The joke of the matter was, that, all unknown to himself,
he had absolutely frightened Mrs. Todd. If only he could have realized
the impressiveness and the thorough success of his first rebellion!
But if he had realized it he could not have repeated it often,
for so much virtue went out of him on that occasion that he felt
hardly able to drive the stage for days afterward.
"I shall have to put down my foot agin," he said to himself
on the eventful morning when Pel presented him with the basket.
"Dern my luck, I've got to do it agin, when I ain't hardly got
over the other time." So, after an hour's plotting and planning,
he made some purchases in Biddeford and started on his return trip.
He was very low in his mind, thinking, if his wife really meditated
upon warfare, she was likely to inspect the stage that night,
but giving her credit in his inmost heart for too much common sense
to use a broomstick,--a woman with her tongue!
The Midnight Cry rattled on lumberingly. Its route had been shortened,
and Mrs. Todd wanted its name changed to something less outlandish,
such as the Rising Sun, or the Breaking Dawn, or the High Noon,
but her idea met with no votaries; it had been, was, and ever should be,
the Midnight Cry, no matter what time it set out or got back.
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