The next morning
Addison and I rode home on old Jim and Buckskin, with their harness tied
up in a bundle before us. The wind was piercing and bleak; we were both
so chilled as to be ill of a cold for several days afterward. The story
that we had to tell at home was far from being an inspiriting one. Not
only had we lost our load, traverse sleds and rack, but in due time we
had a bill of ten dollars to pay the hotel keeper for his garden fence.
We always supposed that those drunken ruffians touched off our load just
before driving away; but of course it may have been a spark from the
chimney.
That was our first and last experience with witches' brooms.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE LITTLE IMAGE PEDDLERS
I think it was the following Friday afternoon that a curious diversion
occurred at the schoolhouse, just as the school was dismissed. Coming
slowly along the white highway two small boys were espied, each carrying
on his head a raft-like platform laden with plaster-of-Paris images.
They were dark-complexioned little fellows, not more than twelve or
thirteen years old; and were having difficulty to keep their feet and
stagger along with their preposterous burdens.
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