OLD LIGHT'S JOKE.

"I say, have your folks got a horse?"

"Yes, we have, and I'm a-going to lead him down to water by-and-by."

"Is it your own horse?"

"Yes, he is. We've had him ever so long. His name's Lightning. What's your name?"

"Johnny Craddock; and I heard your mother call you Peter, when she said what she'd do if you went away from the gate before dinner was ready."

"That's only because we've just come. She won't be afraid about me after I get used to it."

"There's lots of nice boys around here. Me and Joe Somers and Put Medill and a whole crowd. Some of us have got horses. We've got four, but they belong to old Squire Potter, and he keeps 'em. Some day you may go with me and see 'em."

A clear ringing voice sounded across the village street just then: "Johnny!—Johnny Craddock!"

"Guess your mother wants you. It's dinner-time."

Johnny knew it, but he left a promise behind him, as he darted away, that he would come back after dinner and see Pete Burrows ride Lightning down to the river to water. The arrival of a new boy was a great event in Ridgeville, and his new neighbors were as eager to make his acquaintance as they had been shy about coming too near the house while the furniture was unloading and being carried in.

Johnny Craddock and two others were pretending to play jackstones in the grass near the big gate when Pete Burrows at last came out through the lane from the barn, with Lightning, at the end of a halter, behind him.

"Ain't he a big one?"

"He's blind of one eye."

"Can he go?"

"He's the biggest kind of a hoss," remarked Pete, proudly, "and when he's brushed up he's pretty nigh red."

"Did you ever ride him?" asked Put Medill, doubtfully.

"Ride him? I'll show you."

He led his big, raw-boned, one-eyed sorrel wonder right alongside of the fence, and in another moment he was mounted.

"There! He's as gentle as—"

"I say, will he carry double?"

"Of course he will. I've seen him carry three, and he didn't care any more what they weighed—"

That was almost enough, and boy after boy gathered courage to follow Johnny Craddock, for Lightning really seemed to take no notice whatever of his increasing burden. He shook his ears a little when Joe Somers dug his bare heels into him, and then he walked calmly away from the fence. He could see the wide, shallow river spreading out above the bridge, and knew very well what was expected of him.

The four boys clung tight to each other at first, for they were on a very high horse as well as a strange one, but before they reached the bridge they had gathered courage enough to "hurrah" two at a time, and to answer questions other fellows asked them from the sidewalk.

"Stop him, won't you?" shouted Put Medill, as Lightning's big feet began to splash in the water. "I want to get down."

Pete might have tried, if the halter had been in his hand, but the lowering of the great heavy sorrel head toward the cool surface below had jerked the strap from his grasp, and Lightning was a free horse. He was free, and he had at once determined not to do his after-dinner drinking just there at the river's edge. There was more and deeper water further on, and it might be better.

Four half-grown boys will fill up the back of any one horse pretty well, however large he may be, and there was not room for any more. When his head was down, there did not seem to be quite enough, and a good push would have sent Pete Burrows down the animal's neck; that is, if the two handfulls of sorrel mane he was grasping should come out.

There were boys on the bridge now, and others along-shore, and they were all making remarks, and more were coming, besides three men, and old Grandmother Medill, and Mrs. Craddock, and all three of Joe Somers's aunts, who lived with his mother, and kept the milliner shop.

"LIGHTNING WALKED STRAIGHT AHEAD."

Lightning walked straight ahead until the water arose above his knees. Horses were driven through the river right there every day, and he knew there was no danger of his getting drowned; but it was a green-head fly that stung him and made him shiver. It seemed to the boys they were going to be shivered off into the water, and they all dug their heels in hard and shouted, not very loud, "Hold on!"

That was pretty nearly in the middle, and Lightning had taken three long drinks and a short one, but his halter was as far out of reach as ever.

"He'll go across," said Joe Somers, "and we can get off."

"Perhaps he'll turn back," said Put Medill; but Pete Burrows knew better, for he could see which way Lightning turned his head.

"He's going up stream. Oh dear!"

That was precisely what he began to do, and before he had gone a rod he stumbled dreadfully over a stone on the bottom, and the boys on the bridge gave a shout, and Johnny Craddock could hear his mother calling him to "come right back this minute."

Grandmother Medill said something too, and so did Joe Somers's three aunts; but old Lightning had only just settled in Ridgeville, and was not acquainted with either of them. He stumbled right along into still deeper water, and his four riders clung to him and to each other desperately.

"There's the island!" gasped Johnny Craddock. "It's awful deep and swift both sides of that."

A long, low, bushy affair was the island, and the water poured all over it in flood times; but it was dry now, and the grass had a fresh, green, inviting look to the eyes of Lightning. He had been drinking, and he would now eat. He made straight for the island, and his load held on until he got there.

They did not utter a sound while he was pulling his feet out of the mud at the shore, but the moment he was high and dry among the grass and bushes, boy after boy came sliding down, until Lightning's long back was bare again.

"Here we are! Hurrah!"

Three of those boys had been born and brought up in Ridgeville, but not one of them had ever before been to that island on horseback.

There was something almost grand about it until Mrs. Craddock and the rest gathered on the river-bank, within very easy speaking distance, and began to tell what they thought of the performance. There were at least six distinct voices telling Peter Burrows to catch his horse, and bring to the shore the three poor fellows upon whom he had played that wicked trick.

Poor Pete! Just at that moment old Lightning had discovered that all the grass on the island was coarse, hard, speary bunch-grass and swamp-grass, unfit for a horse like himself. He turned willingly away from it, and before a grasp could be made at his halter, he was pulling his feet out of the shore mud again, as he waded away from the island into the river.

He walked about half-way across, and then stood still, in pretty deep water. He looked at the island and the boys, and then he looked at the bank and the young and old ladies, and he put out his long neck, with a loud whinny.

"Hear him!" exclaimed Pete. "That's his way of laughing. It's an awful joke on us. Can we ever get ashore?"

"Get ashore?" said Johnny Craddock, looking very miserable. "My mother's going for Jones's boat now. She'll be here less 'n no time."

Old Lightning stumbled on, over the stones and through the water, and he reached the bank just in time for Mrs. Burrows to take him by the halter. She did not lead him away at once, for she wanted to see if there would be any room in Mr. Jones's boat for the boys. It looked as if there would not, for all the women were in it, and so was little Vic Doubleday, shoving from the stern with a pole. One old horse had carried the boys to the island, but it took a boat and a mother and a grandmother and three aunts and a second cousin to bring them away from it.

When Pete Burrows came at last, and his mother gave him the end of the halter, she said to him:

"Pete, did you let any of those Ridgeville boys know how scared you was?"

"No, ma'am, I wasn't scared."

"That's right, Pete. I wasn't, either, and all those women were. I'll settle with you when we get to the house. Go right along now. Not one of 'em shall say a word to you. Put Lightning in the stable, and come to me."