CHAPTER VIII. 

THE CART RIDE. 

A week after this, Caleb had his whip to mend. He had broken off the lash, by whipping in sticks and little pieces of drift-wood to the mole. David and Dwight worked a little every day upon the mole, and had carried it out pretty far into the stream, and had almost finished the lower branches of the Y. So, one morning, after the boys had gone to school, and Caleb had had his reading lesson, he sat down upon the steps of the door, behind the house, and began to tie on his lash with a piece of twine which Mary Anna had given him. 

Behind the house where Caleb's grandmother lived, there was a lane which led to the pasture. At the head of the lane, where you entered it from the yard, were a pair of bars. While Caleb was mending his whip, he accidentally looked up, and noticed that the bars were down. 

"There, Mr. Raymond," said Caleb, talking to himself, as he went on winding his twine round and round the whip-handle; "for once in your life, you have been careless. You have left your bars down. Now we shall have the cattle all let out, unless I go and stop the mischief." 

Caleb thought he would go and put the bars up again, as soon as he had tied the ends of his twine; but before he got quite ready, he heard a noise, as of something coming in the lane. He could not see down the lane far, from the place where he sat, for the barn was in the way. But he wondered what could be coming, and he looked towards the bars, and sat waiting for it to appear. 
Where was the noise coming from?
he heard a noise, as of something coming in the lane