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Chapter 23
Barnum Walks
Next Sunday Barnum was as bad as he had ever been. He refused to stand, and Laura had to wait for a third stop before she could leap into the buggy. Then he reared and tried to run, pulling so hard that after a t
ime Almanzo complained, “He is pulling this buggy by the bit and my arms.”
“Let me try,” Laura offered. “It will rest your arms.”
“All right, “Almanzo agreed. “For a minute, but you’ll have to hold hard.”
He let go of the lines when she had a firm grip on them, just behind his. Laura’s arms took the force of Barnum’s pull; his strength flowed up the lines with the thrill she had felt before. Oh, Barnum! she begged silently; please don’t pull so hard, I want so much to drive you.
Barnum sensed the change of drivers and stretched his neck a little farther, feeling the bit; then his trot became slower. He turned the corner by the livery barn, and dropped into a walk.
Barnum was walking. Almanzo was silent and Laura hardly breathed. A little by a tiny little she eased on the lines. Barnum went on walking. The wild horse, the runaway, who never before had been seen to walk when hitched to a buggy, walked the whole length of Main Street. He reached out twice, feeling the bit with his mouth and, finding it to his liking, arched his neck and walked proudly on.
Almanzo said, low, “Better tighten the lines a little so he won’t get the jump on you.”
“No,” Laura answered. “I am going to let him carry the bit easily. I think he likes it.”
All along the street, everyone stopped to stare. Laura did not like to be so conspicuous, but she knew that she must not be nervous now; she must be calm, and keep Barnum walking. “I wish they wouldn’t stare,” she almost whispered, looking straight ahead at Barnum’s placid ears.
In a low tone, too, Almanzo replied, “They have been expecting he would run away with us. Better not let him walk until he starts trotting himself. Tighten the lines and tell him to go. Then he will understand that he trots because you want him to.”
“You take him,” Laura offered. She felt a little dizzy, from the excitement.
Almanzo took the lines and at his command, Barnum trotted.
“Well, I’ll be darned! how did you do it?” he asked then. “I’ve been trying ever since I’ve had him, to get him to walk. What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Laura said. “He is really a gentle horse.”
All the rest of that afternoon, Barnum walked or trotted when told to do so, and Almanzo bragged, “He’ll be gentle as a lamb after this.”
He was mistaken. On Friday night Barnum again refused to stand, and when finally Laura landed in the buggy, Almanzo reminded her that they would leave singing school at recess. But, though Barnum had not been tied so long as before, he was in such a temper that Laura drove him around and around the church until they barely got away as singing school was over.
Laura loved singing school. It began with singing scales to limber up the voices. Then Mr. Clewett taught them a simple exercise, the first in the book. He gave them the pitch with his tuning fork again and again, until all their voices chimed with it. Then they sang.
“Gaily now our boat is sailing,
O’er the blue and sparkling wave.”
When they could sing this very well, they learned another. This was the song of the grass.
“All around the open door,
—Smiling on the rich and poor,
Here I come! Here I come!
Creeping everywhere.”
Then they sang rounds.
“Three blind mice, see how they run,
they all ran after the farmer’s wife
