" While the group was occupied with this task a voice 

 broke in upon them. A little old lady had come 

 quietly up the lane, and now stood nervously twisting 

 her apron and regarding them with reproachful eyes. 

 The men dropped the hammer and the two shoes they 

 had removed, and stood silent and shamefaced. 



" * Father,' said the old lady, laying her hand on her 

 husband's arm, 'you know how I've felt about this all 

 along. The more I think of it the wickeder it seems. 

 I just can't stand it !' 



*' * There, now, mother, don't take it so hard. It 

 ain't pleasant, I know, but what's a body goin' to do ? 

 He's past any kind o' work, an' it costs something 

 to keep him. Besides, the boys are all the time com- 

 plainin'.' 



'''Well,' broke in Thad, 'we have to cut up all his 

 fodder an' take milk to him every day, and he's for- 

 ever getting into the corn-field or the garden.' 



" ' Thaddy, it ain't what he is now but what he's been 

 that I'm thinking about,' said the boy's mother. 

 ' You don't remember, as I do, how he worked here 

 on the farm year after year, an' how willin' and gentle 

 he always was. You don't think of the time when 

 your father had the mail contract, and old Prince 

 traveled his forty miles a day, week in and week out, 

 summer an' winter ; or the day when the limb fell from 

 the tree on the mountain road, and knocked your 

 father senseless in the bottom of the sleigh. How 

 long would he have lived in that cold, or where would 

 you or any of us be, if Prince hadn't brought him home ?' 



" Thad was idly kicking a hole in the sod with the 

 toe of his heavy boot, and Azariah shifted the musket 

 uneasily from his shoulder to the ground. The old 

 lady went on : 



67 



