“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?