Chapter 9 - Page 2

find that it was Peter Mink, who had run all the way down from Blue Mountain.

"You had a fine ride, didn't you?" said Peter Mink.

"Yes," Jimmy answered. "But I liked the beginning of it better than the end."

"Why, what's the matter?" Peter inquired.

"I can't get off the sled," Jimmy said.

Peter Mink pretended to be surprised. And he said that he hadn't thought of that.

"But I'll help you," he promised.

Jimmy Rabbit thanked him.

"But," said Peter Mink, "I can't do all these things for you for nothing, of course. I have too much else to do, to be wasting my time like this, without pay."

"What do you want?" Jimmy Rabbit asked him.

"Give me the sled," said Peter Mink, "and I'll help you to get off it."

"All right," Jimmy agreed. He would even have given Peter his wheelbarrow, too, he was so anxious to be freed from his seat. "I think, though, that you might pull me up the mountain," Jimmy added. "I don't feel like walking." And that was quite true, because he had been so frightened, when he heard old Spot barking, that his legs were still shaking.

"Well," said Peter Mink, "I'm pretty particular who rides on my sled. But I'll pull you up the mountain, because I'm going that way myself, to slide."

And he started off, dragging Jimmy Rabbit behind him.