adapted from The Blacksmith's Boy by William O. Stoddard "I'm going to the city!" Jack Ogden, a tough, wiry-looking boy, stood in the wide door of his father's blacksmith-shop. "Come and blow, Jack," said his father, and the boy in the door turned promptly to take the handle of the bellows. As the great leathern lungs wheezed and sighed, Jack himself began to puff. "I've got to have a bigger man than you are, for a blower and striker," said the smith. "He's coming Monday morning. It's time you were doing something, Jack." "Why, father," said Jack, "I've been doing something ever since I was twelve. Learned the trade, too." "You can make a nail, but you can't make a shoe. I have a lot of work to do and times are tough for us. It is Saturday, and you can go fishing, after dinner, if you'd like to. There's nothin' to ketch 'round here, either. Worst times there ever were in Crofield," his father stated. "I could catch something in the city. I know I could," he said, to himself. "How on earth shall I get there?" He turned and walked on up toward Main Street, where he encountered Mary Ogden and Miss Glidden conversing. Suddenly, Mary Ogden saw something up the street. "Oh my! What is it? Dear me! It's coming! Run! We'll all be killed! A runaway team of horses, nobody's in the wagon," Mary screamed. The horses in the road were large—almost too large to run well, but thundering along in a way that was really fine to behold; heads down, necks arched, nostrils wide, reins flying, the wagon behind them banging and swerving. No man on earth could have stopped those horses by standing in front of them. Their heavy, furious gallop was fast, too, and the boy who was now following them, must have been as light of foot as a young deer. "Hurrah! Hurrah! Go at it, Jack! Catch 'em! Bully for you!" arose from a score of people along the sidewalk, as he bounded forward. Fierce was the strain upon the young runner, for a moment, and then his hands were on the back-board of the bouncing wagon. A tug, a spring, a swerve of the wagon, and Jack Ogden was in it, and in a second more the loosely flying reins were in his hands. It is something, even to a greatly frightened horse, to feel a hand on the rein. The team intended to turn out of Main Street, at the corner, and they made the turn, but they did not crash the wagon to pieces against the corner post, because of the desperate guiding that was done by Jack. Down the slope toward the bridge thundered the galloping team, and the blacksmith ran out of his shop to see it pass. It required all Jack's strength on one rein to make his runaways take the direction of the Cocahutchie River. Not many rods below the bridge stood a clump of half a dozen gigantic trees, and it looked, for some seconds, as if the plunging beasts were about to wind up their maddened dash by a wreck among the gnarled trunks and projecting roots, but Jack held hard and said nothing. Splash, crash, rattle! Spattering and plunging, but cooling fast, the gray team galloped and eventually stopped in the shallow bed of the Cocahutchie. There he stood, and other men were coming on the run, including the local miller who owned the horses and the tall blacksmith, whose eyes were flashing with pride over the daring feat his son had performed. "I owe ye fifty dollars for a-savin' them and the wagin," said the miller. "It's wuth it, and I'll pay it; but I've got to owe it to ye, jest now. Times are awful hard in Crofield. I can't imagine if I'd ha' lost them hosses and that wagin." There was a running fire of praise and of questions poured at Jack, by the gathering knot of people on the shore. 3 Character(s) - WHO? Setting(s) - WHERE? Plot - WHAT? Plot - WHY? Jack on the road receives a sum of money What belongs in the empty space? A. Jack helps the blacksmith in his shop. B. Mrs Glidden is very appreciative of Jack. C. Mary Ogden is very proud of Jack's bravery. D. Jack saves the miller's horses.