re between the farms. Now a youngster scampers into the
house shrieking, "Ma, Ma! Oh, come here, Ma! Here's a girl a-ridin'
three wheels at once!" and Charley, looking back, perceives the urchin's
sisters and cousins and aunts peering at her from the door. Starrett too
looks back, and laughs.

"You'll have to get used to that," he says.

"I expect to," responds Charley serenely; "but you must remember that
four of these things have gone on before us on this same road and they
must have taken off a little of the novelty."

Over the brow of Haymarket Hill they go, and the long steep sweep into
the valley of the Owassee lies before them. Charley, with her feet on
the "rest," commences to descend. An amazed cow grazing by the roadside
makes a charge on the singular vehicle, but the girl never flinches, and
with one hand on the steering-bar and the other on the brake she avoids
every stone, every rut, every gully in the road. The irate cow, after
nearly plunging on its nose down the first steep incline, pauses to
recover its senses and then returns slowly up the hill. Starrett waves
it a laughing adieu. "Sensible bovine that," he says; "she knows that a
stern chase is a long chase."

"My, though!" exclaims delighted Charley, "we're just flying, Starrett!
Aren't we?"

They are indeed. The bushes whiz past,--the wind sweeps their
faces,--trees, stones, fences flit by like phantoms. Charley feels like
a bird on the wing. Such exhilaration is there in a good tricycle
"coast" downhill!

But it is not all such pleasure; for, a few miles farther on, they
become acquainted with the other side of the story, as they go toiling
up the long ascent of Comstock Hill, a sandy and winding incline that
leads to the highlands of Fisherville.

"If it weren't for the sand," said Charley as she pushes her tricycle
before her, "I would test the new 'power-gear' on my 'Columbia' by
riding up Comstock Hill. But, dear me, I believe there are not three
yards of solid earth on this road!"

"Never mind, we're more than half-way up," said Starrett, consolingly.

"Do you suppose it's sandy like this near Curtin Harbor?" inquired
Charley.

"I haven't the least idea," Starrett replied. "If it is, we can branch
off and take the cars at Minot Station."

"The cars? Why, Starrett Van Rensselaer!" exclaims Charley. "Why, I
wouldn't take the cars--not for anything--unless--well, unless I were
fairly driven to it."

And now they both draw a long b