The New Buggy (ePub)

Excerpt: You'll catch it now! shouted Ralph Lane, as he saw his schoolmate stealing through the garden to the back door of his father's barn. You'll catch it when your father finds you out! I wouldn't be you, Jimmy Dodge, for the best kite I ever saw. Poor Jimmy looked very much as though he would like not to be himself, just at that moment. He had been doing wrong, and he knew it. He had started for school, and had gone more than half way when he met Daniel Crawson, a merry boy, who invited, him to take a sail on the pond. Daniel's father was a fisherman, and owned a small dory. Occasionally he gave his son liberty to go out in the boat when it was not in use; but this afternoon he had not done so, and supposed that Dan, as he called him, was safe in school. Little Jimmy thought there was no fun quite equal to sailing on the water, to be sure he did not know much about it never having been in a boat but once, and that was in company with the Sabbath school children, when they went on a picnic to Deer Island. When Daniel in glowing terms described the pleasure they would have, he said in a hesitating tone. I'm afraid father wouldn't like it; and mother thinks it's awful dangerous. There isn't a bit of danger, urged Daniel. Father goes out almost every day in the year, and comes home all safe. We will be back before school is done; and they needn't know anything about it. Jimmy knew he ought not to go. His conscience told him that he ought at that very moment to be walking into the school yard; but he had listened to the voice of the tempter, and now he could not resist.