He sat round sideways, one leg on the seat, and the reins now hanging loosely in his hands, as Shadrack jogged lazily on, while he was evidently highly pleased and flattered by Marion's attention.
"Well, Jabe," continued Marion, "perhaps, if you don't like to work, you like to study. Do you ever go to school?"
"I went last winter by spells, an' I s'pose I shall go this winter too."
"Do you like it?" asked Marion; "what do you like best,--spelling?"
"Spelling," repeated Jabe, in a ruminating tone,--"spelling, no, I don't like it much, that is, I don't like it the way they larn you down there. I think p'r'aps if they'd let a feller follow his own fashion I might like it; but they put in so many letters that there aint no kind o' sense in havin', that it jest confuses me, an' so I ginerally spells accordin' to fancy."
"O Jabe!" replied Marion, "that will never do in the world; but perhaps you like arithmetic better."
"'Rithmetic!" and Jabe fairly dropped the reins and struck an emphatic blow on his knee, as he exclaimed again: "'rithmetic! I tell you _there_ you got me. If there is anything I do hate on the face o' this airth, it's 'rithmetic! Spellin's bad enough, but 'rithmetic's wus. When you set me to doin' a sum it's jest like the feller that had to go through the drill for the whole regiment; he got on fust-rate till they told him to go form a holler-square; but he said _that_ 'wrenched him awfully.'"
"O Jabe! Jabe!" cried Marion, now fairly convulsed with laughter, "I am afraid you will never make much of a scholar anyway. But, indeed, you ought to try and do better; just think what a comfort you might be to your mother, if you would only----But stop the horse, stop the horse a minute; I've got an idea!"
Jabe drew up the reins with a sudden jerk, and looked at Marion as if she had scattered every idea he ever possessed.
"You jump out!" she exclaimed; "no, you needn't do that; just help me over on to the front seat, and then you climb on to the back. I'm going to drive up to school in style."
Jabe dropped the reins, and did as he was told, with a very bewildered expression on his great, round face, as he looked at Marion very much as if he doubted her sanity; but she went on talking very fast as she tucked in the almost worn-out robe, and took the reins in her hands.