Then he laughed and resumed his
accounts for what seemed to me a long while. I had the feeling that he
wished I had not told him.
At last he looked up. "I suppose, now that we have found this out,
Jotham will have to be told. They are his oxen, of course, and we should
not feel right if we were to keep this from him. It wouldn't be quite
the neighborly thing to do--to conceal it. So you had better go over and
tell him."
Almost every one likes to carry news, whether good or bad; and within
fifteen minutes I had reached the Edwards farmhouse. Jotham, who was
taking a late supper, came to the door.
"What will you give to know where your lost oxen are?" I cried.
"Where are they? Do you know?" he exclaimed. Then I told him where
Willis and I had seen them. "Wal, I vum!" said Jotham. "Left me and took
to the woods! And I've lost two years' work from 'em!"
For a moment I was sorry I had told him.
The next day he journeyed up to Willis's camp with several neighbors;
and from there they all snowshoed to the yard to see the oxen and the
moose. The strangely assorted little herd was still there, and, so far
as could be judged, no one else had discovered them.
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