Rodolphus drew the cart up to the door, and taking up the book, he put it upon Annie's lap and then began to move away again.
"Stop," said Annie; "stop, and let me get out."
"No," said Rodolphus, "I am going to draw you to school."
"No," said Annie, "my mother said that you must not take my cart to school."
"Oh, she won't care," said Rodolphus, still going.
"But she said that you must _not_," persisted Annie.
"That was because she thought the cart would come to some damage," said Rodolphus. "But it will not come to any damage. I shall bring it home all safe at noon, and then she won't care."
By this time Rodolphus had got out into the road. Annie looked anxious and distressed, but as Rodolphus walked rapidly on, she was entirely helpless, and could do nothing but sit still, though she urged Rodolphus to stop, again and again, until at last, finding that it did no good, she gave up in despair, and resigned herself to her fate.
They proceeded in this way until they had got pretty near the village, when, as they were going along the road, which at this place led near the margin of the river, just below the bridge and mill, Rodolphus saw two boys getting into a boat. He asked them where they were going; they said that they were going a-fishing.
"I mean to go too," said Rodolphus, looking toward Annie.
"No," said Annie, "you must not go, for then what shall I do with my cart?"
"Oh, you can draw your cart along to school yourself, very well," said Rodolphus, and so saying, he lifted Annie hastily and roughly out of the cart, calling out at the same time to the boys to wait a minute for him. He put the handle, which was at the end of the tongue of the cart, into Annie's hand, and then ran down to the water; and thus, almost before Annie had time to recover from her astonishment, she found herself left alone in the road, while the boat, with Rodolphus and the other boys in it, began slowly to recede from the shore.
Annie began to cry. Rodolphus called out to her in a rough voice to go along to school. So she began to walk slowly along, drawing the cart wearily after her.
On her way home from school that day, when she came to the place in the road where Rodolphus had left her in the morning, she found him waiting there for her. She was coming without the cart. Rodolphus asked her what she had done with it. She said that she had left it at school. The teacher had told her that it was too heavy for her to draw, and had put it in a corner, to wait till Rodolphus came. Rodolphus then told Annie to sit down upon a stone by the side of the road till he came back, and then began to run toward the school-house. In a short time he came back bringing the cart. He put Annie into it and went toward home.