effect of Lyddy’s speech upon Lucas Pritchett was most disconcerting.

“Good morning!” Lyddy said, smiling upon the lanky young farmer. “You are Mr. Lucas Pritchett, I presume?”

He made no audible reply, although his lips moved and they saw his very prominent Adam’s apple rise and fall convulsively. A wave of red suddenly washed up over his face like a big breaker rolling up a sea-beach; and each individual freckle at once took on a vividness of aspect that was fairly startling to the beholder.

“You are Mr. Pritchett?” repeated Lyddy, hearing a sudden half-strangled giggle from ’Phemie, who was behind her.

“Ya-as–I be,” finally acknowledged the bashful Lucas, that Adam’s apple going up and down again like the slide on a trombone.

“You are going home without much of a load; aren’t you, Mr. Pritchett?” pursued Lyddy, with a glance into the empty wagon-body.

“Ya-as–I be,” repeated Lucas, with another gulp, trying to look at both girls at once and succeeding only in looking cross-eyed.

“We are going to be your nearest neighbors, Mr. Pritchett,” said Lyddy, briskly. “Our aunt, Mrs. Hammond, has loaned us Hillcrest to live in and we have our baggage and some other things at the railway station to be carted up to the house. Will you take it–and us? And how much will you charge?”

Lucas just gasped–’Phemie declared afterward, “like a dying fish.” This was altogether too much for Lucas to grasp at once; but he had followed Lyddy up to a certain point. He held forth a broad, grimed, calloused palm, and faintly exclaimed:

“You’re Mis’ Hammon’s nieces? Do tell! Maw’ll be pleased to see ye–an’ so’ll Sairy.”

He shook hands solemnly with Lyddy and then with ’Phemie, who flashed him but a single glance from her laughing eyes. The “Italian sunset effect,” as ’Phemie dubbed Lucas’s blushes, began to fade out of his countenance.

“Can you take us home with you?” asked Lyddy, impatient to settle the matter.

“I surely can,” exclaimed Lucas. “You hop right in.”

“No. We want to know what you will charge first–for us and the things at the depôt?”

“Not a big load; air they?” queried Lucas, doubtfully. “You know the hill’s some steep.”

Lyddy enumerated the packages, Lucas checking them off with nods.

“I see,” he said. “We kin take ’em all. You hop in—”

But ’Phemie was pulling the skirt of her sister’s jacket and Lyddy said:

“No. We have some errands to do. We’ll meet you up the street. That is your way home?” and she indicated the far end of Market Street.

“Ya-as.”

“And what will you charge us?”

“Not more’n a dollar, Miss,” he said, grinning. “I wouldn’t ax ye nothin’; but this is dad’s team and when I git a job like this he allus expects his halvings.”

“All right, Mr. Pritchett. We’ll pay you a dollar,” agreed Lyddy, in her sedate way. “And we’ll meet you up the street.”

Lucas unhitched the ponies and stepped into the wagon. When he turned them and gave them their heads the ragged little beasts showed that they were a good deal like the proverbial singed cat–far better than they looked.

“I thought you didn’t care what people thought of you here?” observed Lyddy to her sister, as the wagon went rattling down the street. “Yet it seems you don’t wish to ride through Bridleburg in Mr. Pritchett’s wagon.”

“My goodness!” gasped ’Phemie, breathless from giggling. “I don’t mind the wagon. But he’s a freak, Lyd!”

“Sh!”

“Did you ever see such a face? And those freckles!” went on the girl, heedless of her sister’s admonishing voice.

“Somebody may hear you,” urged Lyddy.

“What if?”

“And repeat what you say to him.”

“And that should worry me!” returned ’Phemie, gaily. “Oh, dear, Lyd! don’t be a grump. This is all a great, big joke–the people and all. And Lucas is certainly the capsheaf. Did you ever in your life before even imagine such a freak?”

But Lyddy would not join in her hilarity.

“These country people may seem peculiar to us, who come fresh from the city,” she said, with some gravity. “But I wonder if we don’t appear quite as ‘queer’ and ‘green’ to them as they do to us?”

