Page:Saunders - Beautiful Joe, 1893.djvu/206

Rh but he was really a full-grown horse, and had already been put to work. He was of a dark chestnut color, and had a well-shaped body and a long, handsome head, and I never saw in the head of a man or beast, a more beautiful pair of eyes than that colt had—large, full, brown eyes they were that he turned on me almost as a person would. He looked me all over as if to say: "Are you a good dog, and will you treat me kindly, or are you a bad one like Bruno, and will you chase me and snap at my heels and worry me, so that I shall want to kick you?"

I looked at him very earnestly and wagged my body, and lifted myself on my hind legs toward him. He seemed pleased and put down his nose to sniff at me, and then we were friends. Friends, and such good friends, for next to Jim and Billy, I have loved Fleetwood.

Mr. Harry pulled some lumps of sugar out of his pocket, and giving them to Miss Laura, told her to put them on the palm of her hand and hold it out flat toward Fleetwood. The colt ate the sugar, and all the time eyed her with his quiet, observing glance, that made her exclaim: "What a wise-looking colt!"

"He is like an old horse," said Mr. Harry. "When he hears a sudden noise, he stops and looks all about him to find an explanation."

"He has been well trained," said Miss Laura.

"I have brought him up carefully," said Mr. Harry. "Really, he has been treated more like a dog than a colt. He follows me about the farm and smells everything I handle, and seems to want to know the reason of things."

"Your mother says," replied Miss Laura, "that she found you both asleep on the lawn one day last summer, and the colt's head was on your arm." -