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corporal's little shop. The trees hung over the shop, and behind it there was a high rocky hill almost covered with forest trees. Between the shop and the mill they could see the road winding along a little way still farther up the stream, until it was lost in the woods.
"That's the colt," said Jonas; "should not you like to go and see him?" Rollo looked round again, and true enough, it was a small horse's head that was over the wall. It looked smaller now than it did when he first saw it. Now there was behind the garden a green field, with scattered trees upon it, and a thick wood at the farther side. Jonas took Rollo by the hand,
disabled in the wars, so that he could not go out to do very hard work, but was very ingenious in making and mending things, and he had a little shop down by the mill, where he used to work. Rollo often went there with Jonas, to carry a chair to be mended, or to get a lock or latch put in order; and sometimes to buy a basket, or a rake, or some simple thing that the corporal knew how to make. A corporal, you must know, is a kind of an officer in a company. This man had been such an officer; and so they always called him the corporal. I never knew what his other name was.
occupied considerable time; so that, when he went back to Jonas, it was full half an hour from the time when he left him; and he found that Jonas had finished mending the wheelbarrow, and had put it in its place, and was just going away himself into the field.
He began to lay the wood regularly upon the ground where his pile was to be, and for a few minutes went on very prosperously. But presently he heard a great trampling in the street, and ran out to see what it was, and found that it was a large herd of cattle driving by--oxen and cows, and large and small calves. They filled the whole road as they walked slowly along, and Rollo climbed up upon the fence, by the side of the gate, to look at them. He was much amused to see so large a herd, and he watched all their motions. Some stopped to eat by the road side; some tried to run off down the lane, but were driven back by boys with long whips, who ran
falling; though the wood which fell upon him was so small and light that it did not do much serious injury. Rollo stopped crying pretty soon, and went into the house; and that evening, when his father came home, he went to him, and said,
"O dear me!" said Rollo; "I wish this wheelbarrow was not so heavy." He sat down on the side of the wheelbarrow for a time in despair. He had a great mind to give up work for that day. He thought he had done enough; he was tired. But, then, when he reflected that he had only got in three small baskets of chips, and that his father would see that it was really true, as he had supposed, that Rollo could not work, he felt a little ashamed to stop.
until he came to the edge of the platform which was before the shed door, where he was to carry in his chips. Here, of course, he was at a complete stand, as he could not get the wheel up such a high step; so he sat down on the edge of the platform, not knowing what to do next.
That evening Rollo and his father set off in the chaise to go to the corporal's. It was not very far. They rode along by some very pleasant farm-houses, and came at length to the house where Georgie lived. They then went down the hill; but, just before they came to the bridge, they turned off among the trees, into a secluded road, which led along the bank of the stream. After going on a short distance, they came out into a kind of opening among the trees, where a mill came into view, by the side of the stream; and opposite to it, across the road, under the trees, was the
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