ny
round yet. Can you drive cows?"

"Hope so;" and Ben gave a shrug, as if it was a very unnecessary
question to put to a person who had driven four calico ponies in a
gilded chariot.

"It mayn't be as lively as riding elephants and playing with bears, but
it is respectable; and I guess you'll be happier switching Brindle and
Buttercup than being switched yourself," said Mrs. Moss, shaking her
head at him with a smile.

"I guess I will, ma'am," answered Ben, with sudden meekness, remembering
the trials from which he had escaped.

Very soon after this, he was sent off For a good night's sleep in the
back bedroom, with Sancho to watch over him. But both found it difficult
to slumber till the racket overhead subsided; for Bab insisted on
playing she was a bear and devouring poor Betty, in spite of her wails,
till their mother came up and put an end to it by threatening to send
Ben and his dog away in the morning, if the girls "didn't behave and be
as still as mice."

This they solemnly promised; and they were soon dreaming of gilded cars
and mouldy coaches, runaway boys and dinner-pails, dancing dogs and
twirling teacups.

CHAPTER V

BEN GETS A PLACE

When Ben awoke next morning, he looked about him for a moment half
bewildered, because there was neither a canvas tent, a barn roof, nor
the blue sky above him, but a neat white ceiling, where several flies
buzzed sociably together, while from without came, not the tramping of
horses, the twitter of swallows, or the chirp of early birds, but the
comfortable cackle of hens and the sound of two little voices chanting
the multiplication table.

Sancho sat at the open window, watching the old cat wash her face, and
trying to imitate her with his great ruffled paw, so awkwardly that Ben
laughed; and Sanch, to hide his confusion at being caught, made one
bound from chair to bed, and licked his master's face so energetically
that the boy dived under the bedclothes to escape from the rough tongue.
A rap on the floor from below made both jump up, and in ten minutes a
shiny-faced lad and a lively dog went racing downstairs,--one to say,
"Good-mornin', ma'am," the other to wag his tail faster than ever tail
wagged before, for ham frizzled on the stove, and Sancho was fond of it.

"Did you rest well?" asked Mrs. Moss, nodding at him, fork in hand.

"Guess I did! Never saw such a bed. I'm used to hay and a
horse-blanket, and lately nothin' but sky for a cover and gras