uch more glibly than before, with the account of the doings of the
lightning-rod man.

"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. So then I hears an awful row on the roof, and there was the man
just coming down the ladder. He'd heard the horse go off, and when
he got about half-way down an' caught a sight of the bull-dog, he was
madder than ever you seed a lightnin'-rodder in all your born days.
'Take that dog off of there!' he yelled at me. 'No, I wont, says I. 'I
never see a girl like you since I was born,' he screams at me. 'I guess
it would 'a' been better fur you if you had,' says I; an' then he was
so mad he couldn't stand it any longer, and he comes down as low as he
could, and when he saw just how long the rope was,--which was pretty
short,--he made a jump, and landed clear of the dog. Then he went on
dreadful because he couldn't get at his ladder to take it away; and I
wouldn't untie the dog, because if I had he'd 'a' torn the tendons out
of that fellow's legs in no tim