That was a dragging day. I missed the lad which ever way I turned. And his words to me, when he leaped to my arms from old Buttons’ back that night! “It was fine! I liked it, really and truly. But, oh, Mr. David, I ’most knew you was lonely and missing me!”
Every morning I walked to the edge of the meadow, let down the bars for old Buttons, and watched Joey ride away, his sturdy little figure jouncing up and down in the saddle, his brave, bright face turned back to me over his shoulder, with rare affection beaming from big big brown eyes, as he waved and waved to me until a bend of the road hid him from my sight.
One memorable morning in the latter part of September, as I was tightening the saddle girths, he bent down to me, and as I lifted my head he surprised me with a quick shame-faced salute of moist lips on my forehead.
“You’re a good Mr. David,” he said patronizingly. “And I ain’t yours either—not blood kin.”
I hugged the little lad to me—a sudden fierce warmth of affection stirring my sluggish halting heart that had grown weary lately of life’s complexities.
“You’re my boy, just the same,” I assured him.
“They can’t anybody get me away from you—can they?” he asked anxiously, and I saw genuine consternation in his eyes.
I laughed and hugged him tighter. “I guess not,” I bragged. “Let them try. Jingles would eat them up.”
“And we’d hide, wouldn’t we?”
“We surely would.”