In the meantime, Owen Pell had had cause to regret that he had neglected his mother’s ducks to go after the farmer’s apples. Owen was not an active boy. In struggling to climb up the wall, he missed his footing, and came down with a heavy bang on the back of his head. He had just scrambled on his feet again, bruised and crying with pain, when who should ride up to the spot but Farmer Ford, with a great horse-whip in his hand!
“What are you crying for?” called out the farmer.
“I’ve had a tumble,” whined the frightened boy.
“Climbing my wall to get at my apples! I’ll give you something to cry for!” and the rough farmer bestowed two or three sharp cuts with his lash on poor Owen, which made him yell with the smart, and sent him running home in such haste to escape from the farmer’s whip, that he never once thought of the ducks, till he saw his mother—a tall, bony woman—standing with a broom in her hand at the gate of her little garden.
Owen stopped, breathless and gasping, and looked around in dismay. Evening was closing in; his ducks had wandered he knew not whither. Mrs. Pell came angrily towards him. “I told you yesterday,” she exclaimed, raising the broomstick, “that if one of them ducks was lost—”
“None are lost!—none are lost!” called out a cheerful voice near; and from behind a knoll covered with furze, which had hidden him from view, appeared David Jones, driving home the ducks for Owen.
“Well, Davy, you’re a good-natured boy if ever there was one!” cried Mrs. Pell, her hard features relaxing into a kindly look. “Owen has escaped a beating this once, but next time he shall not be so easily let off. You look tired and heated, Davy,” she added. “Just step into my cottage and rest; and if you’d like a sup of new milk and a slice of plum-bread, you’ll be heartily welcome to both. There’s none for you,” she said sharply to Owen. “Go and shut up those ducks.”
David glanced at the boy as he slunk away. “I’m glad,” he thought, “that I did a good turn to that poor fellow, and saved him a beating.”
“You’ll always get on well in the world, Davy,” observed Mrs. Pell, as she cut for him a large slice of her home-made plum-bread. “You always keep steady to your duty, and you make friends wherever you go.”