Christmas was only a few days off. David Day, who worked in the stable, anticipated neither a holiday nor a Christmas dinner. It was during the Civil War, and hither were brought the faithful, worn cavalry and artillery horses which were then taken into neighboring counties and exchanged for fresh farm horses.
A large consignment had come in the evening before, and David had helped to lead them to their places. He was dreaming of them as he lay on a pile of straw with a horse-blanket for his only covering.
Suddenly a rough voice called, "Dave! Dave!" and he started up from his straw bed. "It's time to start. Are you going to lie there all day?"
As he fastened his clothing, the loosening of which had been his only preparation for the night, David's lips quivered. The cold, his weariness of body, the glimpses he caught as he wandered about the town of other people's happiness—all were bad enough, but he could stand them if it were not for the dreadful loneliness of his heart.
"If there were only one person in the world who cared for me!" he thought. "One person to whom it made any difference whether I came or went. That is all I ask."
He found his fellow hostlers gathered together eating their rough breakfast by the dim light of lanterns. They were soldiers, detailed for this duty, and were dressed in faded blue uniforms. All were hard-working, harshly-spoken men older than David. They did not mean to be unkind; such treatment as they gave him was that to which they were accustomed.
This morning the rough commands, the oaths, the prospect of riding out into the rain and being in a few minutes drenched to the skin seemed to David more dreary than ever. He had a hope which usually sustained him, the hope of continuing his education and becoming a preacher and perhaps a missionary; but this morning his sky was dark. He mounted his horse and rode out the gate directing with his voice a hundred poor, dispirited, patient beasts, some of whom still bore the healed or only partially healed scars of battle-wounds.
By this time his misery was so keen that he said aloud, "If I only had someone to care for me!"
There was no answer, and he rode on.