196 FARMING IT 



ought to be room for some little sentiment in the 

 matter." 



"Sentiment!" sniffed that hard, cynical, bitter 

 man of the world ; " the longer I live the less I be- 

 lieve in sentiment where business is concerned. 

 When a man is so beset with sentiment that he 

 can't sell a horse or cow or dog or hen without 

 feeling that he has outraged affection and senti- 

 ment, he had better retire from business and keep 

 a hospital for broken-down pets." 



Now, even while this stony-hearted neighbor 

 was giving expression to such dreadful beliefs, I 

 sat looking across the street towards his spa- 

 cious and sunny yard. By the side of the stable 

 dozed an old white horse, so aged that no true 

 veterinarian could guess within a decade of its 

 age. A horse that was a veritable heirloom in the 

 family, and which I vaguely remembered forty 

 years ago to have been a blue roan. Daniel him- 

 self had learned, as a very small boy in round- 

 abouts, to ride and drive him. Daniel's father, 

 long dead, may have done the same. Daniel's 

 two boys fifteen years ago discarded him as too 

 slow for their infant ideas, since which time he 

 had been an honorable pensioner on Daniel, and 

 a very expensive one, too ; for every time he did 

 not eat his porridge, a veterinarian from a neigh- 

 boring city was sent for and ordered to spare no 

 expense in making Old Tom comfortable. 



