“You bet,” agreed William Bard.
The humor of his master’s threat had evidently appealed very forcibly to Snowball, for, after a few seconds, he emitted the queer suction sound, heralding the termination of his period of mirth.
A few minutes later they all left the kitchen for the dairy shed, where the cows waited to be milked. Mauney, disabled for milking, pumped water and carried pails. He noticed McBratney conversing in low tones with his brother, who occasionally turned up the cow’s teat to sprinkle Rover with a warm spray of milk.
When the milking was finished, the cows were wandering slowly back toward the pasture and William had driven off toward Beulah with his companion, Mauney entered the stable and unfastened the latch of a box-stall.
“Whoa, Jennie girl!” he said softly.
The mare, crunching hay, turned her head, whinnied, and stepped over for him to come in. In the dim light that entered from a cobwebbed window he could just see her big eyes watching him, as he put out his hand and stroked her sleek neck. She was his great pride, for, since the day she had been given to him, he had watered and fed her himself, brushed and washed her and led her to pasture. She was the only living thing that he had regarded as his very own, but to-night he felt uncertain about his claim. Quickly he ran his hand over her legs, patted her chest and listened to the sound of her breathing.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Jennie, girl,” he said as he took a fork and threw straw about the floor of the stall.
It was as if he was being robbed of an old friend. Her face haunted him as he went back to the kitchen where his father and the woman were discussing a new cream separator; and when he went upstairs to his room he could see the dark eyes of his pony looking toward him with pathetic appeal.
If his father and brother were studying to render his life miserable, he thought, they would not improve on their present success. What had he done to deserve their constant dislike? If he picked up a book he had learned to expect their ridicule. If he were detected in a mood of quiet reflection, a seemingly normal occupation, why should he have learned to expect a sarcastic jeer? He felt that his mother, had she but lived, would have understood better, for her nature was more like his own.
In such a mood of discontent he sat idly on the edge of his bed, striving to find some possible fault of his own that might merit his evident ostracism. Previously, the possession of his bay pony had given him unbelievable comfort, for in moments of suppressed exasperation he had gone to her stall and transferred, with gentle pattings, the affection that he was prevented from bestowing on his kin. “We’re old chums, aren’t we, Jennie?” Then the world would look brighter and consolation would come to him. But the prospect of her being sold to a stranger made him very sad.