He hastened over to where the Grasshopper, her engine still going and
her propeller still beating the air, lay like a dismal wreck in the
trees on the other side of the pig-pen.

"Donner und blitzen, you Grasshobber, you my neck brek yet, I dink,"
roared Schmidt, gazing at the disaster. "Vos iss los mit you, any
vay, you bad Grasshobber. Himmel! dot propeller almost takes my nose
off. Aber nicht, I am a dunderhead. I forget to turn der switch; dot's
vy I can't stob der Grasshobber ven she hobs avay."

Rapidly muttering these remarks in an undertone the old man finally
turned off the switch and the engine, with a grunt and a sigh, came to
a standstill.

"Vell, I am oud of der race," announced philosophical Schmidt, as the
propeller came to a stop. "Aber maybe dot's chust as vell. If I ged
into der race maybe I be by der cemetery already to-morrow."

As he was consoling himself with this thought a rough-looking man in
overalls hastened up. He carried a shotgun.

"Get off my turnip land," he shouted to the crowd, "or I'll fill some
one full of birdshot."

The crowd scattered, and old Schmidt among them; but the man with the
shotgun was on him in two jumps.

"See here, you bumble-bee," he bellowed; "you and I have got an
account to settle before you get away from me. What do you mean by
coming flopping on to my farm and breaking my pig-pen?"