I hated to think of this nice girl being scolded, so I took her back as quickly as we had come, she clinging to my back like a crab and making as much noise as a loon.
She did wake the loons up, and afterward I learned that they knew her voice and loved her, for she was good to them and protected them.
They were in full cry that night and answered every line of the victory song she howled as she clung to me with her bony young knees.
"I ran my pony in a race, He leaped and bounded full of grace, The loons they called, they called to me, I answered them quite daft with glee."
"Not good poetry, Prince," she gasped, "but Dad says--he says when your heart is bursting, break into verse--any old verse. It's yours. Other fellow doesn't know your thoughts. I'll sing again--about you and Dallas. Echo! loonies," and she began to shout,
"With hoofs of gold and temper sweet, A pony's come to our farm, He brought a master trim and neat And full of charm.
Alas! the master likes to lie, He does not know that Satan waits, And pitchforks boys to bye and bye, Who wander out from Truth's dear gates."
I stopped short. I thought she was making too much fuss about my poor young master's pleasant stories--and what about her own made-up tales about the three other ponies in the race with us?
"What's the matter with you, boy?" she asked as she nearly plunged over my head. "Oh! you want me to go say good-night to Happy Harry--bright thought," and in a trice she was off my back and running up a path to a pretty red house.
No pony could get ahead of this girl, and I watched her as she went into the Talker home. I could see the family through the windows. Mr. and Mrs. Talker were sitting each side of an open fire, and on a lounge between them was a young man who must be Happy Harry.
I looked back over the road we had come, and as I looked some electric lights suddenly flashed on, making the market road as beautiful as a dream.
On one side of us was the lake, on the other the narrow frontages of the cottages and a cute little country store with a veranda to it. It was some distance behind us, but I could see men sitting tipped back on chairs on the veranda, and someone was playing on a concertina.
Tall Lombardy poplars that I found out afterward were the pride of Mr. Talker's life, lined the road, and their leaves glistened like silver in the bright light that evidently came from Mr. Devering's power house.