Page:The Country Boy.djvu/43

Rh years ago, he had helped father clear up the landscape of a pioneer farm. I saw him as my own mother’s pet that grew to be the mischievous rogue that got into the pantry and ate up all the pies and drank the milk, and then hid in the back pasture. I saw him in the days my sister Orla rode him to the Fourth of July celebration, where the bass drum and the plug uglies made him prance for miles, and I thought of him as the friend, even the philosopher, the teacher of children, and everything that a perfect horse could be. And it seemed a fitting occasion, if he had to die, to die on such a perfect day, the very kind of a day he used to enjoy most.

I was some time getting away from the scene and when I got to the house and explained the delay, it affected them all, even to the hired man, who didn’t like Old John because he got lazy in his old age.

But in the afternoon, we hitched up to go to town where I was to stay. I didn’t have any baggage, only a rooster that I had for a pet. Grandmother had been snuffing a lot, since she heard of Old John’s death. She said that when I went away to Silverton, she might not