HOW THEY SPENT THEIR MONEY 267 
for their nests, too, especially Robins and Wood Thrushes. 
What is wanting, is to pipe the spring across Evans’ 
field, — his widow’d be pleased to have us; it’s her land. 
It’s two hundred feet, father says.” 
“That is a very good, practical idea, Tommy,” said 
Gray Lady, earnestly; ‘‘we must consider this.’ 
Rose Wilde had now come to the last paper without 
discovering anything else of special novelty; this was 
written in little Clary’s stiff letters, and filled a whole 
sheet of paper. 
“Tt isn’t for birds, it’s a blanket for Joel Hanks, the 
mail-man’s horse. It’s blind in one eye, and it’s a kind 
horse, and knows where all the boxes are. It’s got a 
cough now. Mr. Hanks was going to buy a new one (a 
blanket), and get shingles on that end of the barn 
where the horse stands, so’s the snow won’t drift in, 
but his wife got sick last summer, and had doctors and 
nurses, and that costs more money than a new horse, and 
a whole barn, my mother says. Mother says it isn’t 
Joel’s fault he’s poor; he isn’t slack, only some folks 
are marked for trouble. Last summer, lightning struck 
his haystack, and burned it and only his corn-stalks 
were left. His horse is thin, too. Corn-stalks aren’t 
filling for uphill work, my father says, and the mail- 
route is all either up or down, and in winter downhill 
is slippery, and just as bad. A horse is a lovely ani- 
mal, and useful; I would like us to help this horse. 
He isn’t a bird, to be sure, but birds have feathers, 
and don’t have to drag a wagon uphill, against the wind, 
with bent axles. It will take three bundles of shingles 
for that barn-end and three lights of window-glass.” 
