[CHAPTER XI.]
One autumn Master determined to "go West." Why he went I do not know, but he was to stay "some months," they said. How I did hope he would take me along, but he did not.
"Be kind to Dandy," was his parting injunction, as usual, to Herman, the man who had succeeded Park Winters as hostler.
Of course, I did not know what going West means, and could not think that "some months" were longer than the time he had spent in Chicago.
The morning he started he came into my stall and talked to me a long while. Among other things he said: "Be a good boy, Dandy, and when I come home we'll go and live at the farm—you and I."
I did miss him so! The days were all dreary, and I dreaded to go to sleep at night, because I would be obliged to awake to a fresh sense of my loss.
I cannot begin to give all my experience during his absence, but will note a few instances. Of a truth, I realized as never before what it is to be a horse.
Dr. and Mrs. Wallace were not a happy couple. The latter was less outspoken than in the early days of her married life, but she was equally as self-willed, only more cunning and underhanded about it. Fred drank all the time, but people could not ordinarily tell when he was intoxicated. The barn boys said he could "carry a good deal."
The two boys, Chet and Carm, were wild and lawless. The former was smart and a great student, though. Poor Carm, better but weaker, was always in disgrace. His teacher and father called him a "numbskull," and gradually the latter came to indulge Chet in everything and deny Carm just as prodigally.
There were two other children in the house now—Tommy and Elizabeth, or "Bobby," as the little girl called herself, and others fell into the habit.