"There was that wretch on top of the house, a-fixin' his old rods
and hammerin' away for dear life. He'd brought his ladder over the
side fence, where the dog, a-barkin' and plungin' at the boy
outside, couldn't see him. I stood dumb for a minute, an' then I
know'd I had him. I rushed into the house, got a piece of well-
rope, tied it to the bull-dog's collar, an' dragged him out and
fastened him to the bottom rung of the ladder. Then I walks over
to the front fence with Lord Edward's chain, for I knew that if he
got at that bull-dog there'd be times, for they'd never been
allowed to see each other yet. So says I to the boy, 'I'm goin' to
tie up the dog, so you needn't be afraid of his jumpin' over the
fence,'--which he couldn't do, or the boy would have been a corpse
for twenty minutes, or may be half an hour. The boy kinder
laughed, and said I needn't mind, which I didn't. Then I went to
the gate, and I clicked to the horse which was standin' there, an'
off he starts, as good as gold, an' trots down the road. The boy,
he said somethin' or other pretty bad, an' away he goes after him;
but the horse was a-trottin' real fast, an' had a good start."
"How on earth could you ever think of doing such things?" said
Euphemia. "That horse might have upset the wagon and broken all
the lightning-rods, besides running over I don't know how many
people."
"But you see, ma'am, that wasn't my lookout," said Pomona. "I was
a-defendin' the house, and the enemy must expect to have things
happen to him.
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