“Hello, there, Bartlett!” shouted the young man in the buggy; “half the road, you know--half the road.”
“Take it,” cried Bartlett over his shoulder.
“Come, come, Bartlett, get out of the way, or I’ll run you down.”
Bartlett either had no sense of humor or his resentment against his young neighbor smothered it, since otherwise he would have recognized that a heavy wagon was in no danger of being run into by a light and expensive buggy. The young man kept his temper admirably, but he knew just where to touch the elder on the raw. His sister’s hand was placed appealingly on his arm. He smiled, and took no notice of her.
“Come, now, you move out, or I’ll have the law on you.”
“The law!” roared Bartlett; “you just try it on.”
“Should think you’d had enough of it by this time.”
“Oh, don’t, don’t, Henry!” protested the girl in distress.
“There aint no law,” yelled Bartlett, “that kin make a man with a load move out fur anything.”
“You haven’t any load, unless it’s in that jug.”
Yates saw with consternation that the jar had been jolted out from under its covering, but the happy consolation came to him that the two in the buggy would believe it belonged to Bartlett. He thought, however, that this dog-in-the-manger policy had gone far enough. He stepped briskly forward, and said to Bartlett:
“Better drive aside a little, and let them pass.”
“You ‘tend to your own business,” cried the thoroughly enraged farmer.
“I will,” said Yates shortly, striding to the horses’ heads. He took them by the bits and, in spite of Bartlett’s maledictions and pulling at the lines, he drew them to one side, so that the buggy got by.
“Thank you!” cried the young man. The light and glittering carriage rapidly disappeared up the Ridge Road.
Bartlett sat there for one moment the picture of baffled rage. Then he threw the reins down on the backs of his patient horses, and descended.
“You take my horses by the head, do you, you good-fur-nuthin’ Yank? You do, eh? I like your cheek. Touch my horses an’ me a-holdin’ the lines! Now you hear me? Your traps comes right off here on the road. You hear me?”
“Oh, anybody within a mile can hear you.”
“Kin they? Well, off comes your pesky tent.”
“Don’t it, eh? Well, then, you’ll lick me fust; and that’s something no Yank ever did nor kin do.”