“Why, Franco, how did you get out of the barn? and how did you find out which way I came?”

Franco wagged his tail, and curled down around Jonas’s feet, but he made no reply.

Jonas was very much surprised, for, as he had no permission to take Franco, he had concluded that it was his duty not to take him; and when he found that he was inclined to come with him, at the time that he was harnessing the horses, he conducted him back into the barn, and, to make it secure, he fastened up the place where he had got in, the first night that he lodged there.  He knew that the barn would be opened when Amos came out in the morning, to take care of the old General and the oxen, but said he to himself, “I shall by that time be ten miles off, and it will be too late for him to follow or find me.”  Jonas was therefore very much surprised, when he found that Franco had contrived to make his escape, and to track his master so many miles.

Jonas drove on very prosperously, until it was about time for him to stop and give his horses some breakfast.  As for himself, he ate his breakfast from his box, when they were coming up a long hill.  He accordingly stopped at a tavern, and took his horses out of their harness, and rubbed them down well, and gave them a good drink of water, and plenty of oats, which he bought of the tavern-keeper.  He kept the oats in his bag to use in the town.  By the time that he stopped, he was comfortably warm, for he had taken some exercise walking up the hills.  Franco always got out when Jonas did, at the bottom of the hills, and then got in again at the top.  He remained in the sleigh, however, at the tavern, keeping guard, while Jonas went into the house; and he would growl a little if any body came near the sleigh, and thus warn them not to touch any thing that was in it.

While the horses were eating, Jonas went into the tavern, and sat down by the kitchen fire.  The fire was very large, and many persons were busy getting breakfast.  Jonas wished that he was going to have a cup of the coffee that they were making; but he thought it better that he should content himself with what the farmer had provided for him.  There was a young woman in the back part of the room, at a window, sewing.  She asked Jonas how far he had come that morning, and he told her.  Then she said that he must have set out very early; and she said that he had a pair of very handsome black horses.  She had seen them as Jonas passed the window.

There was a small girl sitting near her, with a slate, ciphering.  She seemed very busy for a few minutes, and then she looked up to the young woman, and said,—­

“My sum does not come right, aunt Lucia.”

“Doesn’t it?  I’m sorry, but I can’t help you now, very well,” replied aunt Lucia.  “I am very busy with my sewing.”

The little girl then got up, and came towards the fire, with her slate hanging by a string from her finger, and her Arithmetic under her arm.