“At midnight a storm came up and the fence surrounding the pasture field was blown down in several places. After the storm was over both horses found a broken panel in the fence and walked out of the inclosure. It was ten miles back to their old home. I can see them look a ray of intelligence into each other’s eyes, and then mutually start southward over the lonely mountain road. They could hear the sound of the locomotive whistle coming out through the night air, and they knew that near the old barn there was a railroad track where these iron monsters passed many times every day.
“And I was at home dreaming of just such a trip as they were making, only I dreamed that I was with them and talking to them and telling them how much I missed them since they were taken away.
“Early in the morning I awoke from my dreams and rushed to the back window and looked toward the barn. ‘Mother!’ I shouted, ‘out yonder at the barn stand dear old Colonel and Rock! They have come back home!’ She came to the window and looked and gave a glad shout of surprise, for she, too, felt sorry ever since the horses were driven away. How glad I was to see them! but how my heart smote me when I saw how lean and dejected they looked. I would put on my clothes and go out to feed them out of their old manger.
“But while I looked a man came dashing up on a big black horse. It was the owner of Colonel and Rock. He had gone out early in the morning and saw that the horses were gone. He found the place where they left the field and saw that their tracks turned toward the river. Did he, too, realize that Rock and Colonel were never satisfied, and were always longing for the old home?
“Mother went out and begged that the horses might be fed in their old stalls before taken away, but the man was angry, and cursed Rock and Colonel, and jerked at their bridles viciously and cut them severely with a wicked whip as he lashed them into a trot and started back over the old home-sick mountain road. At the bend of the road both horses turned and looked back longingly, and I burst into bitter tears.”
THE BLIND CIGARMAKER
Riding into the city one day on the overland stage I looked far ahead and there I saw a man coming down the middle the road. The highway was ankle deep with dust, and I surely thought the man was drunk. I remarked to the stage driver: “There comes a blind man;” and then I laughed, for I still thought the man was intoxicated.
As we drew near I could see the man feeling his way with a heavy cane. He was blind, and I had laughed at his blindness! But, as God is my judge, I did not know it until after we drew so near to him that I could see his cane.