"Hey, Judy!" he shouted in loud, careless-like fashion from the buggy seat.
He had to shout three or four times before the door at last opened and Judith appeared on the threshold.
"Say, Judy, wanta come--ahem--fer a little drive?"
Jerry was so much embarrassed that he choked in the middle of the invitation and had to clear his throat.
"I'd like to go all right, Jerry; but I promised Dick Whitmarsh I'd go with him this afternoon."
"But--uh--I'm here first, hain't I?" countered Jerry, beginning to feel indignant.
"Waal, s'pose you air! No little bird told me you was a-fixin' to come. An' I promised Dick las' Sunday I'd go with him agin to-day."
Jerry muttered this to himself, staring straight before him with blank, unseeing, disappointed eyes.
By this time the whole Pippinger family had collected in the dooryard and were looking at Jerry, the glossy bay mare and the newly washed buggy with the intentness with which children regard a circus parade. He looked up from his blank stare at nothing and encountered their six pairs of eyes all fixed upon him with cool, dispassionate appraisal. Then he caught a glimmer of amusement in Bill's eye and Craw winked at him significantly. He felt like a grasshopper impaled on a darning needle with a circle of boys watching its efforts to escape.
The sound of buggy wheels rattling through the Pippinger gateway made him turn his head; and he saw Dick Whitmarsh driving in.
He passed with his head down and his eyes on the dashboard and made no response to Dick's cheery "Howdy, Jerry." When he was out on the road, he turned the mare's head in the opposite direction from home, whipped her up into a gallop and used freely in muttered imprecations all the bad language that he had ever heard.
About two miles away he saw ahead of him the great gaunt figure of Jabez Moorhouse stalking along the roadside. He had slowed up by this time and was feeling somewhat calmer.
"Git in an' ride, Uncle Jabez," he said, pulling up beside his former working companion.
Jabez clambered into the buggy and disposed his long legs as best he could. He was slightly under the influence of corn whiskey and the smell of it was upon his breath. He pulled out a bottle from his hip pocket.