"It was our clothesline," said the lady. "I could tell it right off."

With a womanish tenacity she had fastened to a minor inconsequence of
the outrage. Gashwiler became practical.

"Well, I must say, it's a pretty how-de-do, That horse'll make straight
back for the farm; we won't have any delivery horse to-morrow. Sue, you
get out; I'll go down the road a piece and see if I can head him off."

"He turned the other way," said Merton.

"Well, he's bound to head around for the farm. I'll go up the road and
you hurry out the way he went. Mebbe you can catch him before he gets
out of town."

Mrs. Gashwiler descended from the car.

"You better have that clothesline back by seven o'clock to-morrow
morning," she warned the offender.

"Yes, ma'am, I will."

This was not spoken in a Buck Benson manner.

"And say"--Gashwiler paused in turning the car--"what you doing in that
outlandish rig, anyhow? Must think you're one o' them Wild West cowboys
or something. Huh!" This last carried a sneer that stung.

"Well, I guess I can pick out my own clothes if I want to."

"Fine things to call clothes, I must say. Well, go see if you can pick
out that horse if you're such a good picker-out."

Again Gashwiler was pleased with himself. He could play venomously with
words.

"Yes, sir," said Merton, and plodded on up the alley, followed at a
respectful distance by the Ransom kiddies, who at once resumed their
vocal exercises.

"He throwed you off right into the dirt, didn't he, Merton? Mer-tun,
didn't he throw you off right into the dirt?"

If it were inevitable he wished that they would come closer. He would
even have taken little Woodrow by the hand. But they kept far enough
back of him to require that their voices should be raised. Incessantly
the pitiless rain fell upon him--"Mer-tun, he throwed you off right into
the dirt, didn't he, Merton?"

He turned out of the alley up Spruce Street. The Ransom children
lawlessly followed, forgetting their good home, their poor, sick mother
and the rules she had laid down for their Sabbath recreation. At every
moment the shrill cry reached his burning ears, "Mer-tun, didn't he
throw you off?" The kiddies appeared to believe that Merton had not
heard them, but they were patient. Presently he would hear and reassure
them that he had, indeed, been thrown off right into the dirt.

Now he began to meet or pass early churchgoers who would gaze at him in
wonder or in frank criticism. H