Presently a white-faced woman, looking as one might imagine Bobby's ghost would, came out, and, throwing her arms about my neck, wept violently.
"Dandy, dear old Dandy!" she said. For awhile she, her mother and the boy drove out often with me, but suddenly they stopped, and in a few days there was another one of those strange, sad processions where horses wear black plumes. I have seen many such, but this one—with Master looking unutterably sad—reminded me of that other one so long ago.
"Strange that all I love must die!" moaned Dr. Fred; and looking in Master's eyes I saw a look that seemed to say, "I might echo the same," but he only bore this trouble as he had all the others, smiling when his heart was sorest; brave when almost despairing; thinking of others before himself—this was Master.
And so the years have passed along, and I am, as I stated at first, an old horse, but, thanks to a kind master, I am neither broken down nor dispirited.
My teeth are quite bad, but that matters little so long as I am abundantly fed on ground feed; I am growing a little stiff in the legs, but my stall has an earth floor, kept scrupulously clean and dry and my bedding is fresh and abundant.
My eyesight is excellent, from having always stood in well-lighted barns and never having been pounded or otherwise injured about the head. My hearing is also perfect and my lungs good. My feet have been well cared for excepting in the case mentioned. In short I believe I am healthier now at thirty-one than are most horses of eighteen. I repeat what I have said before, in substance, a good master makes a good horse, inside and out.
If I might gain the ear of man for an hour, I could surely convince him that inhumanity is the poorest kind of business imaginable; that it is unprofitable for the life that now is and for the one that is to come; but as I can only stand here and tell my simple story, I will trust that some good angel will waft it far and wide, and that Master's God will impress the little lessons I fain would teach upon the hearts of all readers.