Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 4.djvu/95



MAMMA, don't let them kill him! He isn't doing any harm, and he's old and weak, and hasn't any one to be good to him but Posy and me!" cried little Ned, bursting into his mother's room, red and breathless with anxiety and haste.

"Kill whom, dear? Sit down and tell me all about it."

"I can't sit down, and I must be quick, for they may do it while I'm gone. I left Posy to watch him, and she is going to scream with all her might the minute she sees them coming back!" cried Ned, hovering restlessly about the doorway, as if expecting the call that was to summon him to the rescue.

"Mercy on us! what is it, child?"

"A dear old horse, mamma, who has been hobbling round the road for a week. I've seen him driven away from all the neighbors, so Posy and I give him clover and pat him; and to-day we found