“Come on,” he said gruffly. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll teach you how to ride a horse.”
“Much obliged, Pap,” said Eugene ironically. “But I’m thinking of using my tail a good deal in my old age. I don’t want to wear it out while I’m young.”
Pleased with them both, “Pap” Rheinhart laughed loud and deep, spat a brown quid back over the horse’s crupper, and, digging his heels in smartly, galloped away around the house, into the road. The horse bent furiously to his work, like a bounding dog. With four— hooved thunder he drummed upon the sounding earth. Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum.
At the two-posted entry, by the bishop’s boundary, the departing students turned, split quickly to the sides, and urged the horseman on with shrill cries. “Pap” bent low, with loose-reined hands above the horse-mane, went through the gate like the whiz of a cross-bow. Then, he jerked the mare back on her haunches with a dusty skid of hoofs, and waited for the boys to come up.
“Hey!” With high bounding exultancy Eugene came down the road to join them. Without turning, stolid Van Yeats threw up his hand impatiently and greeted the unseen with a cheer. The others turned, welcoming him with ironical congratulation.
“’Highpockets,’” said “Doc” Hines, comically puckering his small tough face, “how’d you happen to git out on time?” He had an affected, high-pitched nigger drawl. When he spoke he kept one hand in his coat pocket, fingering a leather thong loaded with buckshot.
“J. D. had to do his spring plowing,” said Eugene.
“Well, if it ain’t ole Handsome,” said Julius Arthur. He grinned squintily, revealing a mouthful of stained teeth screwed in a wire clamp. His face was covered with small yellow pustulate sores. How begot, how nourished?
“Shall we sing our little song for Handsome Hal?” said Ralph Rolls to his copesmate Julius. He wore a derby hat jammed over his pert freckled face. As he spoke he took a ragged twist of tobacco from his pocket and bit off a large chew with a rough air of relish.
