Bud had been to mill, and as the man who owned the horse-mill kept but one old blind horse himself, it was necessary that Bud should take two.

It required three horses to run the mill; the old blind one could have ground the grist, but the two others had to overcome the friction of the clumsy machine.

But it was not about the horse-mill that Ralph was thinking nor about the two horses.

Since that Wednesday evening on which he escorted Hannah home from the spelling-school he had not seen Bud Means.

If he had any lingering doubts of the truth of what Mirandy had said, they had been dissipated by the absence of Bud from school.
"When I was to Bosting--" Miss Martha was _to_ Boston only once in her life, but as her visit to that sacred city was the most important occurrence of her life, she did not hesitate to air her reminiscences of it frequently.