A CHRISTMAS JAUNT 



the night had done, and was doing, its 

 work. The easterly and westerly roads, 

 wherever exposed, were drifted fence 

 high with hard packed snow, through 

 which only an experienced horse could 

 force a way. A town-trained animal 

 would have gone wild with fear, and ex- 

 hausted itself with futile plunging and 

 struggling in a few hundred yards, but 

 to steady-going old Coq, whose patient 

 soul is imbued with his master's philo- 

 sophy that "nous sommes dans la vie 

 pour rencontrer des obstacles," this was 

 all in the day's work. 



For those unfortunate enough not to 

 know this same philosopher, now floun- 

 dering to his middle in the drifts behind 

 the sleigh, it may be said that not for 

 nothing do his features resemble those 

 of the traditional Socrates. Sixty-odd 

 years of age, the father of twenty-two 

 children, three of whom are a burden 

 through ill-health, the husband of a bed- 

 riddon wife, a landless man who has 



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