“We couldn’t,” gasped ’Phemie. “Hurry on, Lyd. Don’t let him overtake us before we get to the edge of town.”

They passed the courthouse and waited for Lucas and the farm wagon on the outskirts of the village–where the more detached houses gave place to open fields. No plow had been put into these lower fields as yet; still, the coming spring had breathed upon the landscape and already the banks by the wayside were turning green.

’Phemie became enthusiastic at once and before Lucas hove in view, evidently anxiously looking for them, the younger girl had gathered a great bunch of early flowers.

“They’re mighty purty,” commented the young farmer, as the girls climbed over the wheel with their muddy boots and all.

’Phemie, giggling, took her seat on the other side of him. She had given one look at the awkwardly arranged load on the wagon-body and at once became helpless with suppressed laughter. If the girls she had worked with in the millinery store for the last few months could see them and their “lares and penates” perched upon this farm wagon, with this son of Jehu for a driver!

“I reckon you expect to stay a spell?” said Lucas, with a significant glance from the conglomerate load to Lyddy.

“Yes–we hope to,” replied the oldest Bray girl. “Do you think the house is in very bad shape inside?”

“I dunno. We never go in it, Miss,” responded Lucas, shaking his head. “Mis’ Hammon’ never left us the key–not to upstairs. Dad’s stored cider and vinegar in the cellar under the east ell for sev’ral years. It’s a better cellar’n we’ve got.

“An’ I dunno what dad’ll say,” he added, “to your goin’ up there to live.”

“What’s he got to do with it?” asked ’Phemie, quickly.

“Why, we work the farm on shares an’ we was calc’latin’ to do so this year.”

“Our living in the house doesn’t interfere with that arrangement,” said Lyddy, quietly. “Aunt Jane told us all about that. I have a letter from her for your father.”

“Aw–well,” commented Lucas, slowly.

The ponies had begun to mount the rise in earnest now. They tugged eagerly at the load, and trotted on the level stretches as though tireless. Lyddy commented upon this, and Lucas flushed with delight at her praise.

“They’re hill-bred, they be,” he said, proudly. “Tackle ’em to a buggy, or a light cart, an’ up hill or down hill means the same to ’em. They won’t break their trot.

“When it comes plowin’ time we clip ’em, an’ then they don’t look so bad in harness,” confided the young fellow. “If–if you like, I’ll take you drivin’ over the hills some day–when the roads git settled.”

“Thank you,” responded Lyddy, non-committally.

But ’Phemie giggled “How nice!” and watched the red flow into the young fellow’s face with wicked appreciation.

The roads certainly had not “settled” after the winter frosts, if this one they were now climbing was a proper sample. ’Phemie and Lyddy held on with both hands to the smooth board which served for a seat to the springless wagon–and they were being bumped about in a most exciting way.

’Phemie began to wonder if Lucas was not quite as much amused by their unfamiliarity with this method of transportation as she was by his bashfulness and awkward manners. Lyddy fairly wailed, at last:

“Wha–what a dread–dreadful ro-o-o-ad!” and she seized Lucas suddenly by the arm nearest to her and frankly held on, while the forward wheel on her side bounced into the air.

“Oh, this ain’t bad for a mountain road,” the young farmer declared, calmly.

“Oh, oh!” squealed ’Phemie, the wheel on her side suddenly sinking into a deep rut, so that she slid to the extreme end of the board.

“Better ketch holt on me, Miss,” advised Lucas, crooking the arm nearest ’Phemie. “You city folks ain’t useter this kind of travelin’, I can see.”

But ’Phemie refused, unwilling to be “beholden” to him, and the very next moment the ponies clattered over a culvert, through which the brown flood of a mountain stream spurted in such volume that the pool below the road was both deep and angry-looking.

There was a washout gullied in the road here. Down went the wheel on ’Phemie’s side, and with the lurch the young girl lost her insecure hold upon the plank.

With a screech she toppled over, plunging sideways from the wagon-seat, and as the hard-bitted ponies swept on ’Phemie dived into the foam-streaked pool!