“‘May you die in clover,’ responded the grey, nodding politely.
“‘May you have all the sugar you desire,’ added the filly, sweetly, and greeting me with a graceful toss of the head. That told me that a woman belonged to her, for men never give sugar. Sometimes, on a forced march, my Major used to divide his ration of hardtack with me; but I never tasted sugar until—well, we mustn’t get ahead too fast.”
“No danger, while he is doing the lipping,” grumbled the disagreeable cob.
“‘I see by your saddle that you are in the service,’ remarked the big grey. ‘I am not so fortunate. Between ourselves, I think the fellow I let ride me would do anything sooner than fight—though, now it’s all over, he says if he’d returned from Europe in time he should have gone into the army.’
“I shook my head dejectedly. ‘I’m very much off my feed,’ I told them. ‘My Major is not able to ride, and won’t be for a long time, so I’m horribly afraid I’ve been sold. I really wouldn’t have believed it of him!’
“‘What things man is capable of doing!’ sighed the filly, with tears of sympathy in her eyes.
“‘Cheer up, comrade,’ cried the grey, consolingly. ‘Even if you are sold, you might be worse off. You are still a saddle-horse, and as Miss Gaiety and I both have good stables, you probably will have the same luck, since you are in our set. The fellow I carry spurred my predecessor, when he was leg weary, at an impossible jump in Leicestershire, and because he fell short and spoiled his knees the brute ordered him sold, and he was put to dragging a huckster’s cart, besides being half starved. You’re not so bad off as that yet.’
“Just then three people came out of the house before which we were standing, and I can’t tell you how my heart jumped with joy, and how my ears went forward, when I saw that one of them was my Major. For the instant I was so happy that I felt like kicking up; but the next moment I was ready to die with mortification at the thought of how I had cheapened him to strangers. Think of my saying such things to them of the best man that ever lived!
“‘That’s my Major,’ I told them, arching my neck and flicking my tail with pride. ‘He held the Weldon railroad without—’”
“But you told us a little while ago,” protested Lassie, “that—